Once again, Tesla finds itself in the small notebooks of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the American federal agency responsible for road safety. In question, untimely brakes reported by drivers of recent Model 3 and Model Y, raising fears of serious road accidents.
The abandonment of sensors and radars for automatic braking called into question
In May 2021, Tesla rolled out an update that allows the Autopilot driver assistance system to rely solely on cameras instead of using an array of sensors, including radar, like most others do. automatic emergency braking devices. Since then, there have been numerous testimonials from drivers claiming that unnecessary braking is happening, i.e. the automatic emergency braking feature is activating for false positives, notes Ars-Technicalike things like a shadow that the car interprets as an obstacle.
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” Hard braking happens for no apparent reason and without warning, resulting in multiple rear-end near-misses… This problem has happened dozens of times in my five months of riding and 10,000 miles to my active “Explains one of the drivers in a testimony dated February 11, 2022.
” The Office of Defect Investigation (ODI) has received 354 complaints alleging unexpected brake activation in 2021-2022 Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. Received over the past nine months, these reports have often been referred to as “phantom braking” by consumers “says the NHTSA in an official document.
” Complaints allege that when using ADAS (Editor’s note: Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) features, including adaptive cruise control, the vehicle brakes unexpectedly when driving at high speeds. Complainants point out that rapid deceleration can occur without warning, randomly and often multiple times during a drive cycle “, continues the federal agency. In this context, it has decided to launch a preliminary investigation into this failure of the braking system of Tesla cars, which could concern no less than 416,000 vehicles.
Sudden braking can sometimes occur while vehicles are moving fast. Photography: Dylan Calluy/Unsplash
Tesla and the NHTSA, best enemies
After this step, NHTSA could officially decide to recall vehicles. This is not the first time that the organization has launched an investigation into Tesla. It is already investigating the involvement of Autopilot in several accidents that have taken place in the United States, as well as the possibility, since withdrawn by Tesla, of playing video games on the touch screen present in the car. interior of vehicles. In fact, Elon Musk recently and ironically called the NHTSA ” fun font “, because in addition to the possibility of playing, she asked the firm to remove its Boombox functionality, allowing drivers to broadcast sounds, sometimes absurd, from the external speakers of vehicles.
Tesla is having a rough start to the year from a legal standpoint. In early February, NHTSA also ordered the company to disable a feature rolled out with the Full Self-Driving system that allows vehicles to slowly drive past a stop sign without coming to a complete stop. Despite some setbacks with the authorities, the firm continues to enjoy ever greater success, in particular thanks to the adoption of electric vehicles, which is accelerating from year to year. 2021 was thus the best year in the company’s history, with the delivery of nearly 1 million vehicles.