Tesla crash: Police say no one was in the driver’s seat during the Texas crash

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According to Constable Mark Herman, the head of the Harris County Police Department who responded to the crash, one person was killed in the front passenger seat and one in the back seat of the car in the crash in the suburb of Spring, Texas, in Houston. .

“I can tell you that our investigators are sure there was no one in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash,” 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 the authorities. The car, a 2019 Tesla Model S, apparently went off the road after unable to navigate a corner and hit some trees. Herman said the crash is still under investigation and the exact speed was not yet known. But he said there are indications that 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 lane and slowing or stopping the car to avoid obstacles in front of him. It may also come with a more advanced feature called Full Self-Driving Capability, or FSD, which is now being tested by what Tesla CEO Elon Musk described as a small group of members of the public. It is not known whether the Tesla involved in Saturday’s incident was equipped with that advanced software.
Telsa’s website warns that “current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.” But just last Saturday Musk tweeted claim the Autopilot feature was significantly safer than human drivers.

“Tesla with autopilot engaged is now approaching 10 times lower risk of an accident than an average vehicle,” he tweeted.

Musk was referring to company data showing that Teslas with autopilots engaged were involved in just one accident for every 4.19 million miles driven in the first quarter of this year, compared with data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that Tesla says was one accident. in every 484,000 miles for human-driven cars.

But those mileage comparisons aren’t necessarily valid, as drivers using Autopilot are more likely to activate them on limited-access highways where the likelihood of an accident is lower, while NHTSA data covers all miles driven, including those on local streets with intersections.

Safety concerns

There have been numerous criticisms of the Tesla Autopilot system from safety experts, including its use of the name “Autopilot,” which some of those critics say encourages owners to believe the car can actually drive itself.
Releasing a report of a 2018 fatal accident involving a Tesla with Autopilot, the National Transportation Safety Board said the automaker was not doing enough to ensure drivers were aware of their surroundings and ready to drive the car. to control to avoid accidents.

“This tragic crash clearly demonstrates the limitations of advanced driver assistance systems available to consumers today,” NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said in a February 2020 report on the Mountainview, California crash. “There is currently no car available to US consumers that is self-driving. Period. Any vehicle sold to US consumers still requires the driver to be actively involved in the driving task, even when advanced driver assistance systems are activated.”

Tesla TSLA did not respond to a request for comment about 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 should still be attentive and ready to take over in the event of an emergency.

Constable Herman said his department has already been in contact with the NTSB and NHTSA about the crash. It has not yet contacted Tesla, he said.

The NTSB said it was aware of the accident and is not yet sure whether it will conduct an investigation. But the NHTSA said it has already deployed a Special Crash Investigation team to investigate the crash.

The real self-driving revolution will be away for years

The autopilot feature requires the driver’s seat belt to be fastened in order to be fastened. It is also designed to warn the driver if he does not keep his hands on the wheel often enough.

The Saturday crash resulted in a fire that, according to Herman, took four hours to extinguish on site, using 32,000 liters of water.

Gasoline powered cars are generally at higher risk of fire in a collision than a pure electric car, but the large battery that powers these cars can catch fire if damaged in a collision. However, the EV batteries usually take longer to ignite than gasoline.

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

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