Tesla’s ‘Autopilot’ Recall Fix Includes Suspending Drivers Who Abuse The System

To the surprise of no one who’s paying attention, Tesla is going to have to initiate an over-the-air update to more than 2 million of its vehicles to address concerns over its “Autopilot” system. Specifically, federal safety regulators are worried it’s too easy to abuse.

I wish Jason were here to take this one because he’s the best at describing the faults with Tesla’s thinking — faults that are more marketing than technology-related, but I’ll do my best for this installment of The Morning Dump.

While we’re talking about Tesla, did you know that more than 40% of all luxury cars sold in the United States are EVs or some kind of hybrid? That seems like a big deal. Also a big deal is that the COP28 meeting on global warming has some kind of agreement.

And, finally, the Feds are letting Jeep off the hook for Compasses that are randomly shutting off.

Tesla’s Big Autopilot Recall

I’m going to note right off the bat that Tesla is only recalling its cars after a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation determined that “[i]n certain circumstances when Autosteer is engaged, and the driver does not maintain responsibility for vehicle operation and is unprepared to intervene as necessary or fails to recognize when Autosteer is canceled or not engaged, there may be an increased risk of a crash.”

Specifically, NHTSA stated that the agency believes it’s too easy to use “Autopilot” as if the car were a self-driving car and not a regular car with SAE Level 2 advanced driver-assistance feature, which it is.

As an SAE Level 2 system, Autopilot can assist “in steering within a clearly marked lane, and uses traffic-aware cruise control” to match the speed of surrounding cars. This is a great feature and, while I agree with Consumer Reports that GM’s SuperCruise is better (and better named), these systems aren’t designed to entirely replace the driver.

Tesla’s response to NHTSA’s investigation was to say it didn’t concur with the agency’s analysis but, to resolve the investigation, it would implement an over-the-air software update.

What’s that update do?

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, which includes keeping their hands on the steering wheel and paying attention to the roadway. Depending on vehicle hardware, the additional controls will include, among others, increasing the prominence of visual alerts on the user interface, simplifying engagement and disengagement of Autosteer, additional checks upon engaging Autosteer and while using the feature outside controlled access highways and when approaching traffic controls, and eventual suspension from Autosteer use if the driver repeatedly fails to demonstrate continuous and sustained driving responsibility while the feature is engaged.

In some ways, it’s a lot more nagging, but the eventual suspension from Autosteer (underlined by moi) is interesting. This system already exists within Tesla’s Full Self-Driving beta (also not really full self-driving) and the consensus seems to be that the bans are 1-2 weeks long, though it’s not yet clear how long there will be for Autopilot. My guess is we’ll find out soon.

Here are two reactions from the r/TeslaMotors subreddit I’d like to highlight:

I believe that CEO Elon Musk and the company have gone out of their way to imply abilities the car doesn’t have, and I’ve personally heard from Tesla owners who seem to overestimate the car’s capabilities. I agree that this constant reminder that it’s the responsibility to pay attention to the road in a car that owners think is self-driving is indeed probably not going to be popular.

And then here’s a reply almost directly under it that describes the problem. This person seems to be saying that their older Model S lacks an interior camera and thus they think they can get away with non-compliance, though it’s likely under the recall and is already FSD, so some of these controls may already be in place.

It’ll be fun to watch the next few weeks to see if there’s a huge increase in suspensions. Even if this was done begrudgingly, this does seem like a step in the right direction if the warnings and suspensions are done seriously enough.

NHTSA also seems to be watching as the agency didn’t close the investigation, saying it “remains open to support an evaluation of the effectiveness of the remedies deployed by Tesla across the recall scope.”

We’ll see.

We’re Getting Closer To Half Of All Luxury Cars Being Electrified

To re-clarify, an electric car contains no gas motor either to power the wheels or to act as a generator. An “electrified” car is any car that has an electric motor, so that includes electric cars (BEVs) as well as plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and regular gas-electric hybrids.

Right now, it looks like electrified sales are beginning to conquer the luxury space. During September 2023, a record 42.4% of all luxury registrations were some form of electrified vehicle according to S&P Global Mobility’s analysis.

Is a lot of that Tesla? Yes, a lot of that is Tesla.

This is up from 15% in September 2019 - with “electrified” registrations including battery-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, and gas-electric hybrid vehicles.

However, if Tesla is removed from the equation, the remaining brands account for a mere 14% of luxury vehicle retail registrations in September – with a split of 9% for BEVs and 5% for hybrids. But luxury BEVs have been growing, while hybrid and PHEV share of luxury vehicle registrations have been stable at roughly 4% to 6% for several years.

This is pretty interesting to me. Given that EVs have been more luxury-priced, it makes sense that buyers in that space are able to (and choose to) opt for the pricier BEV models over PHEVs. It seems like hybrids are going to increasingly become a better option for people in the middle and lower third of the price range.

COP28 Has Come To A Conclusion

I invite you to read my whole long treatise on COP28 that I hope explains the stakes of the UN-backed global meeting of leaders talking about global climate change.

It was unclear what the result would be, but there’s been an agreement (called a “stocktake”) to do the following:

The stocktake recognizes the science that indicates global greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut 43% by 2030, compared to 2019 levels, to limit global warming to 1.5°C. But it notes Parties are off track when it comes to meeting their Paris Agreement goals.

The stocktake calls on Parties to take actions towards achieving, at a global scale, a tripling of renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency improvements by 2030. The list also includes accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power, phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, and other measures that drive the transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, with developed countries continuing to take the lead.

That’s not nothing. All of these are important steps. However, as with many UN-backed agreements, it’s on the individual nations to create their own enforcement and rules.

This reminded me of a weird fact I learned recently, which was that when the original agreement to create the United Nations was finally drafted it had to be sent to the United States Senate to be ratified (every country had to ratify it). The person whose job it was to supervise the safe transfer of the document was Alger Hiss.

NHTSA To Jeep: It’s Cool

There was an investigation into Jeep Compass models of the 2019 and 2020 model years over the habit of some of those vehicles to randomly shut off their engines while driving.

Here’s some good news for Jeep, via The Detroit News:

The agency opened the probe in December of last year after getting 15 complaints that drivers have gotten dashboard messages saying their coolant temperature is too high, followed by an immediate engine shutdown.

But an investigation found that the failure rate was low and that the SUVs can normally be restarted immediately after the engine shuts down. The agency found only one allegation of a crash and no injuries.

Pobody’s Nerfect!

The Big Question

How many Tesla owners are going to get suspended from FSD in the first week? A few, a ton, all of them?