NHTSA upgrades probe into Tesla’s Autopilot crashes

• The agency said it identified 15 injuries and one fatality related to the crashes

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Thursday it is escalating its investigation into crashes involving Tesla Inc’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) Autopilot.

NHTSA said in a notice that it is upgrading its earlier investigation to an engineering analysis as it found new crashes involving Autopilot and emergency-response vehicles.

The auto agency had begun a probe last August into Tesla vehicles after identifying crashes in cars using Autopilot.