New York (AFP)

What responsibility has the electric car manufacturer Tesla's Autopilot driving assistant in eleven traffic accidents in the United States over the past three years?

The US road safety agency will look into it through an investigation, announced Monday.

"As part of the agency's safety mission and in order to better understand the causes of certain Tesla-related accidents, the NHTSA is opening a preliminary investigation into the driver assistance systems (Autopilot) and the techniques used. place to monitor, assist and enforce the driver's commitment to driving while in use, "said a spokesperson for NHTSA in a statement sent to AFP.

Asked by AFP, the group did not immediately react to the opening of this investigation.

The investigation will focus on the Model Y, X, S and 3 of the American brand, put on the market between 2014 and 2021, representing today around 765,000 Tesla vehicles.

Eleven road accidents are scrutinized in this investigation, resulting in the death of one person and causing 17 injuries.

These eleven accidents occurred between January 2018 and today, including in California, Florida, Michigan, and Texas, the agency details in a document.

The last one took place on July 10 in San Diego.

"NHTSA has confirmed that in each of these cases, the Tesla vehicle had either the Autopilot or the Traffic Aware Cruise Control system activated just before the crashes," she continues.

- "Misleading term" -

The Center for Auto Safety, a consumer advocacy group, welcomed the announcement of the investigation on Monday, hoping that something will be "done to prevent future injuries or deaths."

"We have been asking NHTSA for years to investigate + Autopilot + and competition authorities to ban Tesla from using the misleading term Autopilot," said chief executive Jason Levine in a statement to AFP.

On the stock market, the Tesla title plunged 4.65% to 684.89 dollars on Wall Street, around 14:45 GMT.

The driving assistant, known as "Autopilot", from Tesla has been the subject of much controversy since this series of accidents.

The name of this technology is debated while no car from any manufacturer is technically able today to offer motorists a fully autonomous driving vehicle.

“All the cars available today require human control all the time,” says NHTSA.

The American automaker led by the whimsical Elon Musk does not say the opposite, recalling on its website that Autopilot technology requires "active monitoring on the part of the driver and does not make the vehicle autonomous".

In addition, the manufacturer has imposed safeguards on its technologies to prevent abuse of Autopilot technology, which can adapt speed to motorway traffic, and Full Self Driving, which makes it possible in particular to park the car or change lanes on the road. road.

- Subterfuge -

The Tesla alerts the motorist, for example, and stops if the seat belt is no longer fastened or if the driver's hands are not sufficiently on the steering wheel.

However, the consumer protection association Consumer Report showed in April that it was possible to drive a Tesla alone, without anyone behind the wheel, thanks to simple subterfuge.

Moreover, Tesla, which posted net income of $ 1.14 billion in the second quarter of 2021 thanks to the delivery of a record number of vehicles exceeding 200,000 units, is often taken in double talk.

At a conference earlier this year, Elon Musk asserted that full autonomy would become "evident (...) within the year".

In 2015, the American billionaire said that a fully autonomous vehicle would be available within two years.

Despite billions of dollars in research and development over the years, Tesla is in category 2 on the autonomy scale set by the professional organization Society of Automotive Engineers, far from the fifth step, synonymous with complete autonomy.

© 2021 AFP