Federal regulators are monitoring the rollout of Tesla’s “complete self-driving” experiment. This week, AutoTomeker began testing its latest state-of-the-art driver assistance software with a select group of customers, and yet, the government is taking a wait-and-see approach.
In a statement, U.S. A spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it would “closely monitor the new technology and not hesitate to take action to protect people against unreasonable safety hazards.” The statement includes some of the trajectory of Tesla’s decision to describe its driver assistance feature as “self-driving” (emphasizing us):
“As we have consistently stated, No vehicle available for purchase is able to drive today. The most advanced vehicle technologies available for purchase today provide driver assistance and always require an attentive human driver to perform the driving task and monitor the surrounding environment. The misuse of these techniques is, at the very least, distracting driving. Every state in the nation holds the driver responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle. ”
Tesla has a joint history with NHTSA, the federal agency that can recall and investigate automobile crashes. In 2019, the NHTS launched an investigation into vehicle fire complaints involving battery management systems in some Model S and X vehicles. The agency has also investigated multiple fatal crashes involving op topilots. Earlier this year, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the state-of-the-art driver assistance system was one of the possible causes of a fatal 2018 crash in which a California man died after breaking his Model X into a concrete barrier.
“Full self-driving” is an 8,000 d (lr (and soon to be 10,000, according to Elon Musk)) option that allows Tesla owners to use the vehicle’s previous only highway- “navigate on topilote” function on city and residential streets. The car will stop at the intersection, turn left and right, and the lane will change automatically until the driver has chosen a target in navigation.
Tesla warns that drivers need to keep an eye on the road and on wheels at all times – although the automaker refuses to include a robust driver-monitoring system (like infrared eye tracking) to ensure its customers follow safety protocols. As such, full self-driving is only considered a Level 2 “partially automated” system by the Society of Automotive Engineers’ standards. Using branding for Tesla’s lane-keep assistance facility, the NHTSA describes it as “Aut toaster on city streets.”
Although the Level 5 system does not exist anywhere in the world today, Kasturi has incorrectly identified it as “Level 5”.
