Tesla is hit by ‘safety recall’ of all Full Self-Driving Beta cars over ‘rolling stop’ feature, will have to roll it back

Tesla has been hit by a safety recall from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)  on all vehicles in its Full Self-Driving Beta over a feature called “rolling stop” that allows vehicles to drive past stop signs.

The automaker is going to have to roll back the feature in an upcoming software update.

NHTSA took issue with the feature first introduced in Tesla’s 2020.40.4.10 Full Self-Driving Beta software update back in the original release of FSD Beta in October 2020, but it went mostly unnoticed.

The agency met with Tesla to talk about it only on January 10, 2022, and a week later they decided to proceed with the voluntary safety recall.

Here’s how the “rolling stop” feature is described in the recall notice:

The “rolling stop” functionality is designed to allow the vehicle to travel through an all-way-stop intersection without coming to a complete stop when several operating conditions are first met. The required conditions include:

1. The functionality must be enabled within the FSD Beta Profile settings; and
2. The vehicle must be approaching an all-way stop intersection; and
3. The vehicle must be traveling below 5.6mph; and
4. No relevant moving cars are detected near the intersection; and
5. No relevant pedestrians or bicyclists are detected near the intersection; and
6. There is sufficient visibility for the vehicle while approaching the intersection; and
7. All roads entering the intersection have a speed limit of 30 mph or less.

If all the above conditions are met, only then will the vehicle travel through the all-way-stop intersection at a speed from 0.1 mph up to 5.6 mph without first coming to a complete stop. If any of the above conditions are not met, the functionality will not activate and the vehicle will come to a complete stop.

NHTSA determines that “entering an all-way-stop intersection without coming to a complete stop may increase the risk of collision.”

Tesla told NHTSA that “it is not aware of any collisions, injuries, or fatalities related to this condition.”

As we previously reported, Tesla recently claimed that there hasn’t been any accident in the FSD Beta program since its launch in 2020.

However, there have only been a few thousand of vehicles in the program for the first year until Tesla ramped it up in Q4 2021.

As we reported yesterday, Tesla confirmed going from “a couple of thousand in Q3 to nearly 60,000 vehicles” in the program in Q4.

The recall notice says that it affects 53,822 vehicles.

NHTSA says that Tesla will push a new software update that will disable the “rolling stop” feature in FSD Beta:

“Tesla will disable the ‘rolling stop’ functionality on affected vehicles, starting with firmware release 2021.44.30.15. Firmware release 2021.44.30.15 is expected to begin deployment OTA to affected vehicles in early February 2022. The disablement will carry forward in firmware release 2021.44.30.15 and later releases. No further action is necessary from owners who install firmware release 2021.44.30.15 or a later release on their vehicles. Tesla does not plan to include a statement in the Part 577 owner notification about pre-notice reimbursement to owners because there is no paid repair relating to this recall’s underlying condition and owners will receive the remedy free of charge through firmware release 2021.44.30.15 or a later release.”

Tesla has previously complained about having to call this a “recall” since it is not physically recalling any product and only pushing a new software update, which can be done over-the-air unlike with many other automakers.

Here’s the full NHTSA recall notice:

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