Why is Tesla recalling its cars? What’s the problem with the Autopilot system?
Tesla is recalling nearly all of its vehicles in the United States after the NHTSA said that its Autopilot system was open to “foreseeable misuse.”
Tesla issued a voluntary recall on Tuesday for over 2 million vehicles fitted with its Autopilot advanced driver-assistance system. The recall came after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said the system posed safety concerns and was open to “foreseeable misuse.”
Tesla does not agree with the US regulator’s analysis but is nonetheless deploying an over-the-air software update in order to install new safeguards. The largest ever Tesla recall covers certain Model S, X, 3 and Y vehicles in the United States dating back to the 2012 model year, nearly the entire fleet of cars produced by the electric vehicle maker on US roads.
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What’s the problem with the Autopilot system?
The Basic Autopilot is “designed to support and assist the driver in performing the driving task,” mainly meant for use on highways. One of the components is Autosteer, which in coordination with Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC), enables the cars to accelerate, brake and steer automatically within their lane.
As an SAE Level 2 system, the driver is the operator and “responsible for the vehicle’s movement with their hands on the steering wheel at all times, remaining attentive to surrounding road conditions.” Likewise, the driver must intervene when needed for safe operation of the vehicle.
According the NHTSA, which has been investigating Autopilot since August 2021, “Tesla’s unique design of its Autopilot system can provide inadequate driver engagement and usage controls that can lead to foreseeable misuse of the system.” The over-the-air software update seeks to “incorporate additional controls and alerts to those already existing on affected vehicles to further encourage the driver to adhere to their continuous driving responsibility whenever Autosteer is engaged,” according to Tesla.
What will the Tesla recall update involve?
As the update is over-the-air it will be based on each car’s existing hardware. It will increase the prominence of visual alerts on the user interface, simplify engagement and disengagement of Autosteer as well as additional checks upon engaging Autosteer. Also “if the driver repeatedly fails to demonstrate continuous and sustained driving responsibility while the feature is engaged” Tesla says there will be “eventual suspension from Autosteer.”
Tesla owners that want to see if their vehicle is impacted by the recall can use either the Tesla VIN Recall Search or NHTSA VIN Recall Search tools.