Tesla’s ‘full self-driving’ faces US defect probe after fatality

The probe marks a potentially major setback to Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s efforts to position Tesla as a leader in automated driving.

The US opened a federal investigation into whether Tesla’s partial-automation system known as Full Self-Driving is defective after four crashes, one of which resulted in a fatality.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday it will assess whether Tesla’s system, also known as FSD, has the ability to detect and appropriately respond to fog and other situations where roadway visibility is reduced. The agency said four crashes have been reported in such scenarios where FSD was engaged.

In one of those crashes, the Tesla vehicle involved fatally struck a pedestrian, and another crash involved a reported injury, according to NHTSA.

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The probe marks a potentially major setback to Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s efforts to position Tesla as a leader in automated driving. The company staged an event at a Los Angeles-area movie studio just last week with autonomous vehicle prototypes and charges consumers thousands of dollars for FSD, which requires constant driver supervision.

Musk has said Tesla’s ability to develop self-driving technology will be “the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money and being worth basically zero.”

© 2024 Bloomberg

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