During the Q3 2021 earnings call, Tesla executives emphasized that the company welcomes the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and other institutions to its driver-assistance system Autopilot, fully automatic The driving software FSD conducts a safety review.
NHTSA is currently investigating more than a dozen accidents involving autopilot-activated Tesla vehicles hitting stationary emergency vehicles. Since then, Tesla has made many safety improvements to Autopilot, such as its ability to slow down and alert the driver when an emergency vehicle is detected. However, these measures by Tesla did not seem to satisfy NHTSA. The agency has sent a letter asking why Tesla did not issue a recall notice as required when releasing Autopilot’s free over-the-air software update.
On the earnings call, when asked how it plans to respond to the increasingly stringent scrutiny of security agencies, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, Lars Moravy, said that the company will fully cooperate. Regulatory agencies are welcome to review the safety of its products such as Autopilot and FSD.
Moravi said: For many years, we have been in contact with NHTSA and other regulators around the world, sharing our knowledge, and cooperating with them on our approach to proactively and passively ensuring safety. Regulatory investigations have been Investigations are being carried out, especially on technologies that are at the forefront of development such as FSD.
Moravi continued: During these investigations, my team, including myself, always cooperated as much as possible. We look forward to and accept the review of these products. We must know their true performance and our product innovation. Ultimately is the most important. Finally, as I said before, we put safety first in all designs. This is because our main motivation comes from an excellent team of engineers, the software they design and Hardware can save lives and prevent injuries.
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Tesla’s chief financial officer Zachary Kirkhorn added that safety is a top priority for the company. He pointed out that although the review does cause concern, Tesla is still very happy to cooperate with institutions such as NHTSA. This is because in the final analysis, keeping the vehicle as safe as possible is the right approach.
Kirkhorn said: Safety is extremely important to Tesla, and this is the right approach. If you look at the various independent and regulatory tests of our products, you can see our talented engineers in these test results. The results of our efforts. Moreover, we are developing safety-oriented software around automobiles, with the goal of continuing to surpass the safety protection that hardware can provide.
Kirkhorn also said: If you can prevent crashes, that’s the safest way to manage them. I think at a macro level, we see the automotive industry undergoing a transformation, shifting from the traditional cars we know to more More computers, software controls, and sensor kits can take over more and more drivers’ work. It is understandable that regulators are interested in understanding how to supervise in this environment, and NHTSA is no exception.
Kirkhorn concluded: We are very happy to be a partner, and we will work with all regulatory agencies that want to cooperate to embark on the transition to a software-oriented tool.