Tesla, which has often sold its cars as indestructible and innovative, has issues a recall order for nearly all vehicles they have sold in the United States. The cars affected by the recall order total over two million vehicles. The recall is supposedly to update software and repair a faulty system currently in the vehicle so that there are measures in place to force drivers to pay attention even when using the Autopilot feature.
The recall was issued on December 13th. Federal safety regulators spoke on the recall order stating that the update that will be installed will add additional warnings and alerts to the driver while the vehicle is in use. The update will also add limitations to the areas in which basic versions of the Autopilot program can be put to use.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been investigating the car manufacturer for two years.
The recall comes as a result of this investigation, which looked into a series of crashes that occurred around the United States in which the Autopilot feature was in use. Tragically, a number of the crashes were fatal, which is what drove the investigation to the extent it went into depth.
What was the result of the investigation, you may ask? Well, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that the Autopilot does not have enough thorough measures in place to track driver attention and the warnings that are issued are insufficient. Furthermore, it found that the feature has too much ability to be misused in its current state, which would only lead to more frequent crashes.
The goal of the update is to “further encourage the driver to adhere to their continuous driving responsibility.”
Some are appreciative of the update and hopeful that it will genuinely result in a reduced number of accidents, but others are doubtful and think it is simply not far enough. The automated features of Tesla are not properly equipped to actually handle real world road conditions. Obstacles appear out of nowhere, weather conditions affect road conditions in unpredictable ways, and there are simply too many things that cannot accurately be tracked by the vehicle.
We will see in the coming weeks, months, and years how helpful this update will be.
