U.S. safety regulators have called for a series of recalls over Tesla in the past six months, with Tesla forced to comply with certain standards amidst the rollout of its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta systems.
Upon the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA’s) early encounter with Musk in 2016, following a fatal tractor-trailer crash involving Autopilot, Musk was quick to protest, according to The Washington Post.
However, the regulator waited until “tempers were a little bit cool” to speak with Musk, and he was eventually forced to cooperate.
NHTSA Launches Probe into Tesla ‘Phantom Braking’ https://t.co/t2lxHmOQul
— TeslaNorth.com (@RealTeslaNorth) February 17, 2022
Still, Tesla seems to have understood its need to follow federal safety standards since then, a wise move considering there aren’t many other options.
Associate Professor in federal auto regulations at Carnegie Mellon University Phil Koopman said, “Tesla is presumably smart enough to realize when they don’t have the upper hand anymore.” Koopman continued, “Tesla has a choice to make — they have to decide whether to cave or go to the mat. And the reality is, on [federal safety regulations] they’re going to lose.”
Following a series of Autopilot accidents with first responders, Tesla released a software update to make vehicles slow down around emergency lights.
However, the NHTSA followed up saying it wasn’t enough to just provide an over-the-air (OTA) update — Tesla needed to file a recall notice.
“Tesla and Musk did not respond to specific questions in a detailed request for comment. Musk said in an email, “For the 100th time, please give my regards to your puppetmaster,” referring to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post. In a subsequent email, he also criticized the Post’s paywall for online articles,” wrote the Post.
Musk shot back on Twitter, saying the Post “decided to editorialize” his quote. Here’s what I actually said, explained the Tesla CEO: “The Washington Post should change its tagline to “democracy dies behind our paywall”. If you’re so concerned about democracy, stop forcing people to pay for (allegedly) important news! Your boss Besos can certainly afford it, even after buying a support yacht for his yacht.”
Ah yes, I see they decided to editorialize. Here’s what I actually said: pic.twitter.com/EPqtX7DLyl
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 28, 2022
Last week, the NHTSA had Tesla issue a recall over rearview camera images not showing up immediately when reversing.
