The US government has launched an investigation into the self-driving function of Tesla cars. The reason is reports of problems with recognizing parked emergency vehicles.
Since 2018, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has recorded 11 accidents in which Tesla was operating on autopilot. Electric cars hit emergency vehicles, emergency lights, a dart truck, or traffic towers on the road.
In those accidents, a total of 17 people were injured and one person died. A total of 765,000 vehicles under investigation, nearly every Tesla vehicle sold in the United States since 2014.
to caution
Tesla and other manufacturers using the same technology have been warning users for years to stay alert when the autopilot is on to intervene at any moment.
Earlier, NHTSA had already opened an investigation into the unintended acceleration of Teslas. In the end, it turned out not to be a software bug, but a human one.
Self-driving cars have all kinds of sensors on board to make sure they can see around them. We explain what these techniques are and what they do in this video, which we made earlier:
