The US government’s road safety agency is investigating Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” system after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said in documents that it opened the probe on Thursday, local time, after the company reported four crashes when Teslas encountered sun glare, fog and airborne dust.

In addition to the pedestrian’s death, another crash involved an injury, the agency said.

Investigation to look into visibility conditions

Investigators will look into the ability of “Full Self-Driving” to “detect and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions, and if so, the contributing circumstances for these crashes.”

The investigation covers roughly 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years.

A message was left on Friday seeking comment from Tesla, which has repeatedly said the system cannot drive itself and human drivers must be ready to intervene at all times.

Last week, Tesla held an event at a Hollywood studio to unveil a fully autonomous robotaxi without a steering wheel or pedals. 

Robotaxis available from 2026

Chief executive Elon Musk, who has promised autonomous vehicles before, said the company plans to have autonomous Models Y and 3 running without human drivers next year. 

Robotaxis without steering wheels would be available in 2026 starting in California and Texas, he said.

The investigation’s impact on Tesla’s self-driving ambitions isn’t clear. NHTSA would have to approve any robotaxi without pedals or a steering wheel, and it’s unlikely that would happen while the investigation is in progress. 

But if the company tries to deploy autonomous vehicles in its existing models, that likely would fall to state regulations. There are no federal regulations specifically focused on autonomous vehicles, although they must meet broader safety rules.

NHTSA also said it would look into whether any other similar crashes involving “Full Self-Driving” have happened in low visibility conditions and it will seek information from the company on whether any updates affected the system’s performance in those conditions.

“In particular, this review will assess the timing, purpose and capabilities of any such updates, as well as Tesla’s assessment of their safety impact,” the documents said.

Tesla reported the four crashes to NHTSA under an order from the agency covering all automakers. 

An agency database says the pedestrian was killed in Rimrock, Arizona, in November of 2023 after being hit by a 2021 Tesla Model Y. Rimrock 161 kilometres north of Phoenix, Arizona.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety said in a statement that the crash happened just after 5pm on November 27 on Interstate 17. Two vehicles collided on the freeway, blocking the left lane. 

A Toyota 4Runner stopped and two people got out to help with traffic control. A red Tesla Model Y then hit the 4Runner and one of the people who exited from it. 

A 71-year-old woman from Mesa, Arizona died at the scene.

The collision happened because the sun was in the Tesla driver’s eyes, so the driver was not charged, said Raul Garcia, public information officer for the department. 

Sun glare also was a contributing factor in the first collision, he added.

Tesla has twice recalled “Full Self-Driving” under pressure from NHTSA, which in July sought information from law enforcement and the company after a Tesla using the system struck and killed a motorcyclist near Seattle.

The recalls were issued because the system was programmed to run stop signs at slow speeds and because the system disobeyed other traffic laws. Both problems were to be fixed with online software updates.

Critics say Tesla’s system doesn’t have proper sensors

They have said that Tesla’s system, which uses only cameras to spot hazards, doesn’t have proper sensors to be fully self driving. Nearly all other companies working on autonomous vehicles use radar and laser sensors in addition to cameras to see better in the dark or poor visibility conditions.

Mr Musk has said that humans drive with only eyesight, so cars should be able to drive with just cameras. He has called lidar (light detection and ranging), which uses lasers to detect objects, a “fool’s errand.”

The “Full Self-Driving” recalls arrived after a three-year investigation into Tesla’s less-sophisticated Autopilot system crashing into emergency and other vehicles parked on highways, many with warning lights flashing.

That investigation was closed last April after the agency pressured Tesla into recalling its vehicles to bolster a weak system that made sure drivers are paying attention.

 A few weeks after the recall, NHTSA began investigating whether the recall was working.

NHTSA began its Autopilot crash investigation in 2021, after receiving 11 reports that Teslas that were using Autopilot struck parked emergency vehicles. 

In documents explaining why the investigation was ended, NHTSA said it found 467 crashes involving Autopilot resulting in 54 injuries and 14 deaths.

Autopilot is a fancy version of cruise control, while “Full Self-Driving” has been billed by Mr Musk as capable of driving without human intervention.

The investigation that was opened on Thursday enters new territory for NHTSA, which previously had viewed Tesla’s systems as assisting drivers rather than driving themselves. 

With the new probe, the agency is focusing on the capabilities of “Full Self-Driving” rather than simply making sure drivers are paying attention.

Executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety Michael Brooks, said the previous investigation of Autopilot didn’t look at why the Teslas weren’t seeing and stopping for emergency vehicles.

“Before they were kind of putting the onus on the driver rather than the car,” he said. 

“Here they’re saying these systems are not capable of appropriately detecting safety hazards whether the drivers are paying attention or not.”

AP

Soon you could see Waymo self-driving tech in Hyundai cars. The autonomous driving tech developer Waymo said this week that it would partner with the Korean automaker Hyundai to equip a fleet of its electric vehicles with self-driving technology. The vehicles, modified Ioniq 5s, will hit the road as part of Waymo’s self-driving ride-hail service in late 2025, the companies said.

In a statement, Hyundai Motor Company president and global COO José Muñoz called the agreement a “first step” in the two firms’ partnership. “We are actively exploring additional opportunities for collaboration,” he said—opening up the possibility that Waymo self-driving tech could one day be installed on Hyundai passenger vehicles.

