Credit: Getty Images

Late last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened yet another investigation into Tesla and its partially automated driver assist systems. This time it was about FSD (again), which has been the subject of more than 60 complaints to the regulator after Teslas operating under FSD either ignored red traffic lights or crossed into oncoming traffic. As part of the preliminary investigation, NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation has asked Tesla for more information on the problem. This week, it told the automaker it could have a five-week extension on its homework.

To be fair to Tesla, NHTSA has asked for a comprehensive amount of information: a list of every Tesla produced and sold or leased in the United States, including whether or not that car had FSD and which version; cumulative data on how many US Teslas have FSD and how often it’s used; and a list of all the customer complaints, field reports, incident reports, lawsuits, and other data related to FSD ignoring traffic laws.

For each incident involving a crash, Tesla must give NHTSA a summary of the incident, including “causal and contributing factors.” Further questions require information on FSD use by crashed cars; any alert shown to the drivers; what work, simulation, or otherwise Tesla has conducted to ameliorate the problem; any modifications or changes to FSD hardware or software; an explanation of Tesla’s theory of operation for traffic lights and stop signs; and Tesla’s assessment of the problem.

The original request was sent to Tesla on December 3 with a deadline of January 19—next Monday—with penalties of up to $27,874 per day (to a maximum of $139.4 million) for not complying.

However, the winter holiday period ate up two weeks of the six-and-a-bit weeks, and the company has had to simultaneously prepare two other information requests for other ongoing NHTSA probes, one due today, another on January 23rd, and yet another on February 4, the company told NHTSA. Identifying all the complaints and reports will take more time, Tesla said, as it found 8,313 items when it searched for traffic violations, and it can only process 300 a day to see which ones are relevant.

Answering the remaining questions on NHTSA’s list would require the above to be completed first, so Tesla asked for and was granted an extension until February 23.

Meanwhile, Tesla has changed how its driver assist cash cow contributes to the bottom line. Until now, Tesla owners had the option of buying the system outright for (currently) $8,000. Now, CEO Elon Musk says that option will go away on February 14. From then on, if a Tesla owner wants FSD, they’ll have to pay a $99 monthly fee to use it.