The first major federal self-driving probe of the year isn't aimed at Tesla or Waymo. It's aimed at a startup most drivers have never heard of, running on Uber's app and Hyundai's hardware.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday it has opened an investigation into Avride after a string of crashes in Texas, with 16 incidents flagged.
The crashes shared a pattern, with vehicles changing lanes into the path of other cars, failing to slow or stop for traffic ahead, and striking objects partly blocking the road.
NHTSA said this points to "excessive assertiveness and insufficient capability," adding that some of the behavior may also count as traffic safety violations.
Several crashes involved property damage, and one person was reported with a minor injury.
Avride is the headline, but the supporting cast carries the bigger names.
The company has offered passenger rides in Dallas since December, with most of the flagged crashes happening there, many of those rides booked through Uber, and the cars themselves built on Hyundai's Ioniq 5 platform.
Avride said in a statement that a trained safety operator was on board for every reported crash, adding that many of the events were caused by the actions of other drivers and that fixes have been rolled out after each one.
Uber and Hyundai did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Avride is a small player in a field dominated by Waymo, Cruise, and Tesla, but it has been growing fast on the strength of its Uber and Hyundai ties.
The company said last month it has 200 vehicles on the road and is adding dozens more each month, which makes the timing of this probe especially awkward.
NHTSA has opened several self-driving investigations in recent years, mostly aimed at the household names, so an early look at a smaller startup signals that regulators are now watching the entire field and not just the leaders.
The agency said its preliminary review of crash videos showed vehicles changing lanes into the path of others, failing to slow or stop for traffic ahead, and striking stationary objects partly blocking lanes.
For Uber, the probe lands as the ride-hailing giant has been pushing autonomous rides through partners rather than building the technology itself.
For Hyundai, the Ioniq 5 platform is meant to show up across multiple robotaxi efforts, which makes any safety question on Avride a question for the whole strategy.
The federal review will dig into whether Avride's growth is happening faster than the safety record can support, and the company says it has already implemented technical and operational fixes after each reported incident.
NHTSA also said its probe will look at how the system is supervised in the real world, including the role of the on-board safety operator that Avride says was present during every flagged crash.
Avride's fleet is still growing each month, the federal review just got going, and Uber and Hyundai are now waiting to see how deep the questions go.
