Just three months after Tesla introduced Full Self-Driving Beta (FSD Beta) to drivers in North America, cars featuring the software have been recalled.
On Thursday morning, Tesla announced it would be recalling 362,758 vehicles equipped with its self-driving technology due to issues that “may allow the vehicle to act unsafe around intersections” thus increasing “the risk of a crash.”
They cited the software’s issues including: not fully stopping at a stop sign-controlled intersection, traveling straight through an intersection when in a turn-only lane, and not adhering to a yellow traffic signal in an intersection.
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Additionally, the FSD Beta system may not adequately respond to speed limit changes or account for a driver’s speed exceeding speed limits.
Ceratin 2016-2023 Model S, X, 3, and Y vehicles would be affected by the recall which Tesla said it will remedy by releasing an over-the-air update, free of charge.
\u201c\u201cMy guess for when we will have full autonomy is approximately three years\u201d (Elon Musk, Sep 2015)\n https://t.co/LtZNNh9dK3\u201d— Fabio Chiusi (@Fabio Chiusi) 1676571068
\u201c@DeItaone Can they self drive themselves back to the dealership?\u201d— *Walter Bloomberg (@*Walter Bloomberg) 1676569627
\u201chow is tesla able to recall every car they\u2019ve ever sold every 2 years? lmao\u201d— MLennial (@MLennial) 1676574405
\u201c@NBCNews The question is how many "crashes" did it take for them to "recall" the \u201cfull self-driving\u201d car to do a "software update"?\u201d— NBC News (@NBC News) 1676574606
\u201cBig Tesla recall. Should have stayed focused on that instead of focusing on Twitter and getting engineers to boost your results in everyone\u2019s feeds. @elonmusk\u201d— Stefan Etienne (@Stefan Etienne) 1676572875
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, responded to a tweet on Twitter diminishing the severity of the recall, saying it was more of a software update.
“Seems like there should be terminology introduced to differentiate between recalls and software updates,” Sam Korus wrote. “Because you know, one requires something to be recalled and the other doesn’t.”
Musk agreed saying, “Definitely. The word “recall” for an over-the-air software update is anachronistic and just flat wrong!”
\u201cThe guy who has falsely peddled \u201cFull Self Driving\u201d for years, now has a problem with accurately describing recalls.\u201d— Tom (@Tom) 1676577588
\u201cYou mean like the words "Full Self Driving"?\u201d— Stanphyl Capital \u274c (@Stanphyl Capital \u274c) 1676577128
Others agreed with Musk, believing the over-the-air software update did not indicate anything alarming.
\u201c@nytimes OTA update is all. Not a big deal.\u201d— The New York Times (@The New York Times) 1676572849
\u201c@nytimes Doesn\u2019t matter! @Tesla is the best vehicle I have ever driven.\u201d— The New York Times (@The New York Times) 1676572849
\u201c@AP Does Apple \u201crecall\u201d your phone when they ship a security update? No\u2026 so this isn\u2019t a recall.\u201d— The Associated Press (@The Associated Press) 1676576722
FSD Beta was first introduced to select-few Tesla owners in October 2020 and expanded its use to 100,000 by April of last year.
In November, Tesla gave any Tesla owner who purchased the FSD Beta the option to try it out which caused controversy.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation into Tesla vehicles with driver assistance systems in 2021 after a string of crashes occurred.
The NHTSA said despite the recall the investigation “remains open and active” according to Reuters.
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