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Tesla CEO Elon Musk scrutinized The Wall Street Journal on Monday for what he reported as inadequate in a fatal crash in which authorities believe a driverless Tesla vehicle was near Houston.
Musk, 49, responded to a Twitter user who said Tesla’s safety features would prevent Saturday night’s crash, in which two people were killed, as reported by The Journal.
“There are security measures in place,” wrote Twitter user Ahmad A Dalhat. “The seat of the autopilot is weighed to make sure there is a driver, the hands must be on the steering wheel every ten seconds, otherwise it switches off. Autopilot does not go over the speed limits … Investigate pls.”
Musk said the Twitter user’s research “as a private person” was better than the “professionals” at The Journal.
“Data logs recovered so far show that Autopilot was not activated and did not purchase this car (full self-driving capability),” Musk tweeted. “In addition, standard Autopilot would require lanes to be turned on, which this street did not have.”
In 2016, Musk testified with reporters during a conference call in which he accused journalists of ‘killing people’ with their negative coverage of accidents involving Tesla cars.
“You have to think carefully about this,” Musk said. “Because if you, when writing a negative article, effectively discourage people from using an autonomous vehicle, you kill people.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday they will send investigators to Spring, Texas, to investigate the fatal crash Saturday.
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Investigators are “100% sure” that no one was driving the Tesla that missed a curve on a residential road, hit a tree and burst into flames, Harris Herman Precinct Four Constable said.
But they are still trying to determine if the electric car is used on Tesla’s driver assistance system Autopilot, or if the company’s Full Self-Driving Capability system is used.
FILE: A sign with the company logo outside a Tesla store in Cherry Creek Mall, Denver. (AP)
One of the men was found in the front passenger seat of the badly burned car and the other one in the back seat.
Representatives of Tesla did not immediately return FOX Business’ requests for comment. The NHTSA said in a statement to FOX Business that it was “aware of the tragic accident with a Tesla vehicle outside Houston, Texas,” and deployed a team to investigate.
KHOU-TV reported that the car was a 2019 Tesla Model S, and the two men found in the car were between 59 and 69 years old. Herman said the car ran about 100 feet after running off the road, hitting a tree and immediately catching fire.
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District Four Constable Mark Herman of Harris County said firefighters used at least 32,000 gallons of water to put out the flames powered by the car’s lithium-ion battery. Firefighters at the scene contacted Tesla for advice on how to put out the fire and were told to just let it burn out.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday that the company had released a first-quarter safety report showing that Tesla with Autopilot is almost ten times less likely to collide than the average vehicle with a person driving it management.
But Kelly Funkhouser, head of coupled and automated vehicle testing for consumer reports, said Tesla’s numbers have been inaccurate in the past and difficult to confirm.
“You just have to accept their word for it,” Funkhouser said, adding that Tesla does not say how many times the system failed but did not crash, or when a driver could not take over.
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Shares of Tesla Inc. fell 4% on Monday afternoon, more than the broader markets. The decline follows huge gains for Tesla, whose shares have risen 370% over the past twelve months.
Fox Business, Lucas Manfredi and The Associated Press contributed to this report.