However, the multinational partnership is the latest to prompt questions about how Waymo, arguably the world’s most successful autonomous-driving company, will handle a global realignment of the automotive industry.

China’s new dominance in auto manufacturing and export has worried other global automakers, some of whom have argued that the country has unfair trade advantages. Over the past year, Western countries have built firmer trade walls to prevent the incursion of inexpensive Chinese electric and autonomous vehicles. Last month, the US finalized rules that dramatically increased tariffs against Chinese-made EVs and battery materials.

The US Commerce Department also last month proposed a rule that would ban some Chinese- and Russian-made automotive hardware and software from the US, with an emphasis on technology that enables autonomy. Just this week, the European Union voted to hike tariffs against Chinese-made electric vehicles.

Interestingly, Waymo insists that a partnership with Chinese-owned automaker Zeekr is still on. The deal, announced in late 2021, has seen Zeekr purpose-build roomier autonomous minivans for the Alphabet subsidiary that are also less expensive to manufacture. The Zeekr vehicle officially made its debut in San Francisco in June, though Waymo says it’s still in testing and is not yet part of its public ride-hail fleet.

Zeekr is owned by Chinese automaker Geely, though its design center and one of its research and development facilities are in Gothenburg, Sweden. The Swedish city is also the headquarters of majority Geely-owned automakers Volvo and Polestar, an all-electric premium automaker.

In an email on Friday, Waymo spokesperson Chris Bonelli wrote that the Hyundai Ioniq 5s “will not replace any of our other vehicle platforms,” and said the company is “hard at work validating” the latest version of Waymo’s tech on the Zeekr platform.

In proposing new rules targeting Chinese-made auto software and hardware, the US government argued that such tech installed on US vehicles could create a long-term national security issue. “Imagine if there were thousands or hundreds of thousands of Chinese-connected vehicles on American roads that could be immediately and simultaneously disabled by somebody in Beijing,” US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said earlier this year.

But in public comments submitted to the Commerce Department in April, Waymo representatives insisted that, despite its partnership with the Chinese automaker, China has nothing to do with the vital tech of the Zeekr-made robotaxi. “The AV-ready base vehicles being provided to Waymo have no driving automation or telematics capabilities built into them,” the company wrote, saying that only US-based Waymo personnel install autonomous technology onto vehicles at an American factory. The company said that, once operating in the US, the vehicles cannot remotely communicate with the vehicle’s manufacturer—Zeekr.

A select number of all-electric Tesla Cybertrucks now have the ability to drive on US highways hands-free, after the automaker pushed an update to vehicles this morning. Tesla AI head Ashok Elluswamy wrote on X that Cybertrucks will be the first Tesla vehicles to receive the “end-to-end on highway” driving feature, which the company says uses a “neural net” to navigate all parts of highway driving.

“Nice work,” Tesla CEO (and X owner) Elon Musk responded to his AI chief.

The feature appears to be in “early access,” meaning it’s available only to some Cybertruck owners who purchased the feature. It’s unclear when the automaker will release the feature more widely. Tesla, which disbanded its public relations team in 2021, did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

Tesla owners’ manuals maintain that the full-self-driving feature, or “FSD (Supervised),” should be used only if drivers are paying attention to the road. The feature reportedly turns off if it detects that drivers are looking elsewhere. Critics have argued that Tesla’s marketing incorrectly leads drivers to assume that FSD can truly drive itself and that the automaker hasn’t been proactive in preventing driver misuse.

Customers who purchased base model Cybertrucks early, at preorder, paid $7,000 for access to the driving feature, with some waiting almost a year for it to be available on their trucks. Tesla owners can now subscribe to the FSD (Supervised) feature at $99 per month.

One Cybertruck driver reported on X that, based on driving this morning, the feature is “working well.”

The feature’s introduction is some much-needed good news for the Cybertruck, which has faced a rocky introduction into Tesla’s lineup. The vehicle was delayed for years by the Covid-19 pandemic and by engineering issues. (A leaked “alpha” briefing on the vehicle, first reported by WIRED, found that the truck had serious issues with braking, handling, and noise.)

The all-electric truck has also been subject to a handful of safety recalls, including one in which the company had to repair or replace accelerator pedals that had gotten stuck.

As more automakers rush into the electrification race, and Tesla’s huge lead in electric cars has been eroded by other manufacturers, Musk and company seem to believe that “self-driving” features enabled by AI will help Tesla regain its edge. “The value of Tesla overwhelmingly is autonomy,” Musk told investors this summer.

The US road safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, has found that Tesla’s Autopilot feature, an older and less sophisticated version of FSD, didn’t sufficiently prevent drivers from misuse—and was involved in 13 fatal crashes between 2018 and 2023. After a years-long investigation into Autopilot, last year Tesla recalled 2 million vehicles with Autopilot. (The automaker said it did not agree with the government’s conclusions.)

Earlier this year, Tesla settled a lawsuit brought by the family of a Northern California man who died while using Autopilot on his Model X.

Tesla also faces a class action lawsuit alleging it misled customers who purchased Teslas after Musk promised the cars had everything they needed to drive autonomously. Eight years later, Tesla has made significant improvements to its driverless features and has plans to make big bucks off the feature—but still hasn’t produced self-driving technology.

That could change this month. Musk has promised that Tesla will unveil a self-driving taxi, calling it a Cybercab, at an event in Southern California on October 10.