A safe-technology advocacy group issued claims Tuesday that Tesla's full self-driving software represents a potentially lethal threat to child pedestrians, the latest in a series of claims and investigations into the technology to hit the world's leading electric carmaker. According to a safety test conducted by the Dawn Project, the latest version of Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta software repeatedly hit a stationary, child-sized mannequin in its path. The claims that the technology apparently has trouble recognizing children form part of an ad campaign urging the public to pressure Congress to ban Tesla's auto-driving technology. In several tests, a professional test driver found that the software – released in June – failed to detect the child-sized figure at an average speed of 25mph and the car then hit the mannequin. The Dawn Project' founder, Dan O'Dowd, called the results "deeply disturbing."

Megan serves as Publishing Operations Manager at Emerj, and is currently attending The American University in Paris, where she is pursuing degrees in global communications and international business administration. Founded in 2003 as Tesla Motors, the electric vehicle and clean energy company based in California currently has a market cap of over $700 billion – making it more valuable than the top seven automakers combined. Today, Tesla is well-known for its electric vehicles but the company also produces products for sustainable energy generation and storage such as solar panels, solar roof tiles, and more to enable "homeowners, businesses, and utilities to manage renewable energy generation, storage, and consumption". Tesla claims that its mission is "to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy" and in 2020, the company sold over 500,000 units of its electric cars, exceeding 1 million vehicles produced. In the same year, Tesla also had the highest sales in the plug-in and battery electric passenger car segments.

When a pair of California Highway Patrol officers pulled alongside a car cruising down Highway 101 in Redwood City before dawn Friday, they reported a shocking sight: a man fast asleep behind the wheel. The car was a Tesla, the man was a Los Altos planning commissioner, and the ensuing freeway stop turned into a complex, seven-minute operation in which the officers had to outsmart the vehicle's autopilot system because the driver was unresponsive, according to the CHP. The arrest of 45-year-old Alexander Samek on suspicion of drunken driving reignited questions about the uses, and potential abuses, of self-driving technology. Reached by phone Friday afternoon, Samek, a real estate developer who runs the Kor Group, said, "I can't talk right now," before hanging up. Officers observed Samek's gray Tesla Model S around 3:30 a.m. as it sped south at 70 mph on Highway 101 near Whipple Avenue, said Art Montiel, a CHP spokesman.

Tesla's autonomous driving technology is being called into question yet again. In the wake of a handful of fatal crashes, the electric car company reportedly considered adding eye-tracking technology to its self-driving automobiles, as part of an effort to make sure drivers used Autopilot safely and to reduce accidents. But several executives, including CEO Elon Musk, ultimately decided against the technology, due to its costly nature, possible ineffectiveness and potential to annoy drivers, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources close to the situation. Tesla reportedly considered adding eye tracking sensors to its vehicles to prevent crashes during Autopilot mode. That's despite developers of Tesla's Autopilot system saying there weren't enough safeguards to make sure drivers remained alert while operating the technology.

Nowadays, almost every automaker possesses considerable resources to develop self-driving technology for cars, which is the next big step for the automotive industry. The market for autopilot technology is clearly huge, which is evident by an estimation, that approximately 100 million "connected" cars with the capacity of self-driving will be shipped in 2021. While most auto manufacturers try to invent their own solutions, they will be forced to collaborate with technology companies in fields of both software and hardware to bring self-driving cars to roads. Therefore, in this article I provide a list of the most promising publicly traded tech corporations which should be considered by investors who would like to try to profit from the development of autonomous driving. First of all, let us very briefly look at the technology.

Tesla Motors' cars will come fitted with full self-driving hardware, as the company jousts with tech rivals like Google and car makers like Ford who are making a dash for the autonomous car market. Model S and Model X cars with the inbuilt hardware are already in production and customers can buy one, Tesla said Wednesday. But the features possible with the new hardware will be enabled only later through over-the-air updates after testing over "millions of miles of real-world driving," Tesla added. The company is evidently not taking chances after deaths in accidents involving Tesla cars in China and Florida raised some questions about the readiness of autonomous technology. In the Florida instance, it was confirmed that Tesla's Autopilot technology for driver-assistance was activated, while in the China incident, Tesla said it does not have sufficient data to establish that the technology was engaged.

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday released an overview of the federal government's automated vehicles policy, which includes a checklist for makers on various aspects of the cars they are developing, as well as guidelines to states on evolving a common framework for regulating the new technologies. "Automated vehicles have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives each year," wrote Obama in an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Monday. That's what harnessing technology for good can look like. But we have to get it right," he added. Obama wrote that the quickest way to slam the brakes on innovation is if the public loses confidence in the safety of the new technology, and the responsibility of both government and industry is to make sure it doesn't happen.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Tesla Motors Inc. TSLA 3.69 % breached securities laws by failing to disclose a fatal crash in May involving an electric car that was driving itself, a person familiar with the matter said, heightening scrutiny of how the Silicon Valley company handled the information. The May 7 accident killed the driver, Joshua Brown, a 40-year old Tesla owner who collided with an 18-wheel semi-truck that pulled in front of him on a Florida highway. Tesla alerted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the U.S. car-safety regulator, to the crash and investigated to determine whether the car was using the company's Autopilot system, which lets cars drive themselves under certain circumstances. But Tesla didn't disclose the crash to investors in a securities filing. The car-safety agency opened an investigation into the Autopilot technology.

The fatal crash of a Tesla electric car using an autopilot feature still in beta testing -- and never reviewed by regulators -- highlighted what some say is a gaping pothole on the road to self-driving vehicles: the lack of federal rules.