Unprecedented Scale of Data Requirements
US Government Distrust of FSD Safety Reaching Its Peak
NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) launched a formal investigation into Tesla''s Full Self-Driving (FSD) function — PE25012. Not a simple software error investigation but a comprehensive examination of FSD''s detection, judgment, warning, map data processing, and driver monitoring systems. Triggering incidents: accumulated reports of signal violations, wrong-lane entry attempts, sudden left/right turns from straight lanes, lane marking disregard, and inappropriate railway crossing responses — raising questions about whether FSD correctly interprets traffic rules in real road environments. Evidence base: 62 consumer complaints, 14 periodic report data entries, 4 media coverage cases. Unprecedented data demand: Tesla required to submit per-vehicle VIN, software update history, FSD usage time and patterns, plus for all incidents: vehicle sensor/camera logs, traffic light and lane detection records, GPS/map data conflict status, evidence of planned route compliance with road rules, driver warning records. Investigation scope breadth signal: NHTSA wants to see FSD''s actual decision-making process — not just outcomes but the reasoning chain from sensor input to driving action. The "traffic law compliance" focus: FSD''s issues aren''t random failures but systematic behavioral patterns (running red lights, wrong-way driving) suggesting fundamental problems in how the system interprets and applies traffic rules. The legal and commercial stakes: if NHTSA finds systemic FSD safety issues, potential outcomes range from software update requirements to recall of FSD hardware, to restrictions on FSD operational domains — directly threatening Tesla''s valuation narrative that FSD represents a key path to future revenue through autonomous ride-hailing services.
