Clash of the Regulatory Titans

Following up on yesterday's post. 

NHTSA is great

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 20, 2021

What's Tesla official safety record, it very much depends on whom you ask.

By far the most in-depth investigations of Autopilot-involved crashes were by the @NTSB, and in every case they found that the design of the system contributed to misuse and the crash/death. Not one or the other, but both.

Has anyone actually read these?https://t.co/LUjsKq5XDV

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) April 20, 2021

In Phil's defense, there has been one NHTSA investigation into Autopilot that exonerated Tesla. Following Josh Brown's death, NHTSA produced a report saying Autopilot not only wasn't at fault, but actually reduced crashes by 40%.

It was comically wrong.https://t.co/450DhJ3tyQ

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) April 20, 2021

At first glance the report had obvious problems. When an auto safety expert made FOIA requests to obtain more information about how they had come to the finding NHTSA blocked him. He had to sue to get it, and when he did it was clear why: it was a bad joke https://t.co/450DhJ3tyQ

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) April 20, 2021

NHTSA's inaction on the very specific issues that the NTSB's investigations found in three separate cases, the lack of ODD limits and camera driver monitoring, has left the NTSB extremely frustrated. I encourage you to watch their latest (Feb '20) hearing: https://t.co/T0UkTHocbD

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) April 20, 2021

Why has the @NTSB identified the problems in the complex interaction between human and machine when @NHTSAgov could not? Easy: NTSB investigates crashes of all kinds and thus has deep human factors knowledge/experience, NHTSA is largely a defect investigating body and doesn't.

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) April 20, 2021

That's why NHTSA's only published investigation turned out to be an embarrassment and why nobody, from Elon Musk himself on down, has been able to explain why or how NTSB's findings were wrong... not once, but three times.

It's because they aren't wrong. They got it right.

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) April 20, 2021

For a more deeper dive from Niedermeyer, check out his article in the Drive.