Tesla recalls 363,000 cars in the US with dodgy autonomous tech

Road safety authorities in the US have forced electric-car specialist Tesla to recall 363,000 vehicles because the so-called 'Full Self-Driving' technology presents an unreasonably high risk of a deadly crash.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued the recall notice in the US following a number of deadly crashes and near-misses in Tesla electric cars.

Tesla claims the system can accelerate, stop, steer and park the car without human intervention, although the driver is still required to be attentive and maintain control to respond to unforeseen scenarios – or a failure of the technology.

While Tesla’s system was initially rolled out in September 2021 as a limited ‘beta’ iteration of the technology – allowing the company to gather real-time data from more than 160,000 users on public roads to help improve the calibration – it became publicly available to US owners of certain Tesla cars in November 2022.

In Australia, Full Self-Driving does not comply with local road rules and is not available to Tesla owners.

NHTSA says Tesla’s autonomous driving system "may allow the vehicle to act unsafe around intersections, such as travelling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane, entering a stop sign-controlled intersection without coming to a complete stop, or proceeding into an intersection during a steady yellow traffic signal without due caution."

The road safety authority noted the system "may respond insufficiently to changes in posted speed limits or not adequately account for the driver's adjustment of the vehicle's speed to exceed posted speed limits."

According to Automotive News, the US recall affects 363,000 examples of the Tesla Model S (2016-2023), Model 3 (2017-2023), Model X (2017-2023), and Model Y (2020-2023) which are equipped with the necessary hardware to operate the autonomous driving technology.

Tesla has announced it will release an 'over-the-air' (wifi) software update to affected electric cars to rectify the fault, which Automotive News reports will become available to US owners “in the coming weeks”.

It is the second time Tesla’s most advanced autonomous driving system has been recalled in the US, following a NHTSA recall in February 2022 which affected almost 54,000 cars equipped with the software.

Tesla’s autonomous driving tech – including the less capable ‘Autopilot’ and ‘Enhanced Autopilot’ systems – have been put under the spotlight by NHTSA and road safety experts, with the electric-car giant’s vehicles being overrepresented in US car crash data.

Since 2016, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened more than 30 investigations into crashes involving Tesla vehicles where the company’s semi-autonomous systems were understood to be in use, resulting in more than 20 fatalities.

As reported in June 2022, NHTSA data from July 2021 to June 2022 noted 392 crashes – involving 12 different car brands – which involved vehicles equipped with advanced driver assistance systems. 

In that sample, Tesla vehicles accounted for 273 – or 70 per cent – of the incidents, which included cars equipped with its less-capable ‘Autopilot’ and ‘Enhanced Autopilot’ systems.

Of the six fatalities where advanced driver assistance systems were considered a factor, Tesla cars accounted for 83 per cent of such crashes.