Musk humiliated as 54,000 self-driving Tesla vehicles recalled over safety fears

Construction of a Tesla Megapack in West Sussex

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Alarms were raised when the company’s “Full Self-Driving” software installed in cars and SUVs reportedly resulted in “rolling stops”.  This meant that the vehicles could roll past intersections wihtout coming to a complete halt, sending fears of safety risks soaring. Now, a number of vehicle models have been recalled.  These include the Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Model Y vehicles, according to regulator The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The feature, also known as FSD Beta, is said to let the vehicles travel through an all-way stop intersection at 5.6 miles an hour without coming to a halt first.

Now, mulit-billionare Mr Musk’s company is poised to update the software in order disable the “rolling stop” functionality, the NHTSA said.

It comes just a week after Tesla announced that it boosted the number of FSD beta vehicles in the US to almost 60,000.

At the end of September, there were only a few thousand vehicles with the software in the country, according to Tesla.

 

The company is said to have been testing an improved version of its automated driving software on public roads.

But Tesla and the regulator have said these exciting features do not allow the vehicles to qualify as autonomous.

And while the software has been dubbed unsafe, so far Tesla has not been made aware of any crashes or injuries caused by feature.

This is a breaking story. More to follow.

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