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Tesla’s now-defunct rolling stop feature called out by U.S. lawmakers for ever existing

Credit: AI DRIVR/YouTube

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Tesla’s “rolling stop” feature was a hot topic in the automotive circuit last week. Now that it is officially removed from all Tesla vehicles, two U.S. Lawmakers with a history of calling out the electric automaker have drafted a new letter, wondering why the feature ever existed in the first place.

Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal are voicing their concerns to Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk, claiming that, while the implementation of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) is crucial to potentially improving safety, they must comply with legal driving behaviors.

“…We are concerned by Tesla’s long history of flouting basic safety standards, which has caused the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to repeatedly open investigations into various aspects of the FSD and Autopilot systems,” the Senators said.

“While advanced driver assistance and automated driving systems have the potential to improve safety, they must be implemented responsibly and comply with existing traffic laws,” the Senators wrote to Tesla and Musk. “When these systems do not meet these essential requirements, they put all of those who use our roads at risk of injury or death.”

The rolling stop feature gave members of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Beta program the option to let their car slowly roll through a stop sign if no moving objects were detected. The car slowed down to speeds between 0.2 and 5.6 MPH, rolling through all-way-stop intersections in a controlled fashion. However, the feature did not necessarily follow traffic laws, which require drivers to stop completely at a stop sign.

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Last week, the NHTSA required Tesla to recall all 53,822 vehicles that equipped the feature. Tesla remedied the issue with an Over-the-Air software update. The new software, FSD Beta v.10.10, rolled out late last week and eliminated the rolling stop feature.

Tesla to recall over 53k FSD Beta cars over “rolling stop” feature, fix to be released through over-the-air update

Senators Markey and Blumenthal are more upset that Tesla even considered adding the feature to the vehicles at any point .“We are deeply troubled by Tesla’s design choices that seemingly encourage unsafe driving habits,” they said. “While this recall is a step towards reducing unsafe driving and crashes, it should not have been needed in the first place – Tesla should not design and implement features for its cars that do not follow the rules of the road.”

Happy that the feature has been successfully removed, the lawmakers accused Tesla of “repeatedly releasing software without fully considering its risks and implications, creating grave dangers for all on the roads.”

0208.22teslafsdautopilotconcerns by Joey Klender on Scribd

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I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Tesla to make app change for easier communication following Service

“Looking into it. After a service visit is complete, we close the in-app messaging option after 2 hours. We will change this to 24hours or more.”

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla will enhance the ability to communicate through the mobile app with Service after work has been done on your car.

One of the biggest weaknesses of Tesla’s automotive division has been Service, as Service Centers are not necessarily plentiful, and wait times, in some regions of the country, are over a month in duration.

Getting in touch with Service after a car has work done to it is also difficult. Calling showrooms in some regions has proven to be difficult to enable direct communication between the customer and the company.

If something is not resolved properly, Tesla keeps the in-app messaging option active for two hours after the service visit is complete.

However, that doesn’t resolve everything, as some issues may arise again more than two hours later. Then the issue of communication presents itself once again.

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Tesla is going to extend that time frame to a day or more, according to Raj Jegannathan, Tesla’s AI/IT-Infra, Cybersecurity, IT Apps & Vehicle Service VP.

Tesla has made several changes over the past few years to attempt to improve its Service. Recently, for Collision repair, it started offering a $45-per-day loaner program with free FSD, free tolls, and free Supercharging.

It also recently started sharing local and regional leader contact information so customers have the ability to reach out when they have complaints or disagree with warranty claims, changes in estimates, or initial diagnostics.

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Tesla creates clever solution to simplify and improve its Service

However, this is only available at a few showrooms and is currently a pilot program.

These improvements are aimed at resolving communication breakdown, which appears to be a problem that many owners experience.

Tesla is one of the few companies that also operates a fleet of Mobile Repair vehicles, which will perform service at your house or place of business. However, the size of it has gone down by 11 percent year over year.

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Tesla is overhauling its Full Self-Driving subscription for easier access

The subscription model is more accessible to many owners, as it is reasonably priced and offers the option to take a month off from using it if they are interested in saving money.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is overhauling its Full Self-Driving subscription and how it markets it to customers after several owners and fans of the company complained about the accessibility of the monthly access to its driver assistance suite.

Tesla Full Self-Driving is the automaker’s semi-autonomous driving suite, which is widely regarded as the most robust and capable on the market today. Owners can purchase the suite outright for $8,000, or they can subscribe to the program for $99 per month, an option it enabled a few years ago.

