I love cars. There are so many things about them that I enjoy. There’s the engineering, the speed, the looks. Now more than ever, though, what draws me to them is the tech. I love to see how technology is being incorporated in them. But when something doesn’t work, it just doesn’t work. Now Tesla has to pay for wishing it would.
Last week, Tesla announced that it will have to recall over 2 million of their vehicles. This is following a two-year investigation into Autopilot safety concerns by the National HIghway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The fix will be issued via a free over-the-air (OTA) update. Instead of outright removing the feature, the EV company will just make sure drivers are REALLY paying attention when using Autopilot. The issue affects every car made since Autopilot was introduced in 2015. This includes:
- Tesla Model S
- Tesla Model 3
- Tesla Model X
- Tesla Model Y
The remedy will incorporate additional controls and alerts to those already existing on affected vehicles to further encourage the driver to adhere to their continuous driving responsibility whenever Autosteer is engaged.
In certain circumstances when Autosteer is engaged, the prominence and scope of the feature’s controls may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse of the SAE Level 2 advanced driver-assistance feature.”
NHTSA statement
Look, I love cars and I love technology. But when an over-the-air update is needed to keep my car from killing me, maybe we’ve gone to far. Besides, most of this tech is beta software and, while I use betas as daily drivers, I’m not using beta software on the thing I drive daily.
Source: Engadget
