Federal authorities intensify investigation into Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software

The top US auto safety regulator is continuing its investigation into the performance of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) driving software in low visibility conditions.

Office of Injury Investigation (ODI) of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration he said on Thursday that it has upgraded the probe that launched in October 2024 to what is known as a “mechanical analysis,” the highest level of control. It’s a step often required before the agency tells a company to issue a recall.

This is one of two investigations ODI is conducting into Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software. The regulator is also investigating more than 80 cases in which Tesla’s driver assistance software has broken basic traffic safety laws, such as running red lights. The investigations come as Tesla has spent months trying to get a robotaxi service off the ground in Austin, Texas.

The ODI opened this investigation after four reported accidents in low visibility conditions, one of which involved the death of a pedestrian. The regulator has spent the past year and a half sharing information with Tesla and appears to have identified a handful more incidents where the company’s driving software proved inadequate in low-visibility settings.

ODI also said Thursday that it has not received all the information it wants from Tesla in this process. The investigative bureau wrote that while Tesla began “developing an update” to fix the low-visibility issues in June 2024 — before the investigation even opened — the company has not yet told the ODI whether that fix had been deployed or which vehicles received it.

ODI also believes there could be underreporting of similar accidents due to data collection and labeling limitations Tesla reported to the safety agency.

“In the crashes ODI reviewed, the system did not detect common roadway conditions that impaired camera visibility and/or provide alerts when camera performance had deteriorated until immediately before the crash occurred,” the agency wrote. “Review of Tesla’s responses revealed additional accidents that occurred in similar environments and where the system either did not detect a degraded condition and/or did not present the driver with an alert with sufficient time for the driver to react.