US opens investigation into Tesla after more accidents involving so-called full self-driving technology

Federal auto safety regulators have launched another investigation TeslaThe so-called full-self-driving technology followed dozens of incidents in which its vehicles ran red lights or went on the wrong side of the road, sometimes colliding with other vehicles and injuring people.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a filing Tuesday that it had reports of 58 incidents of Tesla vehicles violating traffic safety laws while operating in full self-driving mode. In reports to regulators, several Tesla drivers said the cars gave them no warning about unexpected behavior.

The investigation involves 2,882,566 vehicles, essentially all Teslas equipped with full self-driving technology, or FSD, which comes in two types. level 2 Driver-assistance software, or “full self-driving (supervised)”, requires drivers to pay full attention to the road. The company is still testing a version that doesn’t require driver intervention, something the automaker’s owners and ceo Elon Musk It has been promised to be implemented for years.

The new investigation follows several other investigations into the FSD feature on Teslas, which have been blamed for numerous injuries and deaths. Tesla has repeatedly said that the system cannot drive itself and that human drivers must be ready to intervene at all times.

Tesla is also being investigated by NHTSA for its “summon” technology, which allows drivers to ask their cars to go to their location to pick them up, a feature that has reportedly led to some fender benders in parking lots. The investigation into driver-assistance features in 2.4 million Teslas was launched last year after several crashes in fog and other low-visibility conditions, including the death of a pedestrian.

Another investigation was launched by NHTSA in August to look into why Tesla was apparently not reporting accidents to the agency according to its rules.

Musk is under pressure to show that the latest advances in its driver-assistance features have not only fixed such glitches, but made them so good that good drivers no longer even need to look out the window. He recently promised to put thousands of such self-driving Tesla cars and Tesla robotaxis on the roads by the end of next year.

Tesla shares fell 1.4% on Thursday.