After multiple deaths and injuries, NHTSA is investigating comma.ai

Aftermarket devices that boost or augment a vehicle's native advanced driver assistance systems are the target of a new federal investigation. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Office of Defects Investigation says it knows of five crashes in which drivers using devices from comma.ai struck stopped or slow-moving cars.

Two of the crashes resulted in three deaths, and 11 people were injured in four of the five crashes, some of them seriously.

What the investigation covers

The agency is examining whether comma.ai's systems can reliably detect a slow or stopped car in the path of travel. At least two of the five crashes involved a comma.ai-controlled car hitting a stopped vehicle; in one case the struck vehicle belonged to a first responder, and the resulting crash killed three people. Another of the five crashes saw a comma.ai-controlled car hit a vehicle that was merging.

NHTSA is also interested in which version of the software was running at the time of each crash. At least two of the crashes involved forks of the main build, including the fatal crash, which was running a version called FrogPilot.

From jailbroken iPhones to openpilot

comma.ai was the brainchild of George Hotz, who rose to prominence at the start of the last decade by jailbreaking iOS and hacking Sony PlayStation consoles. In 2015 he turned his attention to partially automated driver assists, which were gaining attention following Tesla's exploits with its Autopilot system. Hotz first modified his own Acura so it could take his hands off the wheel, with the goal of selling the system to Tesla and replacing Mobileye as the company's supplier. Mobileye dropped Tesla as a customer the following year, unhappy with the way the car company was using its products in unintended ways.

Comma's first attempts to sell devices that owners could plug into their cars' OBD port evaporated once NHTSA began asking questions in 2016. Instead, the company posted its openpilot software and its hardware plans to GitHub, letting anyone build the devices themselves. Comma Neo and OpenPilot initially supported a single Acura and a single Honda model, but by 2020 Consumer Reports rated the company's software and its $999 device more highly than any OEM system.

How widely the system is used

Comma says its current device, the Comma Four, can add lane centering, adaptive cruise, and a cloud-based dash cam to more than 325 car models across 27 different brands. More than 30,000 drivers are using openpilot, with more than 402 million miles (650 million km) driven.