By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) fell 2% in Monday’s premarket trading as U.S. auto safety regulators launched a formal safety investigation into the company’s driver assistance system Autopilot after a series of crashes involving emergency vehicles.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that since January 2018, it has identified 11 crashes in which Tesla models "have encountered first responder scenes and subsequently struck one or more vehicles involved with those scenes." There were cases of 17 injuries and one fatality in those crashes.
The investigation covers an estimated 765,000 Tesla Model Y, Model X, Model S, Model 3 vehicles.
Tesla’s Autopilot handles some driving tasks and allows drivers to keep their hands off the wheel for extended periods. Despite claims of launching a fully automated vehicle, the company hasn’t quite delivered on the promise.