Tesla recalls most electric cars in the US due to Autopilot self-driving system

Tesla recently announced the recall of nearly all the cars it has sold in the US market. This move comes after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) completed its conclusion that Tesla’s self-driving technology could increase the risk of traffic accidents.

This recall affects 2.03 million vehicles, including Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Model Y models equipped with Autosteer feature. The solution offered by Elon Musk’s company is to update the software to limit the vehicle’s automation capabilities, warn the driver to keep their hands on the steering wheel, and simplify the on/off functionality of this feature.

NHTSA has been conducting investigations for over two years into the relationship between Tesla’s autonomous features and accidents involving Tesla electric vehicles. According to their findings, there have been 736 accidents across the US directly or indirectly related to Tesla’s autonomous driving features, including 17 fatalities. In particular, the number of accidents has increased sharply in the past two years as Tesla introduced new features that allowed the vehicles to almost drive themselves completely.

The Autopilot technology has often been criticized for encouraging Tesla owners to rely too much on this driving assistance technology. The capabilities of this technology only reach level 3 – which means conditional automation in specific cases and still requires driver supervision. Currently, level 4 autonomous driving technology – semi-autonomous driving – is being tested and there are no commercially available vehicles that have reached level 5 – fully autonomous driving.

In February of this year, Tesla also had to recall 362,000 vehicles in the US to update the FSD Beta self-driving software after the NHTSA stated that these vehicles did not fully comply with traffic safety laws and could pose a risk of accidents.

In the future, the NHTSA stated that they will continue to investigate Tesla while monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the measures the company has taken. The agency will also work closely with car manufacturers to ensure the highest level of safety for drivers and road users.

By Thai Son (Tuoitrethudo)