Tesla Tops NHTSA's List Of Crashes Involving Autonomous Driving

(RTTNews) - One of the front-runners of the EV revolution, Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) is facing more criticism about its driver-assist technology as the company ranked highest in the list of crashes involving self-driving technology released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Of the 392 crashes recorded by the agency, 273 are attributed to Elon Musk's company.

The report contains data between July 1 last year and May 15. Among the 392 crashes, six turned out to be fatal while five people suffered serious injuries. Tesla also leads the column of fatalities as five of the six, who lost their lives, were involved in Tesla crashes. Among other culprits, Honda's "Honda Sensing" was in 90 crashes, Subaru reported 10 crashes, Ford was involved in 5, and German automaker BMW was involved in 3.

Last June, the NHTSA asked companies that build cars with the Advanced Driver-assist System or ADAS, to report every crash. Companies like GM, Ford, and Tesla are the most vocal about the usage of autonomous driving.

However, the agency has also added that this report may not show the full picture as it leaves a lot of issues out of consideration. It is a fact that some companies get to know about their cars getting into a crash through the software while in other cases, it is completely dependent on individuals reporting the crash. But it is beyond any argument that Tesla's FSD system is the most troubled among all the manufacturers. The agency wants to publish a monthly report from now on to grow consciousness around futuristic tech. "We launched this effort because we want, we expect, actually, we need safety to be built at every stage of a vehicle's development," Steven Cliff, chief administrator at NHTSA.

The NHTSA's row with Tesla started before the watchdog issued the statement. Last April, Two people were killed after a driverless Tesla crashed into a tree in Houston, Texas. Later in the year, the Office of Defects Investigation reported 11 crashes where the car has required the assistance of first responders and "subsequently struck one or more vehicles

involved with those scenes". According to the agency, most of the incidents have taken place in low visibility situations while the drivers were using the Autopilot or Traffic-Aware Cruise Control. "Most incidents took place after dark and the crash scenes encountered included scene control measures such as first responder vehicle lights, flares, an illuminated arrow board, and road cones. The involved subject vehicles were all confirmed to have been engaged in either Autopilot or Traffic-Aware Cruise Control during the approach to the crashes," read the report.