Tesla’s troubled autopilot was disabling itself when some owners uploaded the newest over-the-air software update pushed out this week to the electric automaker's fleet of vehicles.
One Tesla Model 3 owner, who remained anonymous, told Jalopnik the autopilot function was disabled after the software update failed on Tuesday night.
The company confirmed to the vehicle owner the problem was a known issue and initially said the glitch would be resolved by Wednesday.
However, when nothing was fixed midweek, the company assured the owner the issue would be rectified by Friday.
“This is a currently known issue and our engineer team is hard at work resolving the problems that have occurred,” a Tesla employee based in Fremont, California, wrote in an email to the Model 3 owner.
Several other vehicle owners had similar complaints, prompting a response from Elon Musk on Twitter.
“Due to a large increase in vehicle delivery volume in North America, Tesla customers may experience longer response times,” he tweeted. “Resolving this is our top priority.”
One vehicle owner reported contacting Tesla and being told there would be another update in “a few days,” according to Jalopnik.
Another vehicle owner received a separate software update from the Tesla service center, which also failed to work.
“My autopilot still doesn’t work, but I’m getting messages that Emergency Braking, Regenerative Braking, and Traction Control are not working,” the vehicle owner said.
Tesla has come under fire before for faulty updates which rendered the company’s semi-autonomous driver assist system “essentially unusable and demonstrably dangerous,” The Verge reported.
The company settled a class action lawsuit with Model S sedan and Model X SUV owners over delays in rolling out autopilot updates earlier this year.
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