Tesla Remains In NHTSA’s Focus After Another Deadly Crash

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requested additional information from Tesla following a California crash on Saturday in which one of its vehicles collided with a fire truck parked at an accident scene.

The agency is likely investigating whether Autopilot or Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta, Tesla’s advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), were being used at the time of the accident.

The crash resulted in the death of the driver and the hospitalization of the passenger.

NHTSA has launched numerous special crash investigations into Tesla vehicles where Autopilot was suspected to have been used, with 39 of the 48 investigations involving Teslas. Only three of the 39 were found to have not involved Autopilot.

The agency currently has several open investigations into Tesla crashes, some of which resulted in fatalities, but it refrains from commenting on ongoing investigations.

This incident occurred shortly after Tesla recalled 362,758 vehicles to update their FSD software, following regulators’ concerns that FSD could cause dangerous driving behaviors around intersections and lead to accidents.

In addition, The Dawn Project, one of Tesla’s biggest critics, recently took out a Super Bowl ad calling for regulators to ban FSD until critical safety defects are corrected.

Tesla’s ADAS safety has faced criticism from both federal and state regulators, with the Department of Justice recently requesting information from the company on Autopilot and FSD, potentially as part of a criminal investigation.