NTSB head calls Tesla’s self driving feature ‘misleading’

Jennifer Homendy, NTSB head, recently criticized the driver-assist systems on Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) following numerous fatal accidents in the past couple of years. In addition, she claims that the company’s “Full Self-Driving” application is ‘misleading’. 

These comments were made a day after Jennifer sent Elon Musk a letter stating how his company failed to respond to the recommendations and directives issued by the relevant authorities and watchdogs. 

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Homendy said during Squawk Box:

It’s clear that if you’re marketing something as full self-driving and it is not full self-driving, and people are misusing the vehicles and the technology, but you have a design flaw and you have to prevent that misuse.

She continued:

And part of that is how you talk about your technology. It is not full self driving … It’s misleading.

The NTSB head said that the company hasn’t officially responded to them concerning the safety recommendations they received. The Chairwoman said she hasn’t met with Elon Musk just yet. However, she’s visited his California-based plant and used Tesla’s Autopilot feature. 

Impact of the Letter

The letter sent to the Tesla CEO hasn’t affected the stock price of the company. On Monday, the stock closed at around $1,024 per share, which was up by 12.66%. The NTSB is currently investigating ten matters regarding Tesla crashes and fires.

 Homendy confirmed this on Tuesday. She claimed that about three to four of them are open cases. 

Jennifer stated that Tesla markets its driver assistance systems as FSD Beta, Full Self-Driving, and Autopilot in the United States. However, the company itself doesn’t manufacture self-driving vehicles. 

Tesla gives drivers a warning in the owners’ manual telling drivers to make sure they don’t take their hands off the wheel when using one of these applications. The company makes it clear that you should always be prepared for anything. 

Tesla insinuates that you might have to take over any time with this warning. This is why Homendy claims that these features are misleading.