Tesla, Inc., Receipt of Petition for Decision of Inconsequential Noncompliance |
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Topics: Tesla
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Otto G. Matheke III
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
19 January 2021
[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 11 (Tuesday, January 19, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 5311-5313]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-01088]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
[Docket No. NHTSA-2020-0099; Notice 1]
Tesla, Inc., Receipt of Petition for Decision of Inconsequential
Noncompliance
AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA),
Department of Transportation (DOT).
ACTION: Receipt of petition.
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SUMMARY: Tesla, Inc. (Tesla) has determined that certain Model Year
(MY) 2012-2020 Tesla motor vehicles do not fully comply with Federal
Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 101, Controls and Displays.
Tesla filed a noncompliance report dated September 24, 2020. Tesla
subsequently petitioned NHTSA on September 25, 2020, and later provided
supplemental information on October 23, 2020, for a decision that the
subject noncompliance is inconsequential as it relates to motor vehicle
safety. This notice announces receipt of Tesla's petition.
DATES: Send comments on or before February 18, 2021.
ADDRESSES: Interested persons are invited to submit written data,
views, and arguments on this petition. Comments must refer to the
docket and notice number cited in the title of this notice and
submitted by any of the following methods:
Mail: Send comments by mail addressed to the U.S.
Department of Transportation, Docket Operations, M-30, West Building
Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC
20590.
Hand Delivery: Deliver comments by hand to the U.S.
Department of Transportation, Docket Operations, M-30, West Building
Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC
20590. The Docket Section is open on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
except for Federal holidays.
Electronically: Submit comments electronically by logging
onto the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) website at https://www.regulations.gov/. Follow the online instructions for submitting
comments.
Comments may also be faxed to (202) 493-2251.
Comments must be written in the English language, and be no greater
than 15 pages in length, although there is no limit to the length of
necessary attachments to the comments. If comments are submitted in
hard copy form, please ensure that two copies are provided. If you wish
to receive confirmation that comments you have submitted by mail were
received, please enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard with the
comments. Note that all comments received will be posted without change
to https://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information
provided.
All comments and supporting materials received before the close of
business on the closing date indicated above will be filed in the
docket and will be considered. All comments and supporting materials
received after the closing date will also be filed and will be
considered to the fullest extent possible.
When the petition is granted or denied, notice of the decision will
also be published in the Federal Register pursuant to the authority
indicated at the end of this notice.
All comments, background documentation, and supporting materials
submitted to the docket may be viewed by anyone at the address and
times given above. The documents may also be viewed on the internet at
https://www.regulations.gov by following the online instructions for
accessing the docket. The docket ID number for this petition is shown
in the heading of this notice.
DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement is available for review in a
Federal Register notice published on April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477-78).
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
[[Page 5312]]
I. Overview
Tesla has determined that certain MY 2012-2020 Tesla Model S, Tesla
Model X, Tesla Model 3, and Tesla Model Y motor vehicles do not fully
comply with the requirements of paragraph S5.2.1 (Table 1) of FMVSS No.
101, Controls and Displays (49 CFR 571.101). Tesla filed a
noncompliance report dated September 24, 2020, pursuant to 49 CFR 573,
Defect and Noncompliance Responsibility and Reports. Tesla subsequently
petitioned NHTSA on September 25, 2020 for an exemption from the
notification and remedy requirements of 49 U.S.C. Chapter 301 on the
basis that this noncompliance is inconsequential as it relates to motor
vehicle safety, pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 30118(d) and 30120(h) and 49 CFR
556, Exemption for Inconsequential Defect or Noncompliance. Tesla also
provided supplemental information related to the petition on October
23, 2020.
This notice of receipt of Tesla's petition is published under 49
U.S.C. 30118 and 30120 and does not represent any Agency decision or
other exercise of judgment concerning the merits of the petition.
II. Motor Vehicles Involved
Approximately 612,065 MY 2012-2020 Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X,
Tesla Model 3, and Tesla Model Y motor vehicles, manufactured between
December 1, 2011, and August 31, 2020, are potentially involved.
III. Noncompliance
Tesla explains that the noncompliance is that the subject motor
vehicles are equipped with speedometers that can be switched by the
operator to display the vehicle's speed in units of either miles per
hour (MPH) or kilometers-per-hour (km/h) and therefore, do not meet the
requirements set forth in paragraph S5.2.1 and Table 1, Column 3 of
FMVSS No. 101.
IV. Rule Requirements
Paragraph S5.2.1 and Table 1, Column 3 of FMVSS No. 101 includes
the requirements relevant to this petition. Each passenger car,
multipurpose passenger vehicle, truck, and bus that is fitted with a
control, a telltale, or an indicator listed in Table 1 or Table 2 of
FMVSS No. 101 must meet the requirements for the location,
identification, color, and illumination of that control, telltale, or
indicator. Each control, telltale, and indicator that is listed in
column 1 of Table 1 or Table 2 must be identified by the symbol
specified for it in column 2 or the word or abbreviation specified for
it in column 3 of Table 1 or Table 2. Specifically, the speedometer
must only allow the speed to be displayed in ``MPH, or MPH and km/h.''
