Tesla has sent letters to two U.S. senators detailing its Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver assistance system and assurances that it is completely safe. Earlier, senators urged regulators to take "tough action" on Tesla.
“Tesla Autopilot and FSD features enable our customers to drive safer than the average U.S. driver,” Rohan Patel, Tesla’s senior director of public policy, wrote in a letter to U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Ed Markey. Last month, they raised "serious concerns" about Tesla's Autopilot and urged federal regulators to crack down on the company to prevent further abuse of driver-assistance features.
Patel describes autopilot and FSD as systems "that require constant control and attention from the driver." These functions are “capable of performing some, but not all, driving tasks that can be performed by human drivers,” he notes.
In a recent Tesla financial report, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that by the end of 2022, FSD will be safer than driving on your own. Patel insists Tesla's Autopilot is already safer than a human driver.
“For example, in the fourth quarter of 2021, Tesla recorded one accident for every 6.9 million km using the FSD system, while, according to NHTSA, an accident occurs every 640 thousand km when a person is driving.”
Patel also recalled that FSD uses steering wheel sensors and (in some Model 3 and Model Y) cameras in the cabin to monitor the driver's attention. What he fails to mention, however, is that regulators have been asking the company for years to implement improved driver monitoring systems in their cars that work by tracking the driver's gaze. Elon Musk has said that such systems are "inefficient".
Patel's letter failed to allay Blumenthal's and Mark's concerns about the safety of the FSD Tesla.
“This is just another Tesla evasion,” the senators said. “Despite worrying safety incidents and fatal crashes, the company appears to want to continue doing business as usual. Tesla has long received our demand: obey the law and prioritize safety.”
bbabo.Net