California Highway Patrol probes Tesla crash that left one dead, two injured

A brutal crash involving a Tesla vehicle on a stretch of California highway, which left one dead and two injured, is under investigation.

It’s not yet clear whether the Tesla was operating on autopilot, its semi-autonomous driving system, when it slammed into an overturned Mack truck around 2:40 a.m. on Wednesday, according to a California Highway Patrol report obtained by Reuters. The truck crashed just moments earlier, blocking two lanes of traffic on the roadside near the city of Fontana.

The 50-year-old truck driver and a 30-year-old motorist, who stopped to help him, were both injured in the incident, police said. The Tesla’s driver, a 35-year-old man, was also killed in the crash.

No one involved has been identified.

Tesla’s Autopilot is a driver assistance system that is capable of taking on some driving tasks, including allowing drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel at certain times. Still, Tesla says the features “require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.”

Elon Musk, founder of the electric car company, has previously argued the feature is safer than allowing actual people to operate the vehicles.

As of Thursday, federal highway safety regulators were investigating 24 accidents involving Tesla operating on Autopilot.