The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into more than 2.8 million Tesla vehicles with the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system. As reported earlier by Reuters, the investigation will probe the traffic violations that occur with FSD, including driving through red lights and traveling the wrong way down the street.
NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation is looking into 58 traffic safety incidents involving FSD, including 14 crashes and 23 injuries. In some cases, a Tesla vehicle failed to stop, or didn’t remain stopped, at a red light with FSD engaged, while others involve Teslas with FSD entering the opposite lane of traffic during or following a turn, or attempting to “turn onto a road in the wrong direction despite the presence of wrongway road signs.”
For this most recent investigation, NHTSA will focus on red light and wrong-way violations, but it will also review incidents that occur at railroad crossings. NBC highlighted this issue in a report last month, revealing numerous incidents in which FSD-enabled Teslas failed to stop at railroad crossings with a train approaching.
The news of the investigation comes at an awkward time for Tesla, which is in the midst of trying to convince local regulators to authorize its robotaxi service. The company is currently operating a ridehailing service with safety monitors in the vehicle in San Francisco and Austin — though Elon Musk has said he wants to expand to “50 percent” of the US by the end of the year.
