Elon Musk denies autopilot was activated in deadly Texas Tesla crash
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is pushing back against police claims suggesting his company’s automated driving systems played a role in a fiery car crash in Texas over the weekend that left two men dead.
Local authorities in multiple press interviews said they were told by witnesses on the scene that nobody was behind the wheel of the 2019 Tesla Model S when it veered off the road on Saturday north of Houston.
It appeared one of the men was in the front passenger’s seat while the other was in the back seat of the electric vehicle, which was traveling at high speed along a curve before it hit a tree and burst into flames around 11:25 p.m. local time, Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
“Our preliminary investigation is determining — but it’s not complete yet — that there was no one at the wheel of that vehicle,” the constable said. “We’re almost 99.9% sure.”
Musk on Monday poked holes in the theory while responding to a tweet from one of his followers, who listed safety measures in place that would prevent such an incident, including a weighted seat to ensure there is a driver in case of an emergency.
“Data logs recovered so far show Autopilot was not enabled & this car did not purchase FSD,” the billionaire said. “Moreover, standard Autopilot would require lane lines to turn on, which this street did not have.”
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.”
Herman said evidence indicated there was nobody in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash. He also told Reuters that Musk’s recent tweet is the first time they’ve heard from the company since the incident unfolded over the weekend.
“If he is tweeting that out, if he has already pulled the data, he hasn’t told us that. We will eagerly wait for that data,” he said.“We have witness statements from people that said they left to test drive the vehicle without a driver and to show the friend how it can drive itself.”
Texas police were slated to serve search warrants on Tesla Inc. Tuesday in a bid to secure data from the fatal vehicle crash. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are also investigating the crash, the 28th Telsa accident to be probed by the agencies.
