This week, Tesla has been hit by a safety recall from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on all Tesla vehicles in its Full Self-Driving Beta. Apparently, these vehicles over a “rolling stop” feature, which allows vehicles to drive past stop signs and, due to safety concerns, Tesla will reportedly have to roll back the feature in an upcoming software update.
The feature was first introduced in the 2020.40.4.10 ‘Full Self-Driving Beta’ software update, which arrived during the original release of FSD Beta in October 2020. The recall notice will reportedly affect 53,822 vehicles.
Tesla Model 3
In the official recall notice, Tesla described the “rolling stop” feature as being designed to allow the vehicle to travel through an all-way-stop intersection without coming to a complete stop when several operating conditions are first met. The required conditions for this feature include:
– The functionality must be enabled within the FSD Beta Profile settings; and
– The vehicle must be approaching an all-way stop intersection; and
– The vehicle must be traveling below 5.6mph; and
– No relevant moving cars are detected near the intersection; and
– No relevant pedestrians or bicyclists are detected near the intersection; and
– There is sufficient visibility for the vehicle while approaching the intersection; and
– All roads entering the intersection have a speed limit of 30 mph or less.
“If all the above conditions are met, only then will the vehicle travel through the all-way-stop intersection at a speed from 0.1 mph up to 5.6 mph without first coming to a complete stop,” explained the automaker. “If any of the above conditions are not met, the functionality will not activate and the vehicle will come to a complete stop.”
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Although Tesla is not aware of any collisions, injuries, or fatalities related to this feature, NHSTA has determined that “entering an all-way-stop intersection without coming to a complete stop may increase the risk of collision.” Tesla also recently claimed that there “haven’t been any accidents in the FSD Beta program since its launch in 2020.”
In the recall notice, NHSTA detailed Tesla’s next steps. “Tesla will disable the ‘rolling stop’ functionality on affected vehicles, starting with firmware release 2021.44.30.15. Firmware release 2021.44.30.15 is expected to begin deployment OTA to affected vehicles in early February 2022. The disablement will carry forward in firmware release 2021.44.30.15 and later releases.” According to the notice, no further action is necessary from owners who install firmware release 2021.44.30.15 or a later release on their vehicles.
