US auto safety regulators have begun a major investigation into nearly 2.9 million Tesla vehicles over concerns that the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system may be breaking traffic laws and behaving unsafely on public roads. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that it is examining whether Elon Musk-owned Tesla vehicles using FSD have performed illegal and dangerous driving actions like running red lights, making sudden or improper lane changes, or driving in the wrong direction. Importantly, the review covers almost every Tesla model equipped with the FSD feature in the United States, making it one of the most extensive federal safety probes ever launched into a driver-assistance system.
According to the NHTSA, in several incidents, the vehicles were involved in collisions, some of which resulted in injuries. The agency’s early findings point to at least a dozen crashes linked to such behaviour, including several where cars entered intersections against a red signal and struck other vehicles. There have been claims that the vehicles sometimes fail to recognize crossing gates or warning lights. Investigators also plan to review the company’s data logs, software design, and testing methods to determine whether the FSD feature has a consistent pattern of traffic violations.
Notably, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving technology is marketed as a step toward autonomous driving, but it does not make the car fully self-driving. Instead, it is an advanced driver-assistance system designed to navigate city streets, detect traffic signals, and handle lane changes while requiring the driver to remain alert and ready to intervene at any time. Therefore, the EV giant has long faced criticism for the way it promotes its ‘Full Self-Driving’ system, with many arguing that the name and marketing give drivers a false sense of confidence in the technology’s abilities.
Tesla has not issued an official comment on the latest investigation. The company has previously defended the safety of its FSD and Autopilot systems, saying that internal data shows fewer crashes per mile when the features are in use compared to when human drivers are fully in control.
However, this is not the first time NHTSA has investigated Tesla’s driver-assistance technology. The agency previously examined the company’s Autopilot feature after a series of crashes involving emergency vehicles parked on roadsides. That earlier investigation led to a recall and a software update covering more than 2 million Tesla cars. But the latest probe focuses specifically on FSD, which is a more advanced and experimental version of Autopilot.
Last month, the US NHTSA also initiated a preliminary investigation into 174,000 Tesla Model Y cars from 2021 because of reported problems with their electronic door handles. The timing of all these developments becomes more critical, as the EV giant was recently sued by the family of a teenager who was killed in a crash involving the Cybertruck’s door design.
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