The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has launched an investigation into Tesla's Autopilot. Eleven crashes with parked first aid vehicles have resulted in 17 injuries and one death since 2018.
Most of the events have taken place after dark. The crash scenes have included control measures such as first aid cars with blue lights, luminous directional arrows and mounted cones. The vehicles involved are all confirmed to have activated either Autopilot or Traffic Aware Cruise Control.
The investigation will also assess OEDR for vehicles in Autopilot mode and ODD where Autopilot mode is functional. It will also investigate contributing circumstances and similar accidents.
Tesla recently rolled out a beta of the Level 2 Autopilot that is claimed to have full self-driving capability. By releasing the system, Tesla uses the public road to experiment under limited supervision and reporting requirements.