The agency is charged with investigating crashes and making recommendations on how to improve safety. It has no authority to implement changes. That belongs to the U.S. Department of Transportation and NHTSA, which have not yet seen fit to mandate any of the changes the NTSB has suggested for not just Autopilot, but all driver-assist systems.
“This is NTSB crying out for NHTSA to do something, and it seems to be availing itself of the only real mechanism it has to do that, which is to publish detailed reports that lead technical experts to understand what is rather obvious: Which is that there’s a problem here,” said Jason Levine, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety.
NHTSA may be well aware of that possibility. The regulatory agency launched its own probe into the first fatal crash involving Autopilot, which occurred in May 2016, when Josh Brown drove his Tesla Model S beneath a tractor-trailer that crossed his path along a Florida highway.
Ultimately, the agency determined the system had operated within its intended design domain. That is, because it was not designed to sense a truck crossing its path, no defect existed. Tesla CEO Elon Musk took that conclusion as a full-blown exoneration of the system. In retrospect, that seems premature.
Driver inattention and overreliance on vehicle automation are probable causes of these crashes, the NTSB has found. But the agency also says Autopilot is part of the problem: By design, it permits drivers to disengage from the driving task.
Investigations are mounting as the death toll rises. The NTSB is investigating a deadly 2019 crash in Delray Beach, Fla., with near-identical circumstances to the 2016 crash. Meanwhile, NHTSA’s Special Crash Investigations division has made 14 separate probes of Autopilot, including two ongoing examinations of separate fatal crashes that occurred Dec. 29, 2019.
Tesla did not return a request for comment last week.
