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NHTSA has begun an investigation into the Tesla Full Self Driving (Supervised) technology following an incident in which a Tesla operating in FSD (Supervised) mode struck and killed a pedestrian. In the official notice of the investigation, NHTSA wrote,
The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) has identified four Standing General Order (SGO) reports in which a Tesla vehicle experienced a crash after entering an area of reduced roadway visibility conditions with FSD -Beta or FSD -Supervised (collectively, FSD) engaged. In these crashes, the reduced roadway visibility arose from conditions such as sun glare, fog, or airborne dust. In one of the crashes, the Tesla vehicle fatally struck a pedestrian. One additional crash in these conditions involved a reported injury. The four SGO crash reports are listed at the end of this summary by SGO number.
ODI has opened a Preliminary Evaluation of FSD (a system labeled by Tesla as a partial driving automation system), which is optionally available in the Model Year (MY) 2016-2024 Models S and X, 2017-2024 Model 3, 2020-2024 Model Y, and 2023-2024 Cybertruck. This Preliminary Evaluation is opened to assess:
The ability of FSD’s engineering controls to detect and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions.
Whether any other similar FSD crashes have occurred in reduced roadway visibility conditions and, if so, the contributing circumstances for those crashes.
Any updates or modifications from Tesla to the FSD system that may affect the performance of FSD in reduced roadway visibility conditions. In particular, this review will assess the timing, purpose, and capabilities of any such updates, as well as Tesla’s assessment of their safety impact.
According to CNBC, the probe comes on the heels of an incident in which a Tesla driver who had been using FSD struck and killed a pedestrian and other FSD-involved collisions during reduced roadway visibility conditions. NHTSA tracks collisions involving the use of all advanced driver assistance systems like Tesla’s Autopilot or FSD offered by all automakers who sell automobiles in the US. As of October 1, 2024, NHTSA had tracked 1,399 incidents in which Tesla’s driver assistance systems were engaged within 30 seconds of the collision. 31 of those resulted in fatalities.
Is Tesla Reliance On Cameras A Smart Strategy?
Back when Tesla first introduced its Autopilot technology on the Model S, it used hardware and software supplied by Mobileye. That was until Joshua Brown was killed on a Florida highway one morning when a tractor trailer drove across the highway and the system did not see it. Brown died when his Tesla drove under the trailer, shearing off most of the roof.
After that, Elon Musk got into a spat with Mobileye and the two companies went through a stormy and very public divorce. The issue, Tesla said at the time, was that Brown’s Tesla did not detect the white side of the trailer partly because the light from an early sunrise was reflecting off it at the time. Musk then pivoted to an entirely different system that relied primarily on radar with cameras playing a secondary role. Elon bragged that the radar beam could actually bounce off the pavement underneath a car ahead and warn drivers what was happening in front of that car. Then suddenly, without explanation, Tesla stopped using radar altogether and reverted to a primary focus on cameras to the exclusion of all other sensors.
Other companies exploring self-driving technology incorporate other inputs, particularly lidar and detailed digital mapping but Musk wants nothing to do with either. He loathes the enclosures for lidar and insists his cars don’t need to rely on no stinking digital maps. Therefore, all Teslas built today and presumably those manufactured in the future will rely on the “camera only” framework.
Anyone who has driven a car for more than a week knows that glare, road salt on the windshield, and the headlights of oncoming cars can make it difficult to see clearly at times. There is no reason to believe the same issues do not affect the Tesla FSD ecosystem, and that may be the Achilles heel that will prevent Tesla from further reliance on cameras at the only input used to determine how one of its cars should operate on public roads.
Tesla’s “camera-only” approach to partially and fully autonomous driving systems, some industry experts have said, could cause issues in low-visibility conditions as the vehicles do not have a set of back-up sensors. “Weather conditions can impact the camera’s ability to see things and I think the regulatory environment will certainly weigh in on this,” Jeff Schuster, vice president at GlobalData, told Reuters. “That could be one of the major roadblocks in what I would call a near-term launch of this technology and these products,” he said of Tesla’s robotaxis, which the company teased at a glitzy press event on October 10.
We are not privy to all the facts, but a cursory analysis suggests Teslas should not be running down pedestrians while operating in Full Self Driving (Supervised) mode. Some would suggest no self-driving systems should be in operation when pedestrians or bicyclists are present unless there is a physical barrier between them.
The Takeaway
Elon Musk may be the most brilliant engineer who ever lived. Certainly he would tell you so. But his intransigence is his own personal blind spot and could potentially be his undoing. It’s one thing to believe passionately in something, quite another to be pigheaded. It appears from news reports that Musk has contributed millions of dollars to help Donald Trump get elected. Is that because he believes passionately in the fascist culture he was raised in or is it because he thinks Trump will shut down NHTSA and any other government regulators who stand between him and his dream of bringing self-driving cars to market? A subsidiary question is whether his full-throated support of Trump is simply a cynical way of getting his tax burden reduced for his personal enrichment?
We have no answers to these questions, but under the weaponized notion of free speech Musk espouses, we have every right to ask them and you, gentle reader, have the right to offer your own opinion in the comments section. Hooray for free speech!
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