National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launches investigation into Tesla Autopilot over emergency responder crashes

U.S. auto-safety regulators have launched an investigation into Tesla's partially self-driving car system after nearly a dozen reports of the company's vehicles crashing into cars at the scenes of incidents involving emergency responders. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday opened the probe into Tesla's Autopilot, which automatically steers, brakes and accelerates the vehicle on most roads with lanes. While the system can drive the vehicle on its own in many circumstances, drivers are supposed to keep their hands on the wheel in case they need to take over when Autopilot encounters a situation that's too complex for it to handle on its own. But Autopilot has come under scrutiny on a number of occasions in recent years. The National Transportation Safety Board and NHTSA have investigated Autopilot multiple times, including for a 2016 crash that killed a man in Florida who authorities said had too much confidence in the system's capabilities.