Tesla withdraws Full Self-Driving tech over software issue

Tesla has been forced to halt public testing of its latest Full Self-Driving (FSD) software just hours after its release after owners reported false collision warnings and numerous other issues.

The US car-maker is already under intense scrutiny over the safety of its semi-autonomous tech after earlier reports its FSD is easily confused by parked static emergency vehicles attending accidents on the highway or road network.

Confirming Tesla was suspending its Beta software trial on public roads, CEO Elon Musk said in a Twitter post overnight: "Seeing some issues with 10.3, so rolling back to 10.2 temporarily.

"Please note, this is to be expected with Beta software. It is impossible to test all hardware configs in all conditions with internal QA (quality assurance), hence public Beta," he said.

Originally claimed to feature several improvements, the 10.3 software update to FSD was active for less than a day before it was pulled.

Once uploaded, some owners said the software repeatedly triggered forward collision warning when there was no obstructing vehicle in its path.

Some owners reported that the FSD automatically applied the brakes without reason, while others said they lost the FSD software entirely after suffering problems.

Late Monday eve our time, Musk then confirmed the Tesla 10.3.1 version was being rolled out, but it's not known if all the teething issues have been fixed.

In any case, the timing of the latest problems couldn't be worse for the US car-maker.

On its home turf, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has already launched a probe into the safety of Tesla's FSD that is currently operating in 765,000 vehicles in North America alone.

The NHTSA has the power to force Tesla to recall or, worse, forbid the car-maker to use its FSD until it meets certain criteria.