Tesla letter from Senate today8 Feb 2022 23:53
Mr. Elon Musk
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Tesla
3500 Deer Creek Road
Palo Alto, California 94304
Dear Mr. Musk,
We write to express our significant concerns over recent reports of flaws with Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) systems. While advanced driver assistance and automated driving systems have the potential to improve safety, they must be implemented responsibly and comply with existing traffic laws. When these systems do not meet these essential requirements, they put all of those who use our roads at risk of injury or death.
We are deeply troubled by Tesla’s design choices that seemingly encourage unsafe driving habits. Last October, Tesla’s FSD version 10.3 update included three different driving profiles – Chill, Average, and Assertive – and implemented a “rolling stops” feature, allowing cars to drive through stop signs at up to 5.6 miles per hour instead of making a complete stop. The Assertive FSD profile specifically states that cars will have smaller following distances and may complete rolling stops.1 Last week, Tesla issued a recall for the nearly 54,000 vehicles running this version of FSD or newer.2 While this recall is a step towards reducing unsafe driving and crashes, it should not have been needed in the first place – Tesla should not design and implement features for its cars that do not follow the rules of the road.
Moreover, we are concerned by Tesla’s long history of flouting basic safety standards, which has caused the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to repeatedly open investigations into various aspects of the FSD and Autopilot systems. Last August, NHTSA opened an investigation into reports of Tesla vehicles on Autopilot crashing into emergency responder vehicles.3 In December, NHTSA opened an investigation into reports that Tesla
1 Emma Roth, “Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ beta has an ‘assertive’ driving mode that ‘may perform rolling stops,’” The Verge, January 9, 2022, https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/9/22875382/tesla-full-self-driving-beta-assertive- profile; Rebecca Heilweil, “Why Tesla won’t stop,” Vox, February 4, 2022, https://www.vox.com/recode/22916870/tesla-software-update-recall-full-self-driving-elon-musk.
2 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “Part 573 Safety Recall Report: Recall No. 22V-037,” https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2022/RCLRPT-22V037-4462.PDF (accessed February 7, 2022).
3 U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “ODI Resume: Autopilot & First Responder Scenes,” https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2021/INOA-PE21020-1893.PDF (accessed February 7, 2022).
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operators could play games in their car while the vehicle was driving.4 NHTSA is now reviewing complaints it received about “phantom braking” by Tesla vehicles, instances when a car brakes without a hazard in front of it.5 These complaints and investigations paint a troubling picture: Tesla repeatedly releases software without fully
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