NHTSA upgraded its investigation involving Autopilot
ABCnews.com
Earlier this year, The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched an investigation into Tesla's “phantom braking” issue, which occurs when the vehicle slows down suddenly.
In February, the NHTSA stated that “the rapid deceleration can occur without warning, at random, and often repeatedly in a single drive cycle.” The issue is particularly concerning on highways where sudden braking could result in a rear-end collision.
Since then, the NHTSA has formally upgraded its preliminary investigation to an “Engineering Analysis,” which is conducted before the agency determines a recall. Regulators will assess 830,000 vehicles after several of the automaker’s cars collided with stopped emergency vehicles while autopilot was engaged.
Tesla’s autopilot feature is designed to help drivers navigate roads using a combination of cameras and artificial intelligence to detect other vehicles, pedestrians, stop lights, and more. Tesla instructs drivers to pay attention to the road and keep their hands on the steering wheel while using Autopilot.
Over the past four years, 16 Autopilot-engaged Teslas have crashed into parked first-responder vehicles, resulting in 15 injuries and one death. According to forensic data, most drivers had their hands on the steering wheel before impact, in compliance with Tesla's instructions.
In this investigation, regulators will determine whether or not Tesla's Autopilot feature undermines “the effectiveness of driver’s supervision.”
“The investigation will assess the technologies and methods used to monitor, assist, and enforce the driver’s engagement with the dynamic driving task during Autopilot operation,” the NHTSA said.
This investigation affects about 830,000 Tesla vehicles which were built after 2014. Tesla launched its Autopilot feature that year and later transitioned to its own Autopilot hardware in 2016 after ending its partnership with MobileEye.
Tesla has yet to respond to the escalated investigation into its autopilot feature.
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With Q1 2025 now behind us, another round of Tesla’s Supercharger Voting has wrapped up. The previous vote took place back in December, and we now get to see which locations came out on top.
Let’s take a look at the Q1 2025 winners of the Supercharger Vote:
North America
🇺🇸 Lake Wales, FL
🇺🇸 Henderson, NV
🇺🇸 Clarksville, TN
🇺🇸 Roswell, NM
🇺🇸 Long Beach, CA
🇺🇸 Decatur, IL
🇺🇸 McAlester, OK
Europe
🇬🇧 Bournemouth, United Kingdom
🇮🇹 Bari, Italy
🇵🇱 Wrocław, Poland
🇨🇿 Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
Asia-Pacific
🇰🇷 Namyangju - South Korea
🇦🇺 Nicholls, Australia
Supercharger Voting Q2 2025
Another quarter means another round of Tesla's Supercharger Voting, giving Tesla owners the chance to influence where new Supercharger sites will be built. Following the Q1 2025 voting round, Tesla is now opening the polls for Q2 2025.
How to Vote
To participate in the Q2 2025 Supercharger Voting, visit the Tesla Supercharger Voting page and sign in to your Tesla account. You can vote for up to five different locations, with a limit of one vote per location, every three months. The most popular Superchargers are displayed on the leaderboard, and you can also suggest new locations for future voting cycles.
We’ve known for a while now that Tesla has been using a custom build of FSD to allow its newly produced vehicles at Giga Texas and Fremont to autonomously navigate themselves from the production line to the outbound delivery lot.
While we knew they were using a custom build of what was likely FSD Unsupervised, thanks to a recent post from Tesla AI on X, this has now been confirmed. Tesla has also confirmed it has accrued over 50,000 driverless miles, totalled from vehicles autonomously driving themselves to delivery lots.
Giga Texas production now uses FSD Unsupervised to deliver cars from end of line to the outbound logistics lot.
Over 50,000 driverless miles have been accrued between California and Texas factories so far pic.twitter.com/79zKY0U6Ox
For most of Tesla’s vehicles - that’s a 1.4-mile trip that is shared with pedestrians, cars, trucks, and construction equipment. You can see in the video that the Teslas are navigating public roadways and encountering real human drivers.
That’s great news, especially since many were wondering whether Tesla would secure the necessary approvals in time to launch their Robotaxi network in June.
Increased Confidence
Following Tesla’s post to X, Musk followed up by saying that when Tesla launches FSD Unsupervised soon, it will be the first time there will be a generalized, pure AI solution to autonomy. Tesla and several executives continue to post more content about autonomy and the Robotaxi network, leading us to believe they’re feeling confident in the June launch.
Model Ys autonomously navigate a 1.4 mile trip on a road shared with pedestrians, cars, semi trucks, construction equipment & more pic.twitter.com/iPx2fs78v2
Back when Tesla initially announced the autonomous travel of its vehicles from production to loading lots, they mentioned that the Cybertruck was the only vehicle at Giga Texas not receiving that same treatment.
Now, that’s changed - Cybertruck is now also navigating through the Cybertunnel to make its way from the factory directly to the loading docks, all on Unsupervised FSD. And that’s making us even more excited, especially because Tesla was supposed to launch an FSD Update for the Cybertruck a little while ago - but it hasn’t made it to production yet. This update is set to bring Start FSD from Park, as well as Actually Smart Summon - bringing the Cybertruck to feature parity with Tesla’s other AI4 vehicles.
Cybertrucks autonomously navigate a 0.6 mile route traversing beneath one of America's fastest highways, emerging through a steep 17% grade to reach their destination pic.twitter.com/3ZMYCRPhIj
Now that Tesla is confidently using a build of Unsupervised FSD to navigate the tight confines of the tunnel and park, we’re pretty sure that Tesla will likely launch the expected FSD update in the near future.
FSD Update Soon?
It’s been a while since any FSD hardware variant has received an FSD update. It appears that Tesla has been focused on Unsupervised FSD and launching FSD outside of North America.
It seems like we may get a new FSD update soon, and we don’t believe it’ll be just for the Cybertruck. Those who have the opportunity to sign up for Tesla’s new Early Access program will likely be some of the first recipients to receive the FSD update, so stay tuned.
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