The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Tuesday it is opening an investigation into a fatal crash involving a 2018 Tesla Model 3 in California.
The July 5 crash in South Lake Tahoe killed the driver of a Subaru Impreza after a head-on collision with the Tesla Model 3. The NHTSA suspects the advanced driver assistance system was in use during the accident.
This is the first new special crash investigation involving Tesla and the suspected use of driver assistance systems since two were opened in March, including one into the February fatal crash involving a 2014 Tesla Model S and a fire truck in Contra Costa County, California.
The fire department said a Tesla struck one of its trucks and that the Tesla driver was pronounced dead at the scene.
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Also in March, the safety administration began looking into complaints that steering wheels for Tesla’s Model Y vehicles would fall off, while opening another investigation into reports that the front seat belts in some Tesla Model X SUVs were not properly secured.
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Since 2016, the NHTSA has opened more than three dozen Tesla special crash investigations in cases where advanced driver assistance systems such as Autopilot were suspected of being used, with 20 crash deaths reported.
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The NHTSA sent a letter July 3, demanding answers by July 19, on questions involving the design, engineering, analysis, modification, production, testing, assessment and evaluation of Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system.
The letter contained requests asking Tesla to list how many subject vehicles were manufactured for sale, lease or operation in the U.S. by model and year. It also asked the company to furnish cumulative and separate mileage totals by vehicle model, and by model year versus calendar year and quarter, and to update its September 2022 response to the NHTSA’s August 2022 information request on how Autopilot works.
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The investigation covers 830,000 Tesla vehicles and follows a dozen crashes in which Tesla vehicles hit stopped emergency vehicles.
Tesla, which is slated to report quarterly results Wednesday afternoon, did not respond to FOX Business' request for comment.
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Reuters contributed to this report.
