Tesla has been forced by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) to recall 362,758 vehicles that are equipped with the Full Self-Driving Beta software over what the government safety agency believes to be serious crash risks.

According to the NHTSA recall document, "the FSD Beta system may allow the vehicle to act unsafe around intersections, such as traveling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane, entering a stop sign-controlled intersection without coming to a complete stop, or proceeding into an intersection during a steady yellow traffic signal without due caution. In addition, the system may respond insufficiently to changes in posted speed limits or not adequately account for the driver's adjustment of the vehicle's speed to exceed posted speed limits."

The recall affects every vehicle in Tesla's lineup through the current model year, beginning with the 2016 Model S and Model X, 2017 Model 3, and 2020 Model Y. Because this is a software issue, the fix is an over-the-air update, but details of this are not provided in the official filing.

But, the document does state that the update will supposedly "improve how FSD Beta negotiates certain driving maneuvers." Tesla did not agree with the NHTSA's decision to recall the vehicles and agreed to do so "out of an abundance of caution."

Since FSD was launched over a year ago, there have been numerous issues, and Tesla has regularly released OTA updates to improve the technology. What makes this update different from the others?

The NHTSA is unclear on the matter, but it stated that it had identified 18 warranty claims that might be related to FSD. Fortunately, neither Tesla nor the NHTSA is aware of any injuries or fatalities associated with this recall.

This recall request was issued to Tesla on January 25, and the carmaker met with regulators several times through February 7. That day, Tesla decided to comply with the agency's request and issued a voluntary recall.

Due to safety-related concerns, Tesla's two semi-autonomous driving systems, Autopilot and FSD, have been under federal investigation for a while. For this recall, owners will be notified by mail beginning on April 15, but neither the carmaker nor the agency has said when the OTA update will be released.