However, it is not super easy to subscribe to the subscription model, nor is it even recognized on the company’s Online Design Studio. Without some research or prior knowledge, a consumer might not even know they could pay monthly to experience Full Self-Driving.

That is set to change, according to Tesla’s AI/IT Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, IT Apps, and Vehicle Service head Raj Jegannathan, who said the company is planning to change that.

Instead of having customers only have the option to pay outright for the suite, Tesla is now planning to offer the subscription model in its Online Design Studio, making it easier to activate that option:

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It will be the second major change Tesla makes to how it sells Full Self-Driving to customers, the first being videos of real-life operation of FSD in the Design Studio. Previously, the site only showed animations of Full Self-Driving’s capabilities.

Tesla added the videos of FSD handling some tricky situations, as well as general operation of the suite, to the Design Studio in recent weeks.

Tesla makes big change to encourage Full Self-Driving purchases

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The subscription model is more accessible to many owners, as it is reasonably priced and offers the option to take a month off from using it if they are interested in saving money.

Many cannot justify paying for the suite outright, especially as it adds $8,000 to the cost of their car. After they experience its capabilities for themselves, they might.

Both moves appear to be an effort to increase the take rate of Full Self-Driving, particularly as autonomy takes center stage at Tesla.

With the rollout of Robotaxi and some teased capabilities of the upcoming v14 iteration of Full Self-Driving, Tesla is gearing up to continue advancing its self-driving technology.

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Tesla talks Semi ramp, Optimus, Robotaxi rollout, FSD with Wall Street firm

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) recently talked about a variety of topics with Wall Street firm Piper Sandler, as the firm released a new note on Friday about their meeting with the company’s Investor Relations team.

According to the note from Piper Sandler, Tesla talked in detail about the Semi program, Optimus, and its potential valuation given its capabilities, the rollout of Robotaxi in Austin, and Full Self-Driving progress in the United States.

Tesla Semi Ramp

The Tesla Semi is set to enter mass production in 2026 at a dedicated factory near the company’s Gigafactory in Reno, Nevada.

The Semi has already been in pilot program testing, as Tesla has partnered with a few companies, like Frito-Lay and PepsiCo., to perform regional logistics. It has been met with excellent reviews from drivers, and it has helped give Tesla a good idea of what to expect when it makes its way to more companies in the coming years.

Piper Sandler said that it is evident Tesla is preparing for a “major ramp,” but it is keeping its expectations low:

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“We’ve never expected much from this product, but we’d love to be proven wrong (Tesla is clearly prepping for a major ramp).”

Tesla Optimus and its value internally and externally

Optimus has been working in Tesla factories for some time, but its expectations as a product offering outside of the company internally have major implications.

Its role within Tesla factories, for now, is relatively low, but Optimus is still doing things to assist. By this time next year, Piper Sandler said Optimus should have bigger responsibilities:

“By this time in 2026, Optimus should be moving/staging parts within Tesla’s facilities.”

Outside of Tesla, Optimus could be a major beneficiary for companies as it could be a more affordable way to handle tedious tasks and manual labor. The firm believes that if Optimus can work 18-hour shifts, a cost of $100,000 per unit “would be justified.”

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Tesla Robotaxi Expansion

The big focus of the firm with Robotaxi was Tesla’s expansion of the geofence in Austin this week. It was substantial, bringing the Robotaxi’s total service area to around 170 square miles, up from the roughly 90 square miles that rival Waymo is offering in the city.

Tesla Robotaxi geofence expansion enters Plaid Mode and includes a surprise

Tesla has doubled its geofence three times since its launch in late June, and it also revealed that its fleet of vehicles has expanded by 50 percent. It did not give a solid number of how many vehicles are operating in the fleet.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 launch

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite is set to have a fresh version, v14, rolled out in either September or October, and there are some pretty high expectations for it.

CEO Elon Musk said:

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“The FSD release in about 6 weeks will be a dramatic gain with a 10X higher parameter count and many other improvements. It’s going through training & testing now. Once we confirm real-world safety of FSD 14, which we think will be amazing, the car will nag you much less.”

There is also some expectation that v14 could be the public release of what Tesla is running in Austin for Robotaxi. The firm confirmed this in their note by stating it “should enable Tesla owners to use software that is on par with Robotaxis in Austin.”

The only real hold up would be regulator skepticism, but Tesla can alleviate this with strong data.

The firm maintained its ‘Overweight’ rating and the $400 price target it holds on the stock.

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