The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating another Tesla accident in which the autopilot was allegedly in use.
The accident occurred outside Lansing, Michigan, when a Tesla Model Y driver collided with a state police cruiser. Michigan police said the driver was using Autopilot, Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), at the time of the accident. No one was hurt, but the government sent investigators to the scene to determine how the autopilot could have contributed to the accident.
“NHTSA is aware of the incident involving a Tesla vehicle near Lansing, Michigan,” said a spokesman in a statement. “Consistent with NHTSA’s vigilant oversight and robust authority over the safety of all motor vehicles and equipment, including automated technologies, we launched a Special Accident Investigation team to investigate the accident.”
This is the last accident involving a Tesla to be examined by federal investigators. NHTSA has sent teams to inspect similar accidents involving Teslas that have occurred in recent weeks in Houston and Detroit. Local police said they did not believe the Autopilot was involved in the Detroit accident, but they have yet to make the same determination in Houston.
This is also the last incident to involve a driver using autopilot crashing into a stationary object. There have been at least two fatal accidents in which a Tesla owner crashed into a stationary vehicle, and Tesla has yet to deal with it significantly.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment, probably because the company dissolved its press office and normally does not respond to media requests anymore. In the past, Tesla has warned its customers that Autopilot is not an autonomous steering system and still requires constant attention on the road during use.
At the same time, the company recently launched a beta version of Autopilot called “Full Self Driving”, which gave many people the false impression that Tesla vehicles are autonomous and do not require drivers to pay attention to the road. Tesla recently expanded the number of people who have access to beta software. “Still, be careful, but it’s maturing,” CEO Elon Musk tweeted recently.
Tesla has a complicated history with NHTSA, the federal agency that can issue recalls and investigate auto accidents. The agency investigated several fatal accidents involving autopilot. Last year, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that ADAS was one of the likely causes of a fatal accident in 2018, in which a California man was killed after his Model X crashed into a concrete barrier. Later, the chairman of the security council said Tesla was ignoring his recommendations. And last year, an NHTSA spokesman said the agency was “monitoring” the launch of Tesla’s Full Self Driving software.
Security advocates have condemned Tesla’s decision to test its driver assistance software on its customers as irresponsible. The executive director of the Center for Auto Safety accused Tesla of “intentionally misleading the public regarding the capabilities and shortcomings of its technology,” according to THE Associated Press.