Tesla dashcam video shows why Autopilot fails to detect first responder vehicles in crashes

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has an active investigation open that has amassed 16 Tesla vehicle incidents where they crash into emergency vehicles standing on the highway, or by the end of the road. The investigation aims to determine if the Tesla cars were using their driver-assist software like Autopilot at the time of the crash.

There is suspicion that Tesla's driver-assist software may be bamboozled by first responder vehicles with their flashing lights, especially in less than stellar visibility, and a Wall Street Journal investigation now shows why. Analyzing a leaked Tesla dashcam footage, the video is able to demonstrate that the Autopilot software indeed registers an emergency vehicle late, or doesn't register it at all, and reacts erratically, slamming the Tesla into it.

The footage is from a crash in Texas that happened back in February, and depicts a 2019 Tesla Model X nearing the place of a previous traffic stop. While it detects the first few emergency vehicles parked at the side of the road, the logs show that it fails to register the one that is standing in its lane in time. The Model X bumps into it at 54 mph with Autopilot disengaging two seconds before the crash and the steering wheel not corrected enough by the driver to avoid it.

It seems that flashing lights or other first responder vehicle accoutrements that create hazy reflective imagery for Tesla's Vision cameras may be the culprit in a lot of the reviewed cases.

Another Autopilot crash that caused a multivehicle pileup on Bay Bridge could allegedly be chalked off to the recently installed orange warning light there which it may have mistaken for a stop light, for instance. Back in February, a Model S that may have been running on Autopilot slammed into a fire truck that was shielding the road from another incident, resulting in the Tesla driver's death and injuries to some of the firefighters, too.

The five traffic stop officers that were injured in the Texas crash are now suing Tesla, while its driver-assist software is also subject of a separate NHTSA recall over erratic behavior at intersections or stop signs.

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