SAN FRANCISCO—Electric carmaker Tesla Inc. stood by its Model 3 safety claims on Wednesday in the face of regulatory critical observation, whereas documents presented the Top U.S. automotive safety guard dog issued at least five subpoenas since last year finding information about crashes involving the company ‘s vehicles. Tesla, led by billionaire Elon Musk, has said the Model 3 “was engineered to be the safest car ever built” with the least chances of injury or damage of all vehicles ever tested. In a related development on Thursday, the insurance Institute for Highway Safety said it will begin conducting side crash testing the model 3 next week.
Regulators have modified the view last year, regards to the document seen by Reuters. The NHTSA sent a cease-and-desist letter to Tesla on Oct 17, for creating deceptive statements over safety ratings of model 3. Mentioning that it wasn’t the first attempt Tesla has misleaded its guidelines in a way that could confuse consumers and can present an unfair market advantage, the agency also raised the issue to Federal Trade Commission, which is responsible to investigate unfair or deceptive acts within commerce.
Tesla pointed to its response to the October letter, in which it describes claims were based on NHTSA’s own data. In its October letter NHTSA and Tesla disrepute the difference in relative weights between its vehicles and others, making comparison on accurate basis impossible and misleading consumers. Hence it is unfair to calculate to say that the Model 3 has least chances of injury of all cars, or it is not expected to be getting seriously hurt, or have best options to securing its safety after getting hit.
In its response Tesla refused and mentioned that 5-star rating makes it safest car, rather than publically Tesla introduced it the safest car ever built.
Questions asked:
Safety groups have been criticizing and disrespecting Tesla for remaining unclear and not worth full in its statements about the features of one of its driving feature “Autopilot”, which falls short to a fully self-driving system that would not have any condition of driver intervention. Following a death involving autopilot system, National Transportation Safety Board blames autopilot system for lacking system safeguards.
Documents revealing that NHTSA sent at least three subpoenas for crashes which caused fatalities in Derlay beach, Key Largo, and in Mountain View. It was unclear from the documents that autopilot was engaged.