The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday it is opening an investigation into a series of crashes involving startup Avride’s autonomous vehicles that raised questions about their performance.
NHTSA said the vehicles’ behavior may indicate excessive assertiveness and insufficient capability, which “may also constitute traffic safety violations.” Some of the crashes resulted in property damage and one reported minor injury.
NHTSA said the vehicles had executed lane changes into other vehicles and failed to avoid vehicles or objects in the road, resulting in crashes.
NHTSA noted that Avride operates some of its AVs on Uber’s
platform and has offered passenger services in Dallas since December, where many of the incidents occurred. NHTSA cited 16 crashes of concern.
