WASHINGTON: The Biden administration’s nominee to serve as top auto safety regulator said Thursday that he expects the agency to soon investigate accidents involving the automated driving systems used in electric vehicles made by Tesla Inc. Will complete
Steven Cliffe, deputy administrator and top nominee for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, was asked about the agency’s investigation into Tesla, and he said, “We expect those investigations to be completed soon.” He said he had an “exact timeline.”
Cliffe said the agency works closely with automakers on the investigation. “We’re just collecting the data and we’ll determine what those next steps will be,” Cliffe said.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
In August NHTSA began a formal safety investigation of Tesla’s Autopilot system in 765,000 US vehicles after a series of accidents involving Tesla models and emergency vehicles.
The investigation is a preliminary evaluation and the agency aims to complete those reviews within 120 days – and then decides whether to upgrade it to an engineering analysis or close it.
An engineering analysis is a necessary step before NHTSA can seek to recall an automaker.
To date, NHTSA has identified 12 accidents that involved Tesla vehicles using advanced driver-assistance systems and emergency vehicles.
NHTSA asked Tesla in October why it had not issued a recall to address a software update made to its Autopilot driver-assistance system to improve the vehicles’ ability to detect emergency vehicles.
In November Tesla recalled nearly 12,000 US vehicles sold since 2017 because of a communication error that could have led to a false forward-collision warning or unexpected activation of the emergency brake.
NHTSA is separately reviewing 30 Tesla accidents since 2016, including 10 fatalities from 2016, where it suspected the use of advanced driver assistance systems.
Last week, NHTSA said it was discussing with Tesla its software update that lets users play video games on a touch screen mounted on the front of the dashboard, as well as decide to replace some cameras in vehicles without recalling them. .
Under pressure from the NHTSA, Tesla agreed in February to recall 135,000 vehicles with touch-screen displays that can fail and increase the risk of a crash. NHTSA warns that the problem could result in loss of rearview or backup camera images, exterior turn-signal lighting and windshield defrosting systems.
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