Tesla has announced it is temporarily stopping the rollout of its Full Self-Driving Beta (FSD Beta) software in the United States and Canada until a firmware update can be issued. This comes after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said the EV maker’s driver assistance system could cause crashes when in operation and ordered Tesla to issue a recall.
“The FSD Beta system may allow the vehicle to act unsafe around intersections, such as traveling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane, entering a stop sign-controlled intersection without coming to a complete stop, or proceeding into an intersection during a steady yellow traffic signal without due caution,” the NHTSA wrote in its recall announcement.
“In addition, the system may respond insufficiently to changes in posted speed limits or not adequately account for the driver’s adjustment of the vehicle’s speed to exceed posted speed limits,” it continued.
The recall (23V-085) affects 362,758 units of the Model S, Model X, Model Y and Model 3 produced between July 16, 2017, and January 18, 2023. Recalled vehicles either have software version installed that contains the ‘Autosteer on city streets’ feature or have that software pending installation.
Tesla says that as of February 14, 2023, it has identified 18 warranty claims received between May 8, 2019 and September 12, 2022 related to its FSD Beta software. It added that it was not aware of any injuries or deaths that may be related to conditions mentioned above.
Despite the marketing, FSD Beta is still only a SAE Level 2 driver support feature that can provide steering and braking/acceleration support to the driver under certain operating conditions. “With FSD Beta, as with all SAE Level 2 driver support features, the driver is responsible for operation of the vehicle whenever the feature is engaged and must constantly supervise the feature and intervene as needed to maintain safe operation of the vehicle,” the carmaker said in its support page.
It added that when the feature is engaged, it could potentially infringe upon local traffic laws or customs while executing these driving maneuvers in specific conditions before the driver may intervene. Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system is not affected by the recall.
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“FSD is a USD 15,000 feature and has more than 285,000 paid users as of December 2022.
However, FSD is still in Beta testing stage, which means that Tesla makes it very clear that there are still bugs to be worked out, and drivers who sign up for the feature has agreed to not complain but help Tesla improve the feature. This also means that 285,000 Tesla owner paid the equivalent of a new Nissan Almera (Versa) in USA so they can use a flawed feature.”
Now sold to 363,000 users already? Alamak, now recalled for this flawed feature?
Self-driving software with Beta status? Where lives are endangered? The Yankees are funny ..
When officially coming here?
All vehicle autonomous systems should be able to share their sensing and movements data between vehicles. This way, everything on the road can be better tracked, but I guess there are issues with privacy and security.
They should also install some device on the side of the highways (like that prism thing contractors used to measure accurate distances) that can aid autonomous systems in high-speed environment. I think this is like geofencing for level 4?