FSD Beta may cause speeding crashes or act erratic on intersections as Tesla issues a big Model 3/Y recall
Tesla will have to recall 362,758 vehicles over Full Self-Driving Beta software glitches that may cause its cars to "exceed speed limits or travel through intersections in an unlawful or unpredictable manner," says the NHTSA. The fix will be an over-the-air update and Tesla commented that it hasn't been made aware of any deadly crashes or injury reports that can be directly attributed to the NHTSA's recall request.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has identified two major issues with Tesla's autonomous FSD Beta driving software - behavior at intersections and speeding - and has broken down the exact case scenarios when the faulty software may cause a crash:
- Traveling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane.
- Entering a stop sign-controlled intersection without coming to a complete stop.
- Proceeding into an intersection during a steady yellow traffic signal without due caution.
The speeding issues are a bit murkier, as the NHTSA says only that "the [FSD] system may respond insufficiently to changes in posted speed limits or not adequately account for the driver's adjustment of the vehicle's speed to exceed posted speed limits."
The FSD Beta speeding and intersection fix recall will affect the following Tesla vehicles and production batches:
- 2016-2023 Model S
- 2016-2023 Model X
- 2017-2023 Model 3
- 2020-2023 Model Y
Despite several open state and federal investigations into Tesla's FSD or Autopilot systems, including by the NHTSA, a direct connection between crashes or deaths and active Tesla self-driving features at the time of the accidents hasn't been proven yet.
Recently, the National Transportation Safety Board even cleared Autopilot of any involvement suspicion regarding a fatal incident that was given plenty of publicity in 2021 precisely because Tesla's self-driving system was under investigation. Instead, drunk driving and speeding turned out to be the cause of the deadly crash. A recent US government investigation, for instance, is still in the discovery phase, and no charges are imminent or pending.
Owners of the abovementioned Tesla vehicles should begin receiving their notification letters by April 15 and Tesla will issue OTA update to fix the FSD Beta speeding and intersection issues identified.
Source(s)
