US opens probe into Tesla's Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

U.S. auto safety regulators said Monday they had opened a formal safety probe into Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Inc's driver assistance system Autopilot in 765,000 U.S. vehicles built since 2014 after a series of crashes involving emergency vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that since January 2018 it had identified 11 crashes in which Tesla models "have encountered first responder scenes and subsequently struck one or more vehicles involved with those scenes."

Tesla shares fell 5% on the news.

After investigating, NHTSA could opt to take no action, or it could demand a recall, which might effectively impose limits on how, when