The U.S. government’s road safety agency is again investigating Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” system, this time after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says in documents that it opened the probe on Thursday with the company reporting four crashes after Teslas entered areas of low visibility, including sun glare, fog and airborne dust.
In addition to the pedestrian’s death, another crash involved an injury, the agency said.
Investigators will look into the ability of “Full Self-Driving” to “detect and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions, and if so, the contributing circumstances for these crashes.”
That’s pretty clearly just a disclaimer meant to shield them from legal repercussions. They know people aren’t going to do that.
Last time I checked that disclaimer was there because officially Teslas are SAE level 2, which let’s them evade regulations that higher SAE levels have, and in practice Tesla FSD beta is SAE level 4.
In theory this is pure bull, and in practice it is level 4 bull.