Tesla's FSD Recall Impacts AV Industry

The automaker's recall of its Full Self Driving Beta leaves a significant dent in automated driving's credibility.

On February 16, 2023, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that Tesla had voluntarily agreed to recall 362,758 Model S, Model X, Model 3 and Model Y vehicles - the entire parc of Tesla models fitted with the beta version of the company's Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta software. The NHTSA cited FSD's failure to safely operate Tesla vehicles in a variety of common driving situations - while many industry sources contended the recall was proof Tesla no longer could stay one step ahead of the sheriff regarding its insinuations about FSD's capabilities.

The tension about Tesla's automated-driving features had been building. In the summer of 2021, the NHTSA started investigating several crashes in which Teslas operating with the Autopilot ADAS system (standard on all models) struck parked emergency vehicles. A subsequent NHTSA report said there were 273 Autopilot-related crashes that year.