Today, Tesla issued a recall affecting more than 2 million vehicles — almost every car it has built since 2012.…

Today, Tesla issued a recall affecting more than 2 million vehicles — almost every car it has built since 2012. The recall comes as part of a government investigation into the safety of Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system. It does not end the investigation.

The recall applies to the following:

It does not cover the older Tesla Roadster or the new Tesla Cybertruck, which are in just a handful of owners’ hands.

What Autopilot Is, and Isn’t

Autopilot is a driver assistance system that can accelerate, brake, and steer a Tesla to help it stay in its lane. It does not make a Tesla into a self-driving car. There are no self-driving cars for sale in America, although a recent study showed that about 10% of Americans think Tesla models can drive themselves.

It is one of three such systems Tesla offers.

Autopilot is standard on all Tesla models, though it has sometimes been an added-cost option. It includes an intelligent cruise control that matches the car to the speed of the surrounding traffic. A lane-centering function helps keep the vehicle in the center of its lane.

Enhanced Autopilot is a $6,000 option. It adds navigating highway on- and off-ramps and interchanges on top of what Autopilot can do. It also adds a self-parking system and includes a “summon” function that lets owners call the car to them at parking lot speed from nearby.

Full Self-Driving Capability is now a $12,000 option. Tesla says it will read and react to traffic lights and stop signs and steer around some turns with the driver’s “active supervision.”

Last year, a coalition of car safety groups called for the auto industry to voluntarily abandon marketing names like “Full Self-Driving” to avoid misleading consumers who might then use the systems in unsafe ways.

This recall applies only to Autopilot. It comes less than a year after Tesla launched a similar massive recall campaign to modify Full Self-Driving Capability.

Tesla’s Approach to Safety Is Unique Among Automakers

Many automakers have similar systems, but most work only on designated, pre-mapped roads. Tesla allows owners to activate Autopilot anywhere — the key factor driving the current recall.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) explains, “In certain circumstances when Autosteer is engaged, the prominence and scope of the feature’s controls may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse.”

The recall comes just days after a Washington Post report highlighting eight fatal accidents that occurred when drivers engaged the system in places where even the Tesla owner’s manual says they should not.

In a lengthy statement on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Tesla disputed the newspaper’s conclusions and said it believes Autopilot is safer than a human driver.

Every Tesla’s electronic owner’s manual says Autopilot is “intended for use on controlled-access highways” with “a center divider, clear lane markings, and no cross traffic.” But drivers can turn the system on anywhere.

Other automakers solve that problem with geofencing — preventing owners from turning their systems on except in appropriate places. Tesla has no such system in place. The recall won’t create one.

The Software Update Adds More Warnings

Instead, NHTSA says, a software update will “incorporate additional controls and alerts to those already existing on affected vehicles to encourage the driver further to adhere to their continuous driving responsibility whenever Autosteer is engaged, which includes keeping their hands on the steering wheel and paying attention to the roadway.”

Tesla uses a lower-tech approach to driver attention monitoring than most of the industry.

Most automakers with hands-off systems use a camera to ensure the driver pays attention. Tesla, instead, uses a sensor that tracks whether the driver is making tiny movements to the steering wheel. That has led to incidents where drivers attached weights to the steering wheel to trick the system.

NHTSA says new controls in this software update include “increasing the prominence of visual alerts on the user interface, simplifying engagement and disengagement of Autosteer, additional checks upon engaging Autosteer and while using the feature outside controlled access highways and when approaching traffic controls, and eventual suspension from Autosteer use if the driver repeatedly fails to demonstrate continuous and sustained driving responsibility while the feature is engaged.”

NHTSA has not closed its investigation, saying the probe “remains open to support an evaluation of the effectiveness of the remedies deployed by Tesla.”

Some Tesla owners may wake up to find their cars have already downloaded the update. The company said it would begin pushing it out immediately.

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