By Elias Schisgall

Two Democratic senators are demanding that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration fully investigate the safety claims of Tesla's Full Self-Driving technology.

Senators Ed Markey (D., Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) cast doubt on Tesla's safety claims, including that its autonomous cars are 10 times safer and lead to 85% fewer crashes than human-driven vehicles, in a Tuesday letter to NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison.

"The broad nature of these statements suggests that Tesla has rigorous data to justify these claims," they wrote. "In fact, Tesla's safety claims appear to rest on methodological choices that systematically inflate FSD's apparent safety advantage."

The senators also called on the NHTSA to increase its data reporting requirements for all autonomous-vehicle companies and requested information on the agency's evaluation of Tesla's safety claims and data.

Tesla didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The agency said it had received the letter and is reviewing it.

Tesla is currently under investigation by the NHTSA over its automated driving-assistance software. The probe began in 2024 after the agency identified several crashes, including one fatality, involving the software, and escalated earlier this year to cover the performance of automated Teslas in poor roadway conditions.

The letter comes as Tesla and its major autonomous-vehicles competitors, including the Alphabet-owned Waymo, are scaling up their fleets across the U.S. A host of smaller companies in the space are also moving toward U.S. deployments, many in partnership with the ride-sharing platform Uber.

Write to Elias Schisgall at elias.schisgall@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 16, 2026 15:02 ET (19:02 GMT)

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