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A report on a fatal crash involving a Tesla Inc. vehicle may lack enforcement power, but the implications for the company are real and could include a temporary shutdown of Autopilot, the Silicon Valley car maker’s suite of advanced driver-assistance systems.
That’s from analysts at Evercore ISI, who in a note Wednesday commented on a Tuesday report by the National Transportation Safety Board on a fiery Tesla TSLA, -0.21% Model X crash in the San Francisco Bay Area that killed an Apple Inc. AAPL, +2.14% engineer.
The NTSB faulted several parties, including the driver, who allegedly was playing a videogame, and said that the Tesla system failed in several technical areas, including not activating the automatic emergency brake.
Through its various iterations and upgrades, Autopilot has been under criticism for creating a false sense of security in drivers and the impression that it makes cars autonomous. Tesla has said it would continue efforts to educate consumers. To use the system, drivers must keep hands on the wheel and be ready to intervene should anything go awry.
The NTSB can make recommendations, but it cannot enforce them, the Evercore analysts said.
For Tesla, a “wide range of outcomes still exists, with the most damaging possibility (albeit low probability) being a forced temporary shutdown” of Autopilot until Tesla can devise better systems to make sure drivers are actively paying attention to the road while using Autopilot, the analysts said.
“The potential for consumer lawsuits, if no recall occurs, is also non-trivial,” they said. Autopilot is only partial automation “that consumers often mistake and/or misuse” as a system capable of higher autonomy levels, and that “is the heart of the problem,” the analysts said.
Tesla shares inched higher on Wednesday after two sessions of losses. The stock has skyrocketed 167% in the past 12 months, compared with advances of 12% and 4.4% for the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.63% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.60% in the same period. It holds to a 90% gain for the year, while the U.S. averages have slid into the red for 2020.
