If Tesla fails to submit data on the vehicles involved in an emergency vehicle collision to regulators, the San Diego, California-based electric car manufacturer will face the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) fine.
NHTSA stated in a letter that Tesla must hand over detailed information about the company’s vehicles and software systems because it is related to 12 accidents involving emergency response vehicles that have occurred in the past three and a half years.
The relevant survey covers 756,000 vehicles produced from 2014 to 2021, including detailed information on a large number of vehicles manufactured in the past seven years, such as model, year, software, date of manufacture, warranty, and the number of miles required to enable FSD auto-assisted driving, And the latest software and hardware update date.
The Associated Press added that NHTSA also requires the company to disclose all customer complaints, litigation, arbitration, on-site reports, and other details. The latest content involved also includes an accident that occurred in Orlando, Florida last weekend.
In this accident, a Tesla crashed into a vehicle driven by a state police officer. At the time, the police officer was providing assistance to a vehicle driven by a disabled person. According to the official pictures on the scene, the police car suffered a serious collision on the left side. The police officer himself was fortunately not injured, but the driver of the handicapped vehicle was unfortunately slightly injured.
The most puzzling thing is that the police car was parked on the side of the road when the incident occurred, and the police lights on the car were also in a flashing state. In order to understand the cause of the accident, NHTSA also required Tesla to disclose the specific details of communication with customers and asked the company to introduce to customers the wording of the AutoPilot system, the maximum control that the software can exert on the vehicle, and whether the driver is about to be involved in a collision. The reminder was received normally.
Obviously, NHTSA would like to know whether the vehicle involved has detected the presence of a police car and the recognition status of the current road. After all, for normal drivers, they should clearly see the reflective vests, lights, and cones on police officers, but the on-board system may not be able to effectively identify them in low-light environments.
Finally, NHTSA requires Tesla to submit copies of confidential data to multiple departments or apply for an extension before October 22, 2021, otherwise, it will be fined more than 114 million U.S. dollars.
