Aurich Lawson | Tesla | Aeroplane!
Tesla’s controversial Autopilot driver assist may have become even more controversial. According to Reuters, there has been a federal criminal investigation into the company since 2021 for misleading people about Autopilot’s capabilities. It’s the latest in a series of state and federal investigations, at a time when the automaker is removing more sensors from its cars and raising the price of its “fully self-driving” (FSD) feature.
The safety of Tesla’s electric vehicles has been repeatedly praised by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who claimed his EVs are the safest cars on the market. However, these claims have been challenged by regulators such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and by aggregated crash data.
Now, Reuters reports that “Prosecutors from the Department of Justice in Washington and San Francisco are investigating whether Tesla misled consumers, investors and regulators by making unsubstantiated claims about the capabilities of its driver assistance technology,” the sources said.
While Tesla’s website states that Autopilot requires active surveillance and is not autonomous, it also includes a video that claims, “The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He’s not doing anything. The car drives itself,” and Musk is interviewed repeatedly from the driver’s seat of a Tesla handsfree.
It is not known whether the investigation by the Ministry of Justice will lead to criminal prosecution.
It’s yet another Autopilot-related headache for Tesla. In August, we learned that the NHTSA is investigating whether Autopilot can see motorcyclists. The investigation came after a couple of deadly incidents when Tesla drivers hit and killed drivers while using assist mode. A separate NHTSA investigation is underway after at least 11 incidents in which Teslas operating under Autopilot hit emergency vehicles, and a third is trying to determine whether removing forward-looking radar sensors from the EVs is the cause of hundreds of phantom braking events.
As if that wasn’t enough, the California Department of Motor Vehicles has also filed complaints with the state’s Office of Administrative Hearings. As with the DoJ investigation, the California DMV is also angry about Tesla’s misleading statements about its “FSD” position, which it says are “false or misleading and not based on fact.”
