It was reported that former Ford Motor Company CEO Mark Fields was interviewed earlier today. In the interview, he talked about the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). According to an investigation initiated by Tesla’s Autopilot function, it is stated that more than half of all cars produced by Tesla will be affected by this investigation.
Earlier this week, NHTSA announced that it would initiate a formal safety investigation into the Autopilot system installed on Tesla vehicles. This investigation involved all four Tesla models from 2014 to 2021, because the Autopilot features of these models are consistent with the specifications listed in the preliminary report by NHTSA’s Office of Defect Investigation (ODI).
Although NHTSA only listed 11 accidents, a total of approximately 765,000 vehicles will be part of this investigation. The agency said: ODI has identified 11 car accidents. In these accidents, Tesla vehicles of different configurations were encountered at the worksite of first responders, and then the vehicle hit one or more cars on the scene.
Fields, who served as Ford’s CEO from 2014 to 2017, talked about Tesla’s investigation in an interview. He said: This is a large-scale investigation. However, Fields also made a mistake. He said that the function Tesla is under investigation is the Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, but the Autopilot system is actually being investigated. Only in terms of functionality, FSD is very different from Autopilot, and NHTSA has never mentioned Tesla’s FSD kit in the document.
Fields pointed out that the huge number of vehicles affected by this investigation may be bad news for Tesla, because more than half of all the cars the company has produced so far may be forced to large-scale recall, which may cost the electric car manufacturer billions of dollars. In 2020, Tesla broke through the 1 million marks in annual output, and this year its output will also be close to about 2 million.
In 2017, after the launch of Model 3, Tesla’s production began to increase significantly. In addition, in March 2019, Tesla turned the Autopilot function into a standard feature, which means that vehicles shipped after March 2019 will have this system. FSD is not the subject of this survey. This feature requires consumers to pay for it separately and is priced at US$10,000.
Fields said that based on his knowledge of NHTSA, the investigation may last for a year to a year and a half. He also added that if NHTSA believes that the Autopilot feature does not meet its standards, it can issue a recall.
According to documents released by the NHTSA, they have found a total of 11 incidents of collisions between Tesla vehicles and emergency handling vehicles. However, several investigations have shown that in some incidents, drivers operating vehicles were under the influence of drugs or alcohol (2 cases), their driving licenses were revoked (1 case), and did not follow the Autopilot instructions outlined by Tesla. Or caused by the driver’s inattention (4 cases).
In February 2021, a Tesla car collided with a police patrol car, causing a multi-vehicle serial accident. Subsequently, the driver of the Tesla vehicle was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. In March 2021, a Tesla car crashed into a police patrol car, and the driver’s license had previously been revoked. At the time of the accident, this Tesla car was using the Autopilot function, but the driver was operating the vehicle illegally.
These are just two examples of the causes of accidents. In the several examples listed by NHTSA, drivers may also face accusations. Tesla’s statistics show that Autopilot is one of the safest ways to operate a motor vehicle. With this feature turned on, there is one accident every 4.19 million miles. The national average is one accident every 484,000 miles.
