U.S. Senator calls out Tesla over Autopilot safety issues

A sitting U.S. Congressman is urging Tesla to rebrand its Autopilot feature due to safety concerns.

In a statement, U.S. Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) is requesting that the Elon Musk-founded electric vehicle manufacturer make significant changes to its Autopilot driver assistance system. Namely, well, its name.

“Tesla promotes confusion about the capabilities and limits of its driver assistance system with an inherently misleading name – 'Autopilot' – that encourages users to over-rely on the technology,” reads the statement. “This branding significantly undermines all of the user manuals and subsequent instructions that Tesla issues to its customers that explain how the system is not fully autonomous and how drivers must stay actively engaged with the road.”

Senator Markey’s statement strongly urges a “rebrand and remarket” of the Autopilot feature so that Tesla makes clear it is “not fully autonomous and cannot replace drivers on the road.”

The Senator previously requested that Tesla address safety flaws in its Autopilot system in a November press release. His latest statement, posted on Friday, includes specific recommendations, such as the rebranding of Autopilot, following an investigation of the driver assistance system.

Markey’s statement also suggests that Tesla “build backup monitoring systems into Autopilot.” There have been videos postedonline of drivers sleeping at the wheel of their Tesla, regardless of Tesla’s autopilot safeguards that are in place to make sure this doesn’t happen. Its steering wheel torque monitoring system has been criticizedas inadequate before.

Along with his statement, Senator Markey shared a letter from Teslain reply to his concerns from last month.

In its letter, Tesla, itself, has said it found that drivers were able to “trick the system for a short time, but generally not for an entire trip before Autopilot disengages.” The company appears to also doubt the veracity of clips posted online showing drivers falling asleep at the wheel of a Tesla.

“While some online videos show that there are a few bad actors who are grossly abusing Autopilot, these represent a very small percentage of our customer base,” it says. “We believe that many of these videos are fake and intended to capture media attention.”

Tesla also shared a number of safety updates it's made to its Autopilot feature since 2016, such as “increased hands-on alerts to ensure attentive driving with consistent hands on the steering wheel” and “new warnings for red lights and stop signs” in order to “minimize the potential risk of red light- or stop sign-running as a result of temporary driver inattention.”

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently announcedthat it was opening a federal probe into a fatal crash involving a Tesla Model 3 in December. The vehicle ran a red light in Los Angeles, hitting a Honda Civic and killing its two occupants. It’s unclear if the Autopilot feature was involved in this crash.

As Reuters points out, there have been at least three fatal car accidents involving Tesla vehicles while the Autopilot feature was engaged.

Mashable reached out to Tesla for further comment on Sen. Markey's statement but the company has yet to respond.