Tesla's latest crash highlights regulatory and legal challenges

Regulators and consumers are ramping up scrutiny of Tesla Inc.'s driver-assist technology following a fatal crash in California earlier this month, piling on to existing investigations and lawsuits for the automaker.

It's not clear if the collision with a Contra Costa County fire truck on Feb. 18 involved the company's advanced driver assistance systems, but the case echoes others in which Tesla drivers using driver-assist technology crashed into emergency vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating that issue, said Philip Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor and self-driving car researcher.

"They verified that quite a few of these crashes involve Autopilot being on, and we know that driver complacency is a problem with the technology," he said. "Here's yet another crash that has all the earmarks — the fingerprints — of the previous crashes that are subject to investigation."

The NHTSA investigation is one of many probes — both legal and regulatory — seeking more information about the safety of Tesla's automated features.

Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.

NHTSA has launched at least 13 Tesla defect investigations since 2013, including seven that either resulted in safety recall actions or that remain open. NHTSA declined to discuss the probes.

Several investigations are related to Tesla's Autopilot technology. The investigation Koopman referenced "was motivated by an accumulation of crashes in which Tesla vehicles, operating with Autopilot engaged, struck stationary in-road or roadside first responder vehicles tending to pre-existing collision scenes," said NHTSA in a summary of the investigation.

A February 2022 investigation that remains open is examining "unexpected brake activation." NHTSA said prior to opening the complaint, it had received 354 complaints over nine months, with consumers describing that "rapid deceleration can occur without warning, at random, and often repeatedly in a single drive cycle."

Earlier this month, Tesla recalled 363,000 vehicles equipped with or pending installation of its Full Self-Driving beta software because of an increased risk of crash. The recall covers certain 2016-23 Model S and Model X electric vehicles as well as certain 2017-23 Model 3 and 2020-23 Model Y vehicles.

NHTSA has also conducted nearly 40 special crash investigations involving Teslas, according to agency data.

Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Board issued nine safety recommendations in 2020 after a fatal crash two years prior in Mountain View, Calif.

The NTSB blamed Tesla's Autopilot feature, the driver's "overreliance" on Autopilot and the driver's distraction for the crash, adding that the Tesla did not provide an alert, and automatic braking did not engage before the collision.

The agency also determined that a 2019 crash in Florida was probably caused by "the operational design of Tesla's partial automation system, which permitted disengagement by the driver" and the "company's failure to limit the use of the system to the conditions for which it was designed," among other factors.

Not all of the NTSB's investigations have found Tesla's technology culpable for accidents. The NTSB completed an investigation into a fatal Tesla crash in Spring, Texas, in 2021, determining that the Autopilot feature did not factor in the crash.

Finally, Tesla acknowledged in a 2023 Securities and Exchange Commission filing that "the company has received requests from the Department of Justice for documents related to Tesla's Autopilot and [Full Self-Driving] features." The nature of the documents is not clear, but the DOJ has examined Tesla's misstatements in the past.

The state of California is also looking into Tesla, though the allegations primarily contain consumer-protection issues rather than safety concerns.

California's Department of Motor Vehicles filed two complaints with the Office of Administrative hearings after a yearlong investigation in 2022. In one action, the department alleges that Tesla made "untrue," "misleading" and "deceptive" claims in marketing of its autopilot and Full Self-Driving technology.

That case remains in discovery, and the California DMV declined to comment.

Tesla is also facing multiple lawsuits — more than 50 open cases in federal court alone — including some related to the Autopilot feature and safety.

In one suit, a driver claims he faced a severe head injury, unconsciousness and vision loss as a result of a crash he blames on the failure of the automatic braking system.

In another, a driver said she suffered a fractured spine as a result of "uncommanded full power acceleration" into several parked cars.

One class-action suit claims that drivers experienced "cars failing to make routine turns, running red lights, and steering directly into large objects and oncoming traffic."

Tesla drivers "effectively act as untrained test engineers testing experimental software on public roadways," according to the complaint.

Correction: Tesla recalled 130,000 vehicles in the U.S. last year because the infotainment central processing unit might overheat during fast charging, causing the center display to lag or appear blank. An earlier version of this article misstated the reason for the recall.