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    All New U.S. Cars Must Carry Automatic Brakes by 2029

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    The technology is already sold on most vehicles, but a new federal safety regulation raises the standards. Starting in 2029, a new federal safety regulation will require all new cars and trucks in the United States to be sold with automatic emergency braking — sensors that hit the brakes to avoid a collision if the driver does not.The new rule, which was made final on Monday, imposes more stringent requirements than the automatic emergency braking technology now sold on most vehicles, and even goes past the point of present technological feasibility, automakers said. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration set a September 2029 date for compliance, saying it was confident that the systems would be ready by then.Under the standards, outlined in a 317-page document, all “light vehicles,” which include cars, large pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, will have to be able to automatically hit their brakes to avoid hitting another vehicle at speeds of up to 62 miles per hour. The system will also have to at least begin to apply the brakes at speeds up to 90 m.p.h. if a collision is imminent. That’s higher than the maximum U.S. speed limit of 85 m.p.h. The system will have to detect pedestrians, too.The new rule is meant to address the steady climb of traffic deaths in recent years, according to officials.NHTSAThe rules are necessary because of steadily climbing traffic deaths in recent years, Biden administration officials argued. “The new vehicle safety standards we finalized today will save hundreds of lives and prevent tens of thousands of injuries every year,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement.An estimated 41,000 people were killed in automobile accidents in the United States in 2023.Automatic braking systems are a relatively new feature, and regulators and carmakers alike agree that they have already helped save lives. Introduced in 2011, they typically use cameras, radar or both to identify other vehicles, pedestrians or obstacles in front of a car.They usually alert the driver if a collision is possible, then force the application of the brakes if needed.Carmakers have said they needed no prodding to adopt the systems, pointing out that, in 2016, they voluntarily agreed to make the technology standard in all new cars and trucks. About 90 percent of new vehicles on sale now have some form of automatic emergency braking.Regulators said on Monday that carmakers had expressed concern about “taking away the driver’s authority” at high speeds.The industry’s main lobbying group, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, “viewed the expectation that manufacturers are capable of providing undefined levels of avoidance at all speeds as neither practicable nor reasonable,” regulators said.The Biden administration estimated the rule’s cost at an average of $23 per vehicle. More

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      Auto Safety Regulator Investigating Tesla Recall of Autopilot

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      The National Highway Safety Administration said it had concerns about how Tesla handled the recall based on recent crashes and testing of cars that had been updated.The federal government’s main auto safety agency said on Friday that it was investigating Tesla’s recall of its Autopilot driver-assistance system because regulators were concerned that the company had not done enough to ensure that drivers remained attentive while using the technology.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in documents posted on its website that it was looking into Tesla’s recall in December of two million vehicles, which covered nearly all of the cars the company had manufactured in the United States since 2012. The safety agency said that it had concerns about crashes that took place after the recall and results from preliminary tests of recalled vehicles.The investigation adds to a list of headaches for Tesla, the dominant electric vehicle maker in the United States. The company’s sales fell more than 8 percent in the first three months of the year compared with the same period a year earlier, the first such drop since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.Tesla announced in December that it would recall its autopilot software after an investigation by the auto safety agency found that the carmaker hadn’t put in place enough safeguards to make sure the system, which can accelerate, brake and control cars in other ways, was used safely by drivers who were supposed to be ready at any moment to retake control of their cars using Autopilot.The agency said it had identified at least 13 fatal crashes tied to use of Autopilot. The company is also facing lawsuits from individuals who claim the system is defective, and its design contributed to or is responsible for serious injuries and deaths.The recall, which entails a wireless software update, includes more prominent visual alerts and checks when drivers are using Autopilot to remind them to keep their hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road. The recall covers all five of Tesla’s passenger models — the 3, S, X, Y and Cybertruck.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tesla Recalls About 2.2 Million Electric Vehicles Over Warning Light Font Size

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      The vehicles were recalled because the font size on a warning lights panel was too small. Tesla will address the issue with a software update.Tesla is recalling about 2.2 million vehicles because the font on the warning lights panel was too small to comply with safety standards, U.S. regulators said on Friday.“Warning lights with a smaller font size can make critical safety information on the instrument panel difficult to read, increasing the risk of a crash,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a notice.The recall is one of several that Tesla has made in recent years, a setback for the company, the dominant maker of electric vehicles in the United States. In another hurdle for Tesla, the safety administration, said in a separate notice that a U.S. government investigation into steering issues that may have affected 334,000 Tesla vehicles was escalated to an engineering analysis.The probe, which was opened in July, reviewed more than 2,000 complaints about loss of steering control in the 2023 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles. Tesla drivers who made complaints said they had been unable to turn the steering wheel, or that turning it required increased effort. A majority of people who complained about this issue reported seeing a warning message, “Steering assist reduced,” either before, during or after they had experienced a loss of steering control.“A portion of drivers described their steering begin to feel ‘notchy’ or ‘clicky’ either prior to or just after the incident,” the agency said. The regulator added that its office of defects investigation was aware of more than 50 vehicles that were towed from places including driveways, parking lots, roadsides and intersections, apparently because of steering-related issues.Tesla is releasing a software update that will fix the issue free of charge, the safety administration said. The models affected include the 2012 to 2023 Model S, the 2016 to 2024 Model X, the 2017 to 2023 Model 3, 2019 to 2024 Model Y and 2024 Cybertruck vehicles.In December, the company recalled more than two million vehicles, including its most popular, the Model Y sport-utility vehicle, after federal officials said that it had not done enough to ensure that drivers remained attentive when using a system that can steer, accelerate and brake cars automatically. That recall covered nearly all cars the company had manufactured in the United States since 2012.In January, the Chinese government announced that Tesla would recall nearly all the 1.6 million cars it had sold in the country to adjust their assisted-driving systems. It was a stumbling block for the company, which has emerged as the only Western automaker that can compete with Chinese manufacturers in the global electric car sector. China is one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing market for electric cars.Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Reuters reported in December that tens of thousands of Tesla customers had complained to the company about failures of suspension or steering parts. Tesla blamed drivers, even though it had been tracking the issues for years and knew more about them than it disclosed to regulators, Reuters found. More