The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit to investigate allegations that Tesla did not timely report crashes involving Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems. Automakers must report crashes involving autonomous or advanced driver assistance systems within five days of notification, and the regulator alleged Tesla submitted reports months later, sometimes in batches. Preliminary engagement indicated the delays stemmed from a Tesla data-collection issue that Tesla says has been fixed. NHTSA will evaluate the cause, scope, and mitigations. Advocacy groups noted Tesla's public crash-counting counts only airbag-deployment crashes with Autopilot engaged within five seconds.
"Preliminary engagement between [Office of Defects Investigation] and Tesla on the issue indicates that the timing of the reports was due to an issue with Tesla's data collection, which, according to Tesla, has now been fixed," according to the NHTSA's notice. "NHTSA is opening this Audit Query, a standard process for reviewing compliance with legal requirements, to evaluate the cause of the potential delays in reporting, the scope of any such delays, and the mitigations that Tesla has developed to address them."
In the probe notice, the NHTSA said that car companies are required to report crashes involving autonomous or advanced driver assistance systems within five days of being notified of them. The regulator alleged that Tesla submitted reports months after the incident, sometimes in batches or on a rolling basis.
Dan O'Dowd, founder of The Dawn Project, a tech safety advocacy group, pointed out to Business Insider that according to Tesla's crash-counting methodology listed on its website, the company only counts crashes involving airbag deployments and if Autopilot was engaged within five seconds before the crash.
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