The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has launched a new investigation into Tesla"s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) over late crash reports that the company submitted.
According to the investigation filed under action number AQ25002, Tesla may have violated the Standing General Order 2021-01. This order requires automakers to report certain crashes within one or five days of being notified of them.
In Tesla"s case, the NHTSA says it identified numerous reports where the crash occurred "several months or more" before Tesla actually submitted the paperwork. The agency noted that these late submissions came in either as part of a single large batch or on a rolling basis.
Tesla, in its defense, claims that the reporting delay was a result of a data collection issue, which the company says has been fixed. In response to that, the NHTSA says:
NHTSA is opening this Audit Query, a standard process for reviewing compliance with legal requirements, to evaluate the cause of the potential delays in reporting, the scope of any such delays, and the mitigations that Tesla has developed to address them.
The agency also wants to confirm if any old incident reports are still missing and whether the submitted data is complete. This inquiry covers 37 products from the Model 3, Model S, Model X, and Model Y, covering model years from 2016 through 2026.
Electrek, citing this report from the NHTSA, notes that Tesla leads with over 2,300 crashes for level 2 Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). For comparison, the company that followed was GM, with just 55 crashes reported for its SuperCruise system. Subaru comes third at 53.
As you may know, the NHTSA already has several run-ins with Tesla. Last November, we reported on the agency"s probe into the automaker"s Full Self-Driving system, which raised concerns that names like "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving" could give drivers the wrong impression about the systems" capabilities.
Tesla has also been scrutinized for its secrecy, requesting confidentiality for its answers to the NHTSA"s questions about its Robotaxi service, which launched two months ago, in Austin, with a human safety monitor in the passenger seat.