Announced Monday, the investigation into the crashes, which occurred from 2018 to 2021 and involved Teslas using Autopilot, or the company’s Traffic Aware Cruise Control, that came into contact with emergency vehicles, sent Tesla’s stock tumbling more than 9% from $717.28 to $649.48 by midday Tuesday. The company’s shares recovered slightly Wednesday afternoon, rising about 4% to $690.
And while the impact of the probe could range from Tesla having to implement greater limitations of the use of its vehicles’ driver-assistance capabilities, or even the outright disabling of the features, the harm it may have done to consumers’ confidence in the still relatively new technologies could take years to rebuild.