UPDATE 1/19/17: Reuters reports that the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has closed its investigation into the incident without requiring a recall. Citing an anonymous source, the wire service says regulators "did not find evidence of a defect" that would prompt a safety recall.
In the months since the probe was announced, Tesla rolled out a radar-based upgrade that provides a "dramatic improvement in the safety" of Tesla's Model S and X electric vehicles, according to CEO Elon Musk. It also includes a more robust warning system inside the car if the vehicle detects that you're not paying attention while the car is in Autopilot mode.
Original Story (6/30/16):
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating Tesla's autopilot after a recent crash that killed a driver who was using the feature, the automaker said today.
The fatality is the first to occur when the autopilot feature was activated, Tesla said in a blog post. It refused to confirm the identify of the driver, though it described the crash as a head-on collision with a tractor-trailer truck on a divided highway.
Tesla owners have used the autopilot for more than 130 million miles of driving since the feature was introduced in a software update last fall, according to the company. Though the crash reported today is the first involving a fatality, there have been several other incidents resulting in collisions or near-misses.
In late May, a Tesla driver using his car's adaptive cruise control feature hit a van that was stopped on the expressway in front of him. In another incident shortly after the autopilot feature was released in October, a driver said his car automatically veered into oncoming traffic and he had to intervene to stop a collision.
"Had I not reacted quickly to jerk the steering wheel in the opposite direction, a devastating head-on collision would have occurred," the driver wrote in a YouTube post, urging other Tesla owners to stay focused.
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Tesla warns that the autopilot feature—a $2,500 optional add-on—is in beta testing and users must keep their hands on the steering wheel while using it.
"It is important to note that Tesla disables Autopilot by default and requires explicit acknowledgement that the system is new technology and still in a public beta phase before it can be enabled," the company wrote in a blog post. "When drivers activate Autopilot, the acknowledgment box explains, among other things, that Autopilot 'is an assist feature that requires you to keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times,' and that 'you need to maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle' while using it."
Tesla said the NHTSA investigation into the recent fatal incident is "a preliminary evaluation to determine whether the system worked according to expectations."