Since 2016, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened 30 investigations into Tesla crashes, 10 of which involved fatalities, in which advanced driver assistance systems, like Autopilot, were suspected of having been used.
The U.S. safety regulator released the list of investigations to Reuters, which is the first full accounting of all investigations into car crashes involving Tesla’s advanced driver aids. We have reached out to the NHTSA for comment and are awaiting a response. We would do the same with Tesla, but the Californian automaker shut down its press division since 2020.
Although Autopilot was suspected to have been a factor in all of the accidents, not all investigations confirmed that the controversial system was in use. Three of the 30 cases have so far had Autopilot ruled out as a factor.
In-depth details on the accidents are not available and the list only included the state and the month that the accident occurred in. It does, however, reveal that the NHTSA has opened eight investigations into Tesla since March.
Read Also: Consumer Reports Gets Tesla Model Y To Drive Without Anyone Behind The Wheel
Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has said that Autopilot was in operation in at least three accidents involving a fatality since 2016. The board has also criticized Tesla’s failure to implement effective safeguards for Autopilot, which can be used for extended periods without the driver interacting with the steering wheel. What’s more, Consumer Reports showed that the system could be used without anyone in the driver’s seat at all.
Indeed, one of the major criticisms levied against Tesla’s advanced driver aids is that they are misleadingly named and encourage drivers to misuse the technology, believing it to be more capable than it really is.
Tesla isn’t the only company whose vehicles and driver aids have been investigated. In the spreadsheet provided to Reuters, NHTSA noted six other investigations involving other companies.
Two of them involved Cadillacs, one incident involved a 2012 Lexus RX450H and another a 2017 Navya Arma, but in no one were there any injuries involved. The final two concerned Volvo XC90s, one of which was operated by Uber and was infamously involved in the highly publicized death of a pedestrian.
