The federal government has given Tesla one more extension to explain why its Full Self-Driving system keeps tripping over basic traffic rules, and regulators are signaling that patience is almost gone. The new deadline turns a slow-burning safety inquiry into a high-stakes test of whether Tesla can prove its software is safe and legally marketed before a broader legal and political backlash erupts. What looks like a bureaucratic reprieve is, in practice, a final warning shot before a potential full-scale fight over how far autonomous driving claims can stretch under existing law.
At the center of the standoff is a vast trove of potential violations, thousands of crash and near-miss reports, and a company that has built its brand on the promise that software will eventually drive better than humans. If Tesla fails to satisfy regulators this time, the Full Self-Driving debate could shift from technical performance to accusations of systemic lawbreaking, from traffic codes on the street to consumer protection rules in the courtroom.
The last extension before regulators lose patience
Regulators have made clear that this latest delay is not a sign of leniency but a final chance for Tesla to get its story straight. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, granted Tesla a five week extension to respond to a sweeping information request on alleged Full Self-Driving traffic violations, after the company said it needed more time to assemble data. In a separate notice, NHTSA again extended the deadline for Tesla to answer the agency’s questions until Feb, with officials stressing that this is the last time the company can miss a cutoff without consequences, according to a filing that described the new timeline as a hard stop for further delays from NHTSA.
The tone from Washington has shifted from curiosity about a novel technology to frustration with a company that keeps asking for more time while its cars continue to operate on public roads. One account described officials effectively telling Tesla that this is “definitely the last time” it can blow off a deadline to turn in data on why FSD appears to ignore traffic laws, a warning that came alongside a reminder that the government has already logged a long list of alleged violations and crashes tied to the system, according to a complaint cited in an NHTSA complaint. I read that as regulators drawing a bright line: either Tesla delivers a convincing, data-rich defense of FSD, or the probe escalates into something much more adversarial.
Inside the 8,313 potential violations and crash record
Behind the deadline drama sits a daunting technical and legal task. Tesla has told regulators that it is manually reviewing a mountain of incidents in which FSD may have broken traffic rules, acknowledging that “As of today, there are 8,313 records remaining that require manual review.” The company has said it can process about 300 of these cases per day, a pace that helps explain why it pushed for more time but also underscores how many times the software may have interacted with traffic laws in questionable ways, according to filings that describe the backlog and the review rate. Each of those records is not just a data point but a potential regulatory landmine if it shows the system repeatedly making the same kind of mistake.
Regulators are not starting from a blank slate. NHTSA, formally identified as the National Highway Traffic, has already logged 62 complaints, alongside additional crash and media reports, about Tesla’s Full Self-Driving behavior. Another summary of the probe notes that the investigation has tracked dozens of crashes involving FSD engaged, including incidents that resulted in 23 injuries, according to reporting that cites Frank Landymore. When I look at those figures next to the 8,313 records still under review, it is clear that the government is no longer treating FSD glitches as isolated bugs but as a pattern that might justify new rules or enforcement actions.
From safety probe to marketing and consumer law risk
What began as a safety investigation is now brushing up against broader questions about how Tesla has marketed its technology. In California, The DMV has said Tesla violated state law by misleading customers about its vehicles’ autonomous driving capabilities, giving the company 60 days to comply or risk suspension of its ability to sell cars in the state, according to a notice that explicitly accuses The DMV of being misled by Tesla’s own branding. That state-level action is separate from the federal FSD probe, but it points in the same direction: if the software cannot reliably obey traffic laws, then calling it “Full Self-Driving” may not just be optimistic, it may be unlawful.
Federal investigators are also looking at how drivers interact with the system, not just how the code behaves. An investigation of Tesla’s full self-driving feature was opened after the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administ received reports that vehicles on the system were rear-ending other vehicles and causing injuries, raising questions about whether drivers were lulled into overtrusting the technology, according to a summary of the investigation. If regulators conclude that Tesla’s marketing encouraged drivers to hand too much control over to their cars, the company could face not only safety-related penalties but also consumer protection claims that go well beyond the current FSD traffic-law probe.
Robotaxi ambitions collide with regulatory reality
For Tesla, the timing could hardly be worse. The company has spent years promising that Full Self-Driving will unlock a lucrative robotaxi future, and some investors have treated that vision as central to the company’s valuation. Analysts have described the January 16 reprieve as a landmark moment in the “Robotaxi Wars” of 2026, arguing that the extension underscores shifting power dynamics between Silicon Valley and Washington as regulators assert more control over autonomous driving timelines, according to a detailed look at the January reprieve. In the short term, all eyes now remain on February 23, 2026, when Tesla must provide a data package that proves FSD is not fundamentally programmed to violate traffic laws and that explains the structure of the FSD neural architecture, according to another analysis of what In the near term is at stake.
Investors have already started to price in the regulatory risk. Tesla, listed as Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), received a five week extension in the FSD safety probe, and its shares were reported to be down about 0.60% intraday after the news, according to one market-focused summary of how Tesla Gets More in the probe. Another account, by Renato Neves, CFA, noted that the same investigation is examining whether FSD has caused vehicles to travel in the wrong direction, a detail that goes straight to the heart of whether the system can be trusted in dense urban environments where Tesla hopes to deploy robotaxis, according to Renato Neves, CFA. I see those market jitters as a sign that investors now recognize what regulators have been signaling for months: the path to a driverless future will be set in government offices as much as in code repositories.
How Tesla’s technical roadmap and global scrutiny intersect
Even as regulators tighten the screws, Tesla continues to push its technical roadmap, promising ever more capable versions of FSD. One prominent supporter predicted that by Dec 2025 drivers would “definitely get version 14.3 of the full self-driving software,” describing it as having “significantly bigger brains” and more human-like reasoning. That kind of rhetoric reflects the company’s long-standing strategy of shipping beta software to customers and iterating in public, but it also raises the stakes of the current probe: if regulators decide that the existing architecture is fundamentally flawed, Tesla may have to rethink not just its marketing but its entire approach to deploying unfinished autonomy features on public roads.
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