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It was all obvious. In the wake of the fatal crash of a Tesla running in Autopilot mode, the media asked an obvious question: Would Tesla disable Autopilot? The answer from CEO Elon Musk was every bit obvious: Autopilot stays active. But Tesla says it will be more than aggressive in telling drivers about the limits of Autopilot.

The Feds, meanwhile, have gotten involved and have asked Tesla for an avalanche of paperwork and data about Autopilot usage, close calls, and driver involvement. That alone may be penalty enough for Tesla getting out forepart of cocky-driving.

Tesla X dashboard

A organisation that "would save lives"

This week, Elon Musk told the Wall Street Journal, "A lot of people don't sympathize what it [Autopilot] is and how you turn it on," adding Tesla brought Autopilot to marketplace, and plans to keep it available, because "we knew we had a system that on balance would save lives."

Tesla plans a weblog post — one of the company's ways of keeping in touch with owners — further explaining the nuances of Autopilot and what it can and cannot do.

Tesla-Model-S-blue front

Insights on Tesla blog

Meanwhile, on the Tesla blog, Tesla provided some more insight into Autopilot. The Tesla post was a swipe at a July 5 Fortune commodity noting that Tesla (the company and its CEO, Musk) sold $2 billion of Tesla stock after the May 7 fatal crash that killed Joshua Brown while Autopilot was switched on in his Model 10, simply weeks before publicly announcing the fatal accident. Tesla says:

Here's what we did know at the time of the accident and subsequent [stock] filing:

one. That Tesla Autopilot had been safely used in over 100 meg miles of driving past tens of thousands of customers worldwide, with nothing confirmed fatalities and a wealth of internal information demonstrating safer, more predictable vehicle control functioning when the system is properly used.

ii. That contrasted against worldwide accident data, customers using Autopilot are statistically safer than those not using it at all.

3. That given its nature as a commuter aid system, a standoff on Autopilot was a statistical inevitability, though past this bespeak, not one that would alter the conclusion already borne out over millions of miles that the system provided a net safety benefit to society.

Tesla goes on to say that Fortune made "false assumptions," including:

[assuming] that this accident was caused by an Autopilot failure. To be clear, this blow was the result of a semi-tractor trailer crossing both lanes of a divided highway in front of an oncoming car. Whether driven nether transmission or assisted style, this presented a challenging and unexpected emergency braking scenario for the commuter to respond to. In the moments leading up to the collision, there is no evidence to suggest that Autopilot was not operating as designed and as described to users: specifically, as a driver assist organization that maintains a vehicle's position in lane and adjusts the vehicle's speed to friction match surrounding traffic.

All this is in the context of Tesla saying the first Autopilot-on fatal crash (in 130 meg driving miles) was non cloth to investors planning to purchase Tesla stock, and Fortune suggesting it probably was. Fortune as well dinged NHTSA, which "sabbatum on the news — of possible interest to the driving public, wouldn't you say? — until announcing information technology June thirty … almost eight weeks after the accident."

NHTSA's demand for information

The National Highway Traffic Safety Information last week sent Tesla a nine-page request for documents and data about 2022 Tesla Model South vehicles to learn more about the cars' automated emergency braking, Autosteer, and crash abstention systems. It's the kind of request that may brand the public experience better that someone is checking up, and it may make businessmen cry over the extreme level of detail NHTSA is seeking.

NHTSA wants to know about blueprint changes and updates made to Autopilot since it was outset made available (as an over-the-air update) in 2022. It also wants to know about automatic emergency braking events with adaptive prowl control activated just not Autosteer, and so with Autosteer activated, and then with neither cruise control nor Autosteer enabled — in other words, the total number of put-your-hands-on-the-wheel Autosteer warnings and the warnings "that escalated to a reduction in power." Information technology also wants reports of crashes, lawsuits filed, and results of any arbitration proceedings, along with the results of Tesla crash reconstructions and Tesla'south assessment of systems that did not actuate in crashes.

NHTSA calls this a request for information, although the letter ends with a alert of civil penalties if it doesn't provide the information.