A Tesla logo on an S model is photographed inside a Tesla dealership in New York.
Lucas Jackson | Reuters
On Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted on Twitter a denial that his company’s automated driving systems were involved in a fatal crash in Spring, Texas.
Two federal agencies, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, are now investigating the crash.
Local police said in several press interviews that apparently no one was behind the wheel of the 2019 Tesla Model S when it went off the road, hit a tree and burst into flames, according to their preliminary investigations.
Musk wrote in his tweet on Monday: “The data logs recovered so far show that the autopilot has not been activated and this car has not purchased FSD. Moreover, the standard autopilot would require the start of the lane lines, which this road he did not have them “.
Tesla sells its automatic driving systems under the brand name Autopilot and Full Self-Driving, or FSD. It is also launching a “beta” version of the FSD software for some customers who have the premium FSD option, which costs $ 10,000.
Tesla and FSD autopilots are not capable of controlling electric vehicles in all normal driving conditions, and the company’s owner’s manuals warn drivers to use them only with “active surveillance”.
Autopilot, which is now standard in Tesla vehicles, does not always perfectly identify band markers – for example, it can confuse sealed cracks on the road or bicycle lanes with other band markers.
The system can also be abused or abused by drivers. A teenage driver recently demonstrated in a stunt video he shared on social media that he could leave the driver’s seat, leaving his Tesla autopilot system in use.