Tesla faces another NHTSA investigation after a fatal driverless crash in Texas

On Monday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had “immediately” launched a new investigation into Tesla after a fatal crash in Spring, Texas over the weekend.

Two men died in the crash Saturday night, and apparently no one was behind the wheel, according to multiple press interviews with local police.

The electric vehicle, a Tesla 2019 Model S, crashed into a tree and burst into flames. One person was found in the front passenger seat and another in the rear passenger seat of the vehicle.

Another federal agency, the National Transportation Safety Board, said it is also sending two investigators to Texas and will focus their analysis on vehicle operation and the fire after a crash.

Police and federal vehicle safety authorities have not completed their extensive investigations. A preliminary report is inconclusive, and questions remain as to whether Tesla’s advanced driver assistance systems were enabled before or during the crash.

The company’s systems are marketed under the Autopilot, Full Self-Driving or Full Self-Driving beta brands. Tesla includes Autopilot as standard in all of its newer vehicles. And it sells fully self-driving for $ 10,000 with a subscription option in the works.

Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (or FSD) technology do not make Tesla vehicles safe for use without a driver at the wheel. Some customers who purchase the FSD option also get access to a “beta” version to try out the latest features added to the system on the public road before all bugs are fixed.

The company says in its owner’s manuals that drivers should only use Autopilot and FSD under “active supervision.”

At the same time, CEO Elon Musk praises these systems as safe and continuously improving on Twitter, where he has 50 million followers, and in media appearances.

On an episode of the popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast in February, Musk and Rogan discussed how Tesla drivers could play chess on their car’s touchscreens while driving, even though they shouldn’t. (They have to press a button to indicate that they are the passenger.)

On that same episode, Musk also said, “I think Autopilot is going to be good enough that you don’t have to drive most of the time unless you really want to.”

The great hope for autonomous and automated driving systems in development today is that, like seat belts, automatic emergency braking, airbags and other technologies that have become standard, they will prevent or lessen the impact of accidents. According to data from the NHTSA, there were 36,096 fatalities in motor vehicle road accidents in 2019.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened about 28 investigations into accidents involving Tesla vehicles to date, and about 24 of these are active today.

The National Transportation Safety Board, an independent federal agency that investigates accidents to determine contributing factors, has called on NHTSA to impose strict safety standards on automated vehicle technology. NTSB called out Tesla in particular for poor safety practices in their recommendations and expressed frustration at NHTSA’s reluctance to take action following multiple fatal accidents involving Uber and Tesla vehicles.

Tesla Autopilot-related fatalities have killed Joshua Brown in Florida, Walter Huang in California and Jeremy Banner in Florida, in addition to the two men who died in Texas. In a crash with the autopilot, Tesla driver Gao Yaning was also killed in China, and there was an autopilot crash in Japan that killed a pedestrian, Yoshihiro Umeda.

Here’s the full statement an NHTSA spokesperson sent to CNBC about the Spring, Texas crash:

NHTSA is aware of the tragic Tesla vehicle crash outside Houston, Texas. NHTSA immediately launched a Special Crash Investigation team to investigate the crash. We are actively involved with local law enforcement and Tesla to learn more Get to know the details of the crashes and will take the necessary steps when we have more information. “