Tesla Autopilot To Blame For Stationary Police Car, Firetruck Accidents? NHTSA To Investigate Model X and Other Variants

Tesla's Autopilot has been criticized for the past few years since some experts claimed that it makes drivers too confident when activating the EV feature.

Tesla Autopilot
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Right now, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration considers investigating Elon Musk's popular electric car feature after numerous incidents where Tesla models accidentally crash against police cars and firetrucks.

NHTSA stated that around 11 accidents were recorded way back in 2018, which involve Tesla suddenly hitting stationary first-responder vehicles. This is currently a serious case since the affected police cars and firetrucks were attending emergency scenes.

On the other hand, the car regulator also confirmed that there is noa a total of one fatal accident and 17 injuries because of Tesla's Autopilot system. Because of this, NHTSA wants to investigate various Tesla models.

Tesla Autopilot To Blame?

According to The Slate's latest report, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that the models that would be investigated are Tesla Model X, Y, X, S, and Model 3. The agency added that those released between 2014 and 2021 are the main focus.

Tesla Audio Codec
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NHTSA claims that Tesla Autopilot is still having some difficulties when it comes to detecting firetrucks and other emergency vehicles.

"The first person was killed using the Tesla autopilot in Florida, the truck [hit by the Tesla] was perpendicular to the direction the motion," said Raj Rajkumar, an electrical and computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

On the other hand, NHTSA explained that most of the recorded Tesla Autopilot incidents occurred after dark. Because of this, various EV critics claimed that since Tesla Autopilot still relies on camera imagery, it is still not that efficient when low-light is in place.

Tesla FSD Delayed?

Meanwhile, Gadgets 360 reported that Tesla's upcoming FSD (Full Self-Driving) update would be delayed. Elon Musk confirmed this information after he tweeted that the giant EV creator is currently facing some last-minute issues.

Aside from this, the billionaire also claimed that the new FSD Beta 9.2 would be released two or more days after the original release date, which was supposed to be Aug. 14.

For more news updates about Tesla Autopilot and other advanced EV features, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

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Written by: Griffin Davis

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