SAN FRANCISCO — Two U.S. senators on Wednesday pressed the Federal Commerce Fee to probe Tesla, saying the corporate has misled customers and endangered the general public by advertising its driving automation techniques as absolutely self-driving.

“Tesla and (CEO) Mr. (Elon) Musk’s repeated overstatements of their car’s capabilities…put Tesla drivers — and all the touring public — susceptible to critical damage or loss of life,” Senate Democrats Richard Blumenthal and Edward Markey stated in a letter to newly appointed FTC Chair Lina Khan.

“Tesla drivers hear to those claims and consider their autos are outfitted to drive themselves – with probably lethal penalties.”

The letter, which got here after NHTSA opened a probe into Tesla’s Autopilot on Monday, added to stress on Tesla.

Tesla didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Autopilot is a normal function for Tesla automobiles and allows the autos to keep up distance from automobiles in entrance. Tesla sells its superior driver-assist options reminiscent of lane altering and automatic parking beneath the title Full Self-Driving for $1,000, though the system doesn’t make its autos absolutely autonomous.

Musk, who has almost 60 million Twitter followers, makes use of the time period FSD regularly, usually referring to the Tesla bundle of options. Musk has touted how protected the expertise is and promised that its autos would quickly drive themselves, solely to overlook his personal deadlines.

NHTSA stated in June that since 2016 it has opened 30 investigations into Tesla crashes through which the company suspects superior driver help techniques had been in use.

NHTSA in 2018 stated in a letter to Tesla the corporate had made “deceptive statements” in regards to the security of its Mannequin 3 and had confused customers. The company referred the difficulty to the FTC to research whether or not Tesla’s statements constituted “unfair or misleading acts or practices.”