NHTSA: No Recall for Tesla's Autopilot

CARS.COM — Federal safety regulators found no safety defects in its investigation of Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance systems, so no recall will be required. The probe, which regulators opened in June 2016 following a fatal crash in Florida, has been closed.

Related: Tesla Adds Self-Drive to Its Entire Lineup

“A safety-related defect trend has not been identified at this time and further examination of this issue does not appear to be warranted,” concluded the report by the Office of Defects Investigation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The report is posted in full here along with supporting documents.

The automaker said in a statement after the announcement, “At Tesla, the safety of our customers comes first, and we appreciate the thoroughness of NHTSA’s report and its conclusion.”

The probe looked at the Florida crash as well as “dozens” of others in which Autopilot was engaged, according to NHTSA Communications Director Bryan Thomas in a briefing today.

“NHTSA’s examination did not identify any defects in design or performance … nor any incidents in which the [Autopilot] systems did not perform as designed,” said the NHTSA report.
In addition to automatic braking and collision warnings, the Autopilot systems include adaptive cruise control and automatic steering to keep the car in the center of its lane. The report noted that the Autopilot systems require the driver to be fully engaged and ready to take over and that its limitations are specified in the owner’s manual.

In the May 2016 Florida crash, Joshua Brown of Canton, Ohio, was killed when his 2015 Tesla Model S crashed into a semitrailer crossing the highway; the Autopilot system was engaged. Tesla said at the timethat identifying the white trailer against a light sky traveling across the highway was beyond the capability of the system to see. NHTSA’s report says Brown’s last action in the car had been two minutes earlier, to set the cruise control at 74 mph, and that he should have been able to take action to avoid the crash.

The report reviewed the safeguards built into Tesla’s system to try to warn against driver inattention, noting that all automakers “have a responsibility to design with the inattentive driver in mind,” and did not find them adequate. In September, however, Tesla added more restrictions, including a feature that turns off the system if the driver’s hands are off the wheel for too long.

Thomas said the agency also is continuing to look at whether the naming and marketing of such semi-autonomous systems encourage misuse, but that both driver attention and the marketing of the systems are industrywide issues. Safety advocates such as Consumer Reports have criticized Tesla’s Autopilot name.