Tesla is recalling more than 2 million cars with an over-the-air software update.
Over 2 million vehicles are being recalled, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Wednesday.
This news comes as a result of the NHTSA’s two-year investigation into Tesla.
An agency spokesperson told Business Insider the investigation will remain open as it continues to monitor “the efficacy of Tesla’s remedies.”
This recall marks the second time this year Tesla has been forced to recall vehicles for Autopilot issues.
This time around, the recall is because the Autopilot system doesn’t do enough to prevent drivers from misusing it.
The investigation has seen the NHTSA review 956 crashes in which Autopilot was believed to be in use.
“Automated technology holds great promise for improving safety but only when it is deployed responsibly,” an NHTSA spokesperson said.
They continued, “Today’s action is an example of improving automated systems by prioritizing safety.”
Tesla is set to release a free software update to its 2012-2023 Model S; 2016-2023 Model X; 2017-2023 Model 3; and 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles equipped with all versions of Autosteer.
This feature is part of Tesla’s basic Autopilot package, which requires drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel so they are prepared to take action.
Unfortunately, the recall notes that the current Autopilot controls may not be adequate to stop drivers from misusing this, meaning those using the feature may not be paying attention as intended.
“Specifically, the investigation found that Tesla’s unique design of its Autopilot system can provide inadequate driver engagement and usage controls that can lead to foreseeable misuse of the system,” the NHTSA spokesperson said.
This marks the second recall this year for Tesla’s automated driving features, which have been involved in hundreds of crashes.
Not only that, it was revealed earlier this year that 95 Tesla fatalities have involved fires or Autopilot.
That number also comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who determined a total of 393 people have died in incidents involving a Tesla.
That figure largely consists of pileups, DUIs, medical emergencies, and other collisions that could’ve occurred in any Tesla models.
But, as many as 95 people have died in Teslas that either caught fire or were using the Autopilot feature, according to reports collated by the online database.
That means that almost 1 in every 4 deaths involving Elon Musk’s EV brand happened due to a fire or Autopilot error.
Based on an analysis of NHTSA data from 2019, the Washington Post reported that in a total of 736 crashes involving Tesla’s autopilot feature, 17 people died.
The first known fatality linked to a self-driving car took place in 2016, when a Tesla Model S failed to stop and crashed into a semitrailer truck.
In a 2019 incident in Indiana, a 23-year-old woman was killed after her husband’s Tesla crashed into a parked firetruck.
For that accident, however, the NHTSA has not confirmed whether it was using both Autopilot and Traffic-Aware Cruise Control or just the latter.
In Norway in 2020, a man was killed by a Tesla while standing next to his truck.
In 2022, an NHTSA report said the autopilot on a Tesla Model 3 in Colorado mistakenly drove the car off the road and into a tree before catching fire.
Sadly, Autopilot-involved crashes have risen dramatically in recent years, with a whopping 75% of the 35 deaths occurring since 2020.
This rise in Autopilot-related incidents appears to be since Tesla’s FSD beta feature rollout was rapidly expanded.
The company said at the end of last year that the Tesla feature is used in 400,000 vehicles, compared with just 12,000 over a year earlier.
While Tesla always seems to be in the headlines for accidents, statistics released by the company suggest that their cars are much safer than the average vehicle in the US.
In the fourth quarter of 2022, Tesla said its cars using Autopilot recorded were involved in one crash per every 4.85 million miles — or 0.2 crashes per million miles.
That statistic is compared with around 0.7 crashes per million miles for Teslas not using Autopilot, and a US average of 1.5 crashes per million miles.
The company has not yet released any figures for deaths per million miles, or the total number of miles driven.
Back in February, Tesla issued a recall for more than 360,000 cars over concerns that its Full Self-Driving software may cause vehicles to act “unsafe” around intersections.
Now that they’ve issued their second recall this year for the same issue, we can only hope that the vehicles are actually getting safer.