The call from Laura MacCleery, CR’s VP of consumer policy and mobilisatio, . comes following a fatal crash in Florida, where Tesla’s Autopilot failed to detect a tractor-trailer in bright sunlight.
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In a separate incident, Musk said in a tweet this week that a recent crash in Pennsylvania, in which the driver said he was in Autopilot mode when he crashed, was not due to the software. Musk thinks that self-driving features are still more dependable than human drivers, who are very prone to making mistakes.
Remember, this is just Musk’s word. Its findings will be the final word on the rollover.
Tesla said that while it appreciated well-meaning advice, the company would make its decisions “on the basis of real-world data, not speculation by media”. The driver of the Tesla vehicle thought that he was driving on the Autopilot mode, as per the report from Detroit Free Press. They said that Tesla have made it sound like the feature takes over full control of the auto when this is not the case.
The US May 7 deadly accident, in which a driver lost his life while he was cruising in his Model S with the Autopilot engaged, triggered a serious debate among automotive safety experts on whether such technology can be trusted.
“Drivers supported by Autopilot remain safer than those operating without assistance”, Tesla affirms.
In February, Consumer Reports urged Tesla to change a feature within Autopilot known as Summon, which lets owners start cars and move them out of a garage or parking spot automatically using a key fob or a smartphone.
On Thursday Tesla came out with details of the logs from the Model X driven by 77-year-old Albert Scaglione, which showed the vehicle had switched off autopilot 25 seconds before the crash because Scaglione did not have his hands on the steering wheel.
The watchdog report said that the automatic steering portion of Autopilot – which steers, accelerates, and brakes Tesla vehicles automatically on lane-marked highways – should be deactivated “until it can be reprogrammed to require drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel”.
The magazine Consumer Reports states that that Tesla should block its autopilot steering technology and rebrand it. According to the same publication the name autopilot is “misleading and potentially risky”. The Wall Street Journal also reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Tesla did not announce its investors about the crash in a timely fashion.
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Thune, in the letter, says he wants to know what actions Tesla has taken and plans to take in response to the fatal crash, including the company’s efforts to “ensure the Autopilot technology was deployed safely in this instance”.
