Why the Tesla Recall Matters
More than 350,000 Tesla vehicles are being recalled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration because of concerns about their self-driving-assistance software—but this isn’t your typical recall. The fix will be shipped “over the air” (meaning the software will be updated remotely, and the hardware does not need to be addressed).
Missy Cummings sees the voluntary nature of the recall as a positive sign that Tesla is willing to cooperate with regulators. Cummings, a professor in the computer-science department at George Mason University and a former NHTSA regulator herself, has at times argued that the United States should proceed more cautiously on autonomous vehicles, drawing the ire of Elon Musk, who has accused her of being biased against his company.
[Andrew Moseman: The inconvenient truth about electric vehicles]
Cummings also sees this recall as a software story: NHTSA is entering an interesting—perhaps uncharted—regulatory space. “If you release a software update—that’s what’s about
