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The federal government’s top auto safety agency has launched an official investigation. Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system due to growing concerns that he may not be able to see parked emergency vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was aware of the situation. 11 accidents since 2018 The incident where Tesla vehicles operating under autopilot control crashed into fire trucks, police cars and other vehicles with flashing lights. Seven of these accidents resulted in a total of 17 injuries and one death.

“Many of the incidents occurred after dark, and the crash scenes encountered included crime scene control measures such as first responder vehicle lights, flares, a lighted arrow board and road cones,” the security agency said in a summary of the investigation.

The new investigation appears to be the broadest ever look at how Autopilot works and how it might be flawed. It could eventually be used by the security agency to force Tesla to recall cars and make changes to the system.

A critical issue for investigators to focus on is how Autopilot keeps Tesla drivers paying attention to the road. The company’s manuals instruct drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel, but the system continues to work even if drivers occasionally touch the steering wheel.

General Motors has a similar system called Super Cruise that allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel but uses an infrared camera to monitor drivers’ eyes to make sure they’re looking at the road.

The security agency will also review how Autopilot identifies objects on the road and where Autopilot can be turned on. Tesla tells drivers to only use the system on divided highways, but they can also use it on city streets. GM’s system uses GPS positioning to restrict oncoming or oncoming traffic on major highways without intersections, pedestrians or cyclists.

Tesla’s Autopilot system seems to have detection and braking difficulty for parked cars in general, including special cars and trucks without flashing lights. For example, in July, Tesla crashed into a parked sports car at a previous accident site. The California Highway Patrol said the driver had Autopilot on and fell asleep and then failed a sobriety test.

The safety agency’s investigation will look at Tesla Models Y, X, S, and 3 from 2014 to 2021 model years, with a total of 765,000 cars, the vast majority of cars the company produced in the United States at that time.

The agency has launched investigations into more than two dozen crashes involving Tesla cars and Autopilot. Eight of those accidents resulted in a total of 10 deaths, the agency said. These investigations aim to dig into the details of individual cases to provide data and insights that the agency and automakers can use to improve safety or identify problem areas.

Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, dismissed safety concerns about Autopilot, claiming that the system makes their cars safer than others on the road. However, the company acknowledged that the system can sometimes fail to recognize stopped emergency vehicles.

Safety experts, videos posted on social media, and Tesla drivers have documented some of Autopilot’s weaknesses. In some crashes involving the system, Tesla drivers were found to be asleep or awake at the wheel, but were distracted or disengaged. A Californian man was arrested in May Leaving Tesla’s driver’s seat While on Autopilot; He was sitting in the back of his car as he crossed the Bay Bridge connecting San Francisco and Oakland.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which has investigated several accidents involving Autopilot, said last year that the company had “ineffective monitoring of driver participation.” Contributed to the 2018 crash that killed Wei HuangThe driver of a Model X crashes into a highway barrier in Mountain View, California. “It’s time to stop allowing drivers to pretend to have self-driving cars in any partially automated vehicle,” said Robert L. Sumwalt, chairman of the board, finally. year.