According to the Wall Street Journal, the United States’ top crash investigator asked Tesla Inc. to resolve safety issues before increasing its cars’ self-driving capabilities. In an interview with the newspaper, Jennifer Homendy, chairperson of the National Transportation Safety Board, stated, “Basic safety concerns must be solved before they spread it to other city streets and other locations.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said last week that drivers will soon be able to update their vehicles’ so-called complete self-driving capabilities.
Although the change does not make cars entirely driverless, it is anticipated to make driver-assistance technologies that were built primarily for highways viable in metropolitan situations as well. According to Homendy, the term “full self-driving” is “misleading and reckless.
” According to the WSJ, the marketing may draw more attention than cautions in automobile manuals. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigates incidents and makes safety recommendations, although it has no regulatory power.
Two individuals were killed in a horrific Tesla collision in South Florida on Friday, according to federal investigators. The National Transportation Safety Board stated on Twitter that three investigators will come to Coral Gables next week to look into the incident in which a Tesla Model 3 off the road and crashed with a tree on Monday.
NTSB spokesperson Peter Knudson stated, “We constantly look attentively at emerging technologies.”
According to authorities, the NTSB inquiry will focus on the vehicle’s functioning as well as the post-crash fire that destroyed the vehicle.
Tesla vehicles do not utilize gasoline, which may increase the chance of a large fire in the event of a collision, but the firm does alert first responders about battery fires. Tesla officials have stated that any automobile may catch fire in a high-speed accident. The Coral Gables accident happened at a residential junction, and it’s unclear whether speed had a role.
It’s also unclear if the car’s partially autonomous driving system was turned on at the time of the accident. Tesla’s system is being investigated by the authorities. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has dispatched investigators to 31 incidents involving vehicles with partially automated driver-assist systems in the last five years, 25 of which were Teslas.
According to authorities, the NTSB will begin its investigation on Monday, finish on-scene work in a week, and issue a preliminary report in roughly 30 days.
Musk’s outlandish claims
Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted in April that accident data indicated Teslas using Autopilot were nearly ten times less likely to be involved in an accident than the typical vehicle. According to the company’s data, one accident occurred every 4.19 million miles (6.74 million kilometers) driven with Autopilot enabled, and one per 2.05 million miles (3.29 million kilometers) for Teslas utilizing active safety systems like as automatic braking and blind-spot collision alerts.
