Tesla and NHTSA have cut a deal in the multi-year Autopilot investigation, leading to a recall outcome. Tesla will strengthen Autopilot driver monitoring to (we hope) mitigate misuse that has been leading to injuries and fatalities. The remedy was released starting December 7th, but the recall notice just came out.
Key quote from Part 573 Safety Recall Report 23V-838 (
https://lnkd.in/dRiyFQr9):
"The remedy will incorporate additional controls and alerts to those already existing on affected vehicles to further encourage the driver to adhere to their continuous driving responsibility whenever Autosteer is engaged, which includes keeping their hands on the steering wheel and paying attention to the roadway. Depending on vehicle hardware, the additional controls will include, among others, increasing the prominence of visual alerts on the user interface, simplifying engagement and disengagement of Autosteer, additional checks upon engaging Autosteer and while using the feature outside controlled access highways and when approaching traffic controls, and eventual suspension from Autosteer use if the driver repeatedly fails to demonstrate continuous and sustained driving responsibility while the feature is engaged"
Releasing an OTA update remedy is good to see. Also good is a mention of some sort of geofencing to limit feature activation locations.
Notably missing is retrofitting older vehicles with effective driver monitoring cameras (some don't have cameras at all; many do not have cameras that are effective at night). None of this negates the harm that has been done by the previous, less capable driver monitoring/alert features since the investigation started in August 2021 (and even before that, since the investigation was opened in response to numerous mishaps).
Clearly some of a software update-based recall is going to be a bandaid due to the lack of essential driver monitoring hardware on many of the vehicles. But geofencing is something they should be able to do rigorously that yields a lot of improvement. Hopefully this is a good faith improvement instead of incremental response that their wording suggests and that we've seen in other instances. It remains to be seen where this will fall on the spectrum between recall theater and effective safety improvement. A better sign would be a clear commitment from Tesla to adopt night-capable purpose-built driver monitoring cameras in all new cars (installed where they can see the driver's eyes for gaze tracking), with refits available for older cars that still have substantive life remaining.
Well that, and stopping irresponsible safety-relevant road testing with civilian retail customers instead of trained test drivers. But that's a whole different problem.
(From a LinkedIn post)
Your 'standard' is how you drive alone, not how you drive during a test.
