Tesla to recall 2m electric vehicles over Autopilot feature

Tesla is recalling more than 2 million electric vehicles in the United States to update its Autopilot driver-assistance software after a federal safety regulator cited safety concerns.

The largest-ever Tesla recall appears to cover nearly all vehicles on US roads to better ensure drivers pay attention when using the system.

Tesla's recall filing said that the Autopilot software-system controls "may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse" and could increase the risk of a crash.

Autopilot is intended to enable cars to steer, accelerate and brake automatically within their lanes, while enhanced Autopilot can assist in changing lanes on highways but does not make vehicles autonomous.

One component of Autopilot is Autosteer, which maintains a set speed or following distance and works to keep a vehicle in its driving lane.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which is part of the US Department of Transportation (DOT), for more than two years has been investigating whether Tesla vehicles sufficiently ensure that drivers pay attention.

Tesla said it did not agree with the NHTSA analysis but would deploy an over-the-air software update that will "incorporate additional controls and alerts to those already existing on affected vehicles to further encourage the driver to adhere to their continuous driving responsibility whenever Autosteer is engaged".

Tesla will roll out the update to 2.03 million Model S, X, 3 and Y vehicles in the US dating back to 2012, the agency said.

The update based on vehicle hardware will include increasing prominence of visual alerts, simplifying engagement and disengagement of Autosteer and additional checks upon engaging Autosteer.

Acting NHTSA Administrator Ann Carlson praised Tesla for agreeing to the recall.

"One of the things we determined is that drivers are not always paying attention when that system is on," she said at a hearing at the US House of Representatives.

Carlson said the agency opened a safety probe in August 2021 when she kept hearing about fatal crashes involving use of Autopilot. "My immediate response was, 'We have to do something about this,'" she said.

The Transport Workers Union of America, which represents more than 155,000 workers, posted Wednesday on X: "We're gratified to see federal action forcing this Tesla recall. We've been urging (the DOT) to take control over the mad rush to deploy dangerous autonomous/semi-autonomous vehicles. The DOT should now investigate ALL robotaxi companies."

Chris Lu, an early adopter of Tesla vehicles in California since 2013, told China Daily that he is a proponent of Tesla's Autopilot feature.

Of the software update, he said: "Quick and efficient. This is what Tesla has been doing over the years to fix any major technical issues. Problem spotted, here is the solution.

"This approach and capacity enables Tesla to be more competitive than other players," Lu said.

Supporters of Tesla, which is headquartered in Austin, Texas, said the recall is more of a software update.

Zaid Jilani, a reporter for News Nation, wrote on X: "This 'recall' is Tesla uploading a software update wirelessly to people's cars, which they do regularly anyway."

Cern Basher, a financial analyst, wrote: "Is that what we are calling a software update now? If that's the case, my iPhone and all its apps are recalled every week!"

Multibllionaire Elon Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla, also owns X.

Separately, Transport Canada said Tesla will recall 193,000 vehicles to address the Autopilot issue. It was not immediately clear if China will demand a recall.

The NHTSA opened its probe of Autopilot in August 2021 after identifying more than a dozen crashes in which Tesla vehicles hit stationary emergency vehicles. The probe was upgraded in June 2022.

A Tesla was operating on its Autopilot system and was speeding in the moments leading to a crash with a crossing tractor-trailer that killed the Tesla driver in July, a spokesman for the Fauquier County Sheriff's Office in Virginia said on Wednesday.

The death of Pablo Teodoro III, 57, is the third since 2016 in which a Tesla that was using Autopilot ran underneath a crossing tractor-trailer.

Dashcam footage and data from a Texas crash, analyzed by The Wall Street Journal, determined that the Autopilot system failed to recognize stopped emergency vehicles.

The NHTSA said it found Autopilot "can provide inadequate driver engagement and usage controls that can lead to foreseeable misuse".

NHTSA reviewed 956 crashes in which Autopilot was initially believed to have been in use and focused on 322 Autopilot-involved crashes.

Separately, since 2016, NHTSA has opened more than three dozen Tesla special crash investigations in cases where driver systems such as Autopilot were suspected of being used, with 23 crash deaths reported to date.

NHTSA said there may be increased crash risks when Autopilot is engaged, but drivers do not maintain responsibility and are unprepared to intervene.

Tesla disclosed in October the US Justice Department issued subpoenas related to its Full Self-Driving (FSD) and Autopilot.

In February, Tesla recalled 362,000 US vehicles to update its FSD Beta software after NHTSA said the vehicles did not adequately adhere to traffic safety laws and could cause crashes.

Chang Jun in San Francisco and agencies contributed to this story.