Federal security investigators sent to Tesla a detailed list of questions about his next robotaxi service as part of an investigation on how the “autonomous (supervised)” software “of the company operates in low visibility conditions.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Investigation defects office wants the additional information on full guide (supervised) -o “FSD”-to the aim of “understanding how Tesla plans to evaluate its vehicles and guide automation technologies to be used on public roads”, according to the letter published on Monday and reported for the first time by Reuters.
Tesla was not quiet on the plans for the launch of a paid robotaxi service for a fee paid in Austin, Texas, using their fleet vehicles next June. But it seems that the post of April 23 of Tesla on X caught the attention of the federal regulators.
That post, which is mentioned in the letter, reads: “The racing cage service supervised by FSD is live for a first series of employees in the Bay Area of Austin & San Francisco. We have completed over 1.5k travel and 15k driving miles. This service helps us to develop and validate FSD networks, the mobile app, the allocation of vehicles, the control of the mission and the remote assistance operations.”
NHTSA has opened her investigations on the software “Autoning Driving (supervised)” of Tesla in October after four have been reported crashes in low visibility situations. Tesla’s FSD software is an advanced driver assistance system that requires the driver to keep his hands on the steering wheel even if he manages some of the driving operations as a braking and steering in certain environments and conditions.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said that Robotaxis will use the “supervision” version of its autonomous driving software.
In his letter of May, the agency sent a series of questions to Tesla aimed at determining whether the automated driving system in its planned robotass is the same – or similar – to supervised FSD. The agency has asked for details on the size of the fleet and which vehicles of vehicles will be used in the Robotaxi service, as Tesla plans to determine if its robotaxi system is safe and if the automated driving system has any relationship with its supervised FSD product.
Investigators also asked Tesla to describe how “he intends to guarantee the safety of his robotaxi operations in conditions of visibility of the reduced roads, such as glow of the sun, fog, aerial powder, rain or snow”.
