Another Fatal Tesla Crash May Have Involved Autopilot
CARS.COM — Reports have surfaced in China of another fatal crash of a Tesla Model S that may have involved the automaker’s semiautonomous Autopilot system. The crash in January was months earlier than the death of a driver using Autopilot in Florida in May that is being investigated by federal safety regulators.
Related: Tesla Updates Autopilot for Safer Operation, More Use of Radar
Dash-cam video of the incident shows the car traveling down a highway and crashing into a street-sweeping truck that was partially blocking the lane from the left shoulder. The truck has flashing warning lights on.
Tesla, in a statement to Cars.com, said it was “saddened to learn” of the crash that killed 23-year-old Gao Yaning, who was driving his father’s car. But the automaker said the damage to the car was such that it “was physically incapable of transmitting log data to our servers and we therefore have no way of knowing whether or not Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash.” It said that efforts to get more information from the man’s family have been unsuccessful.
The family is suing Tesla and believes that the driver was using Autopilot at the time of the crash, according to Reuters. The family’s lawyer told Reuters that they believe this after reviewing the car’s dash-cam video and seeking the opinions of experts and other Tesla owners. The lawyer also told Reuters that the man’s father, Gao Jubin, believes Tesla could extract data from the wrecked car.
China’s CCTV has broadcast a report including the video of the crash and its aftermath, and quoting police as saying the Model S did not brake before the crash, Reuters said. The Chinese-language report was posted here by tech news site Electrek (report here). The crash is shown about 30 seconds into the long video and the scene afterwards appears at about 90 seconds.
The circumstances seem similar to another reported crash in China involving a vehicle on the left shoulder, a less-serious fender-bender. That incident also was recorded on a dash cam and the driver says he was on Autopilot. Following that crash, Tesla revised its Chinese marketing of Autopilot. A Model S driver in Europe also had a similar minor incident, according to Electrek.
Tesla just announced on Sunday a major update of the Autopilot system. Part of that update is a change to more strongly warn drivers to be alert and ready to take control. Autopilot will disengage if the driver ignores system warnings to put hands on the wheel three times in an hour, and the vehicle must be stopped and parked to turn it back on.
The supplier of cameras and digital processing for the Autopilot system, Mobileye, broke ties with Tesla in July, and its chairman told Reuters in an interview this week that it was because Tesla was “pushing the envelope in terms of safety” with the design of the system.
“It is not designed to cover all possible crash situations in a safe manner,” Amnon Shashua, who is also Mobileye’s chief technology officer, told Reuters. “No matter how you spin it, [Autopilot] is not designed for that. It is a driver assistance system and not a driverless system.”
Safety advocates in the U.S., such as Consumer Reports, have urged Tesla to disable Autopilot’s automatic steering and to change the name of the system in its marketing.
