Tesla Stock Down 7% This Week

Isabella James, Tech Times 17 August 2021, 10:08 pm

Tesla stock took a hit this week as it fell by 7%, according to a report.

The main culprit behind the fall in Tesla stock is the probe of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA.

The probe aims to look into a series of crashes that involves Tesla vehicles that have the company's driver assistance system called Autopilot.

Tesla stock went down 7% this week, according to Electrek. It is believed that the probe that the NHTSA opened involving Tesla's driver assistance system Autopilot is to blame for the hit Tesla's stock is taking.

According to the report by Electrek, Tesla stock went down 5% as soon as the news of the NHTSA probe began to circulate. It went down by 4% today. Per the report, the Elon Musk-owned car company "has lost around $50 billion worth of market capitalization since the news came out."

Electrek, however, notes that the stock market in general has been down this week.

NHTSA Probe on Tesla Autopilot

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that it has formally opened a safety probe on Monday into the Tesla Autopilot driver assistance system.

NHTSA safety probe will look into the vehicular crashes that involve the Tesla Autopilot system, according to a report by Reuters.

According to the report, the NHTSA "identified 11 crashes since January 2018 in which Teslas 'have encountered first responder scenes and subsequently struck one or more vehicles involved with those scenes.'"

These 11 crashes resulted in one death and 17 injuries. Four of the 11 crashes happened this year.

Depending on what will be learned in the new probe, the NHTSA "could opt to take no action, or it could demand a recall, which might effectively impose limits on how, when and where Autopilot operates," according to the report by Reuters.

The NHTSA probe will be the second one the agency will be conducting that involves Tesla's driver assistance system. The first probe, which was conducted in 2017, resulted in the NHTSA taking no action, which the agency received flak for.

Just last April, a vehicular accident involving the Tesla Autopilot took place in Spring, Texas and claimed the lives of two people.

Tesla Autopilot

(Photo : Screenshot taken from the Tesla website)

According to the Tesla website, the Autopilot driver assistance system "enables your car to steer, accelerate and brake automatically within its lane."

The Tesla Autopilot is equipped with eight surround cameras for complete visibility as well as 12 ultrasonic sensors that detect both hard and soft objects.

The Autopilot driver assistance system is capable of suggesting lane changes, an Autosteer+ feature that helps the driver navigate roads, and a Smart Summon feature that assists in parking spaces and other complex environments.

The system's features, however, "do not make the vehicle autonomous."

Also Read: Tesla's Autopilot Crash Rate Reduced By 40 Percent After Autosteer Installation, NHTSA Probe Reveals

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Written by Isabella James