Accident with a presumably driverless Tesla

In Texas, a Tesla crashed into a tree – according to the police with an empty driver’s seat. Presumably the car drove with the assistance system “Autopilot”, which has been criticized several times.

The electric car manufacturer Tesla is threatened with a new debate about safety precautions for its “autopilot” system after a fatal crash in which probably no one was behind the wheel. In Texas, a Tesla with two occupants hit a tree, both of which were killed. The police found one of the men in the passenger seat and one in the back seat. According to preliminary investigations, it is “almost 99.9 percent certain” that nobody was behind the wheel in the accident, a police spokesman told the Wall Street Journal, among others. The car burned out.

Tesla: Hands on the wheel at all times

Tesla itself points out to customers that “autopilot” is just an assistance system and that the person in the driver’s seat must therefore keep their hands on the steering wheel at all times. He should also always be ready to take control. But videos of people leaving the driver’s seat in traffic have been appearing on the Internet for years.

The vehicle involved in the accident burned out almost completely. Image: via REUTERS A few years ago, the car manufacturer tightened the safety measures: the software now detects when the driver is not on the wheel and emits warning tones after a short time. If the warnings are ignored, the system switches off. The US accident investigation authority NTSB criticized the precautions as inadequate and the name “autopilot” as misleading. She is now investigating around two dozen previous accidents with the “autopilot” system switched on.

Unclear whether autopilot was on

Local broadcaster KPRC 2 reported that the Tesla in Texas hit the tree just a few hundred yards from the house the two men were driving from. The police restricted that it had not yet been clarified whether the assistance system was switched on at the time of the accident. But Tesla should have the data to determine that. In previous accidents, the car manufacturer was sometimes able to say how many seconds before the impact the driver last moved the steering wheel. In previous “autopilot” accidents, two cars in the USA crashed under semi-trailers, and several cars hit stationary vehicles or other obstacles. So far, however, no accidents have been reported in which no one sat in the driver’s seat. Tesla and company boss Elon Musk always emphasize that the statistics show that overall significantly fewer accidents occur when the drivers are on the road with the “autopilot” system switched on.