According to police, no one was in the driver’s seat in the fatal Tesla accident

According to police, no one was in the driver’s seat in the fatal Tesla accident

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According to the accident in the Houston suburb of Spring, Texas, one person in the front passenger seat and one in the back seat of the car were killed, according to Constable Mark Herman, the chief of police in Harris County, who responded to the accident. has.

“I can tell you that our investigators are sure no one was in the driver’s seat at the time of the accident,” he told CNN on Monday.

The names of the two accident victims, a 69-year-old man and a 59-year-old man, were not immediately released by authorities. The car, a 2019 Tesla Model S, apparently went off the road after failing to move in a curve and hitting some trees. Herman said the crash was still being investigated and that the exact speed was not yet known. But he says evidence suggests the car was moving at a “high speed”.

Based on the model year, the Tesla Model S has an “Autopilot” feature designed to assist the driver by keeping the car in a traffic lane and slowing down or stopping the car to avoid obstacles ahead. It could also be equipped with a more advanced feature called Full Self-Driving capability, or FSD, which is now being tested by what Tesla CEO Elon Musk describes as a small group of members of the public. It is unknown whether the Tesla involved in Saturday’s incident was equipped with the advanced software.
Telsa’s website warns that “current Autopilot features require active driver oversight and do not make the vehicle autonomous.” But just this past Saturday, Musk tweeted claims that the Autopilot function was significantly safer than human drivers.

“Tesla with Autopilot now involves the chance of an accident ten times less than the average vehicle,” he tweeted.

Musk referred to operational data that showed that Teslas, along with the Autopilot, was involved in just one accident for every 4.19 million kilometers driven in the first quarter of this year, compared to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration which Tesla one accident in every 484,000 shows miles for cars driven by humans.

But the comparisons carried by miles are not necessarily valid, as drivers using Autopilot are more likely to activate it on restricted highway highways where the chance of an accident is reduced, while the NHTSA data all mileage, including those in local streets. with intersections.

Security concerns

There have been numerous criticisms of the Tesla Autopilot system by safety experts, including the use of the name “Autopilot”, which according to some critics encourages owners to believe that the car can drive itself.
The National Transportation Safety Board, when issuing a report on a fatal accident in 2018 in which a Tesla was involved with Autopilot, said that the car manufacturer is not doing enough to ensure that drivers remain aware of their environment and are ready to take control of take the car to avoid accidents.

“This tragic accident clearly demonstrates the limitations of advanced driver assistance systems available today,” NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said in a February 2020 report on the 2018 crash in Mountainview, California. “There is not currently a vehicle available for self-driving U.S. consumers. Period. Every vehicle sold to U.S. consumers still requires the driver to be actively involved in the driving task, even if advanced driver assistance systems are enabled.”

Tesla (TSLA) did not respond to a request for comment on the crash. In the past, Tesla has defended the use of the Autopilot name, saying that even in the case of aircraft autopilot systems, the pilot must still be alert and ready to take over in case of emergency.

Constable Herman said his department was already in touch with the NTSB and NHTSA about the accident. It had not yet been in contact with Tesla, he said.

The NTSB said it was aware of the crash and was not yet sure if it would investigate. However, NHTSA said it had already deployed a special accident investigation team to investigate the accident.

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The autopilot feature requires the driver’s seat belt to be fastened. It is also designed to warn the driver if they do not regularly keep enough hands on the wheel.

The accident on Saturday led to a fire that took firefighters at the scene four hours to put out, using 32,000 gallons of water, according to Herman.

Petrol-powered cars usually run a greater fire hazard than a purely electric vehicle, but the large battery that drives the cars can catch fire if damaged. However, EV batteries usually take longer to ignite than gasoline.

– CNN Business’ Matt McFarland and Peter Valdes-Dapena contributed to this report

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