Aug. 22, 2022—The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is demanding a response from Tesla in regards to safety surrounding the automaker's in-car camera.
According to Yahoo! News, this request is part of probe into 830,000 Tesla vehicles that use Autopilot. Autopilot is Tesla's advanced driver assistance system. Last Thursday, the NHTSA asked Tesla to answer questions regarding the in-car cabin camera.
The camera-based driver monitoring system was introduced by Tesla last May. Autopilot has received heightened attention by the NHTSA thanks in part to over a dozen crashes involving the ADAS system during which Tesla EVs crashed into emergency vehicles.
NHTSA wants Tesla to respond by Sept. 19 to topics that include the role of in-car cabin cameras and how the automaker created the system that enforces driver engagement as well as attentiveness. NHTSA also wants Tesla to identify lawsuits regarding crashes involving Autopilot in the United States, and go through how Tesla processes vehicle safety reports.
The deadline for Tesla to send information to the NHTSA is Oct. 12. NHTSA wants this information to include the duration of Autopilot engagement, driver behavior prior to the crash in question, and road class information on impact as well as system behavior before impact.
Read the full 9-page letter from NHTSA to Tesla here.
