Officials say no one was in the driver’s seat when a Tesla crashed into a tree in Woodlands, Texas late Saturday, bursting into flames and killing both male occupants. According to authorities, the men’s wives told investigators that a few minutes before the crash, the two were discussing using the vehicle’s Autopilot feature before going for a walk. Physical evidence indicated that one man was in the passenger seat and the other was in the back seat, officials said, although none of them could be identified positively due to the duration of the fire. “It took four hours to put out a fire that would normally have taken a few minutes,” said Harris County Precinct 4 police officer Mark Herman. Regulators have sounded the alarm about the type of batteries used in Teslas, warning that they can make vehicle fires harder to put out. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it is investigating nearly two dozen accidents involving Teslas that could use autopilot.
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