BUFFALO, N.Y. — These are troubled times for Tesla with a lot more scrutiny from federal agencies. This regards some of the technology used by the electric car maker as well as labor issues at the massive South Buffalo plant.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently warned some two million Tesla owners about safety issues tied to possible driver inattention with use of the Tesla autopilot driver assist system.
The agency's analysis of some 950 crashes included 13 fatalities and other serious injuries. Now Tesla faces even more questions about that driver-assist system.
Specifically, the NHTSA as of this week is now asking for more information about the company's voluntary recall back in December for that autopilot system.
There were supposed to be software updates and improvements to ensure autopilot was properly monitoring drivers for safe use of features such as auto steering, cruise control, and staying in the lane.
But the NHTSA says there have been 20 more crashes since that December recall.
So now Tesla must turn over more requested information to that federal agency by July first or face over $135 million in fines.
Previously, 2 On Your Side spoke with a car industry observer who raised serious concerns with the autopilot system. Art Wheaton is also a labor studies director with the Cornell/ILR School in Buffalo.
"I think Tesla has a lot of liability here because they call it autopilot, and it never has been and never was designed to be autopilot," Wheaton said. "So you always had to be part of that discussion. You always had the driver involved. But if you read the sticker and it says autopilot, 'Oh, I just put it on autopilot. I can got to sleep and take a nap,' and it's never been that way."
Wheaton added: "I think Tesla bit off more that they could chew. It was an inappropriate name for what it was."
That autopilot system is set up with information collected, analyzed, and then used as input by Tesla support employees working as "data annotation" specialists.
There are many workers with that title at the Tesla Gigafactory New York, as its known in South Buffalo, at Riverbend.
No one is making a direct connection with their work and the autopilot system issue.
Recently Tesla cut over 300 jobs at its Buffalo. Some additional jobs cuts just announced this week.
Now other federal agencies are looking at Tesla.
On Thursday afternoon the National Labor Relations Board Buffalo Regional Director filed a complaint against Tesla and the Buffalo plant claiming that the company the legality of the company's approach in its workplace rules to restrict use of technology to discourage workers from union organizing. You can read the complaint below.
You may recall some Tesla workers said they were fired after trying to organize a union but a complaint in that particular case was dismissed last fall.
And finally the Reuters News Service is now quoting sources that federal prosecutors are also investigating Tesla's Autopilot program while the Securities and Exchange Commission is probing allegations of corporate wire fraud and misleading investors.
WGRZ has reached out to Tesla corporate investor relations for comment because reportedly the firm no longer has a media relations department.