Tesla Has Totally Paused New Installations of "Full Self-Driving" After Safety Concerns

This is probably for the best.

Crash Love

Bad news for Tesla stans: the Elon Musk-owned company is pausing all new installations of its controversial "Full Self-Driving" software after federal regulators deemed it a "crash risk."

As The Verge reports, anyone who has purchased the $15,000 FSD add-on and not yet installed it — even if they just did so — will not be able to use the advanced assisted driving option until the company issues a firmware update.

In the meantime, people who have the FSD beta can still use it, but they won't presumably see any new features until the company has made peace with regulators.

Behind this huge setback is Tesla's recall of more than 360,000 FSD-enabled cars after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found the feature to be a significant safety issue, though it's unclear why the company waited nearly two weeks to put this pause on new installations in the interim between the day of the recall (February 16) and now.

Beta Blues

In a new support page about the FSD recall, Tesla identified the issues that the software is reportedly causing, including "traveling or turning through certain intersections during a stale yellow traffic light" and problems related to the car's speed when driving "through certain variable speed zones."

Translation: the car is driving through intersections when the light is yellow and changing its speed without driver permission, which along with the other listed issues are both no bueno.

While Tesla has in recent years made headlines for numerous driver assist safety issues, the advanced assisted driving feature itself hasn't been the cause of too many of them. That said, however, the propensity for danger is very real, which is probably why the company has both recalled cars with FSD enabled and paused new installations.

There's no telling how long it will take for Tesla to get its firmware in order to get the FSD beta back on track, but while we watch and wait, we're sure to see angry fanboys letting off steam about it online.

More on Tesla FSD: Industry Group Not Happy That We Referred to Tesla's "Full Self Driving" Feature as "Self Driving"