V. Summary of Tesla's Petition
The following views and arguments presented in this section, ``V.
Summary of Tesla's Petition,'' are the views and arguments provided by
Tesla. They have not been evaluated by the Agency and do not reflect
the views of the Agency. Tesla describes the subject noncompliance and
contends that the noncompliance is inconsequential as it relates to
motor vehicle safety.
In support of its petition, Tesla offers the following reasoning:
1. All affected vehicles are originally configured to display speed
in mph and are delivered for first sale in the United States market in
a compliant state. Because distance is most commonly measured in the
United States in Imperial units (including mph), the majority of owners
will continue to operate their vehicle using the factory-configured
unit displayed (i.e., with the speed displayed in mph) and are unlikely
to ever attempt to change to metric units.
2. Only through driver interaction within the display settings menu
can the unit of measurement be changed from miles to kilometers. This
change must be done intentionally and cannot be accomplished
inadvertently.
3. When the display is set to kilometers, the indicated vehicle
speed in km/h is 1.6 times greater than the speed in mph. As a result,
if a vehicle operator changes the display to indicate km/h and later
forgets or neglects to change the display back to mph, they (or a
subsequent operator) would be more likely to travel at a slower speed
rather than a faster speed. Moreover, because the operator will be able
to easily recognize that the vehicle is moving at a lower speed than
intended, they will likely adjust their vehicle speed to match road and
traffic conditions.
4. If the vehicle operator has set the display to kilometers, all
functions relying on, or otherwise tied to, the speed limit (e.g.,
Traffic Aware Cruise Control and Speed Assist) will convert mapped data
from mph to km/h, resulting in the vehicle speed automatically matching
the appropriate speed limit even though the display is km/h.
5. If the vehicle operator needs to change the display back from
km/h to mph, the method for doing so can be easily located in the
display menu and is not buried in sub-menus.
6. If the operator nevertheless has difficulty finding the menu to
change the unit setting within the center display, instructions are
available in the Owner's Manual. For example, in the chapter on
Controls in the Model 3 Owner's Manual, there are instructions on how
to navigate the menu and an explanation that within the ``Display''
menu, there is a ``Distance'' toggle that allows operators to ``Choose
to display miles or kilometers for range, speed, energy, trip meters,
map searches, and navigation routes.''
7. On September 1, 2020, factory firmware release 2020.28.102.2 was
introduced in production, updating the speedometer units to display km/
h and mph when the display distance is set to kilometers. The change
was also included in firmware release 2020.36.11, which began rolling
out to field vehicles on or about September 16, 2020, so all vehicles
accepting the update (and future updates) will receive compliant
speedometer units. Tesla expects a majority of vehicles will have the
update completed within a few weeks and expects nearly all vehicles to
have completed the update within 6 months.
8. To date, Tesla has not received any reports of loss of control,
collision, injury or fatality, property damage, or fire related to this
issue.
9. Finally, Tesla notes that NHTSA has recently granted two
petitions for inconsequential treatment involving speedometer unit
display noncompliances, both of which involved a km/h display that did
not also display mph. See, e.g., Volkswagen Group of America, Inc.,
Grant of Petition for Decision of Inconsequential Noncompliance, 85 FR
39675 (July 1, 2020); BMW of North America, LLC, Grant of Petition for
Decision of Inconsequential Noncompliance, 80 FR 61884 (Oct. 14, 2015).
Because this issue is identical to the noncompliances in those cases,
NHTSA should grant this petition for the same reasons.
10. In Tesla's supplemental materials they stated that the display
setting has been corrected in production, as of September 1, 2020.
Tesla states that more than 75 percent of the affected U.S. vehicles
have accepted the firmware update released on September 16, 2020.
Tesla concludes by again contending that the subject noncompliance
is inconsequential as it relates to motor vehicle safety, and that its
petition to be exempted from providing notification of the
noncompliance, as required by 49 U.S.C. 30118, and a remedy for the
noncompliance, as required by 49 U.S.C. 30120, should be granted.
NHTSA notes that the statutory provisions (49 U.S.C. 30118(d) and
[[Page 5313]]
30120(h)) that permit manufacturers to file petitions for a
determination of inconsequentiality allow NHTSA to exempt manufacturers
only from the duties found in sections 30118 and 30120, respectively,
to notify owners, purchasers, and dealers of a defect or noncompliance
and to remedy the defect or noncompliance. Therefore, any decision on
this petition only applies to the subject vehicles that Tesla no longer
controlled at the time it determined that the noncompliance existed.
However, any decision on this petition does not relieve vehicle
distributors and dealers of the prohibitions on the sale, offer for
sale, or introduction or delivery for introduction into interstate
commerce of the noncompliant vehicles under their control after Tesla
notified them that the subject noncompliance existed.
Authority: 49 U.S.C. 30118, 30120: delegations of authority at
49 CFR 1.95 and 501.8.
Otto G. Matheke III,
Director, Office of Vehicle Safety Compliance.
[FR Doc. 2021-01088 Filed 1-15-21; 8:45 am]
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