NHTSA investigates Comma.ai openpilot after five crashes including three deaths

Federal regulators open defect investigation

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Office of Defects Investigation has opened an investigation into Comma.ai, the startup founded by hacker George Hotz, following five reported crashes involving the company's aftermarket hands-off driving technology, according to TechCrunch. Two of those crashes resulted in three deaths.

According to the ODI, the reported crashes share a common pattern: the Comma devices failed to detect or respond to slow or stopped vehicles ahead in the same lane. Across four of the crashes, as many as 11 people were injured, some of them seriously.

The regulator also noted that some of the incidents, including at least one of the fatal ones, may have involved "forked" or modified versions of Comma.ai's software rather than the official release. TechCrunch reports that Comma.ai could not immediately be reached for comment, and that Hotz, who stepped back from day-to-day operations at the startup in 2022, did not return a request for comment.

What openpilot actually does

Founded in 2015, Comma.ai sells devices that can be retrofitted to a range of modern cars. Paired with the company's software, openpilot, the hardware can take over a vehicle's Adaptive Cruise Control and Automated Lane Centering systems to perform functions the startup compares to Tesla Autopilot and GM Super Cruise, with a stated goal of making driving chill.

The company's website claims openpilot can steer, accelerate and brake automatically in response to other vehicles within its lane. As with Tesla and GM, Comma.ai warns that drivers must always be capable of immediately retaking manual control, either by pressing a pedal or hitting the cancel button. The device relies on a camera-based driver-monitoring system to watch for distracted or drowsy drivers.

That framing, a Level 2 assistance system requiring constant supervision, mirrors the positioning of Tesla's and GM's products. But Comma's model differs in one important respect: because third-party forks of openpilot circulate in the community, modified builds may fall entirely outside the company's own testing and review.

The Louisiana crash

One of the two fatal crashes appears to have occurred in February 2026 in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. According to TechCrunch, a 2022 Toyota RAV4 running FrogPilot, a third-party fork of openpilot, struck a stopped first responder vehicle.

Louisiana State Police released details of a February crash that appear to match the entry in NHTSA's database. In its description, the agency said two rear-seat passengers of the Toyota died.

Why it matters

The investigation touches on several unresolved questions in assisted and automated driving. First, it tests how federal regulators treat aftermarket, open-source driver assistance systems that were never installed or certified by a vehicle manufacturer. Retrofit automation products have largely operated in a regulatory grey zone, and an adverse finding could shape how this entire category is supervised.

Second, the possible involvement of forked software raises hard liability questions. When a driver runs a community-modified version of openpilot and crashes, responsibility could sit with the driver, the fork's maintainers or the original publisher, a question neither regulators nor courts have settled.

Third, the failure mode itself, systems failing to detect stationary vehicles ahead, echoes earlier federal scrutiny of Tesla's Autopilot over similar crashes with stopped emergency vehicles. The outcome of the Comma probe will feed into a broader reassessment of how much safety camera-based driver monitoring can realistically deliver.

The story is still developing, and the investigation's scope, timeline and any potential recall remain open.