Authorities, owner and witness confirm, however, Tesla claims that someone may have been behind the wheel of its Model S
a Tesla Model S rolled off the road and crashed into a tree in Texas – an incident that has drawn national attention in the USA because authorities believe neither of the men was behind the wheel of a Tesla Model S at the time of the accident.
After the collision, the car caught fire, although the authorities quickly managed to bring the fire under control.
The accident occurred late yesterday in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston.
According to Harris County 4 Constable Mark Hermann, who spoke with Houston TV station KPRC 2, a police investigation is still ongoing, but so far it has shown that neither man was behind the wheel, with one of the men in the passenger seat and another behind in the The rear passenger seat of the Model S at the time of the accident.
The identities of the men have not yet been revealed.
The accident caused a fire and the car was extinguished for five hoursTexas authorities say two people were killed when a Tesla with no one in the driver’s seat crashed into a tree and caught fire, Houston-based television station KPRC 2 reported.
The authorities are still investigating the circumstances of the accident.
The car was reportedly traveling at high speed when it lost control of a curve, crashed into a tree, and immediately caught fire.
This is because damaged batteries must be kept cold, lest ignition persist, a problem that can occur with fully electric vehicles when the battery pack ignites and spreads to the detached cells of the pack which may still store energy.
There was very little left of what was said to be a 2019 S model once the fire started.
And the Woodland Fire Chief is right, as Tesla had previously given instructions to first responders who encountered fires with its EV batteries.
Battery ignition can be a problem, because unlike gas-powered vehicles, even if the fire is put out, the EV battery still stores energy.
Tesla’s instructions say it’s better to let the fire burn than to keep trying to put it out.
While the firefighters continued for five hours in an attempt to cool the battery, which was completely burning.
Certificate confirming that the Tesla was driving alone without a driver
The cause of the accident, which occurred around 9 p.m. local time in Spring, Texas (near Houston), is still being investigated.
According to KHOU in Houston, first responders had to use 30,000 gallons of water over the course of four hours to put out the fire, as the Tesla battery continued to burn.
Authorities attempted to contact Tesla for advice on putting out the fire;
It is not clear if they have received any response.
According to multiple American media, initial reports indicate that the car was traveling at high speed and failed to turn, then veered off the road into a tree.
One of the witnesses said one of the dead was in the front passenger seat of the car, and the other was in the back seat, but according to KHOU.
Harris County 4 Constable Mark Hermann told KPRC that “nobody was driving” a 2019 Tesla Model S all-electric at the time of the accident.
It is not yet clear if the car has its autopilot driver assistance system activated itself or if someone has activated it.
As the picture shows, the car was completely destroyed, a Tesla Model STesla did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
However, the company has dissolved its press office and does not usually respond to media inquiries.
In a tweet on Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed that “the data records retrieved to date” indicate that the autopilot was not involved at the time of the accident, and that the car owner did not purchase the company’s “full self-driving” option that may have allowed Using autopilot on local roads.
According to the website and channel
abc11 .
In an update on the horrific accident, Motor Trend claimed that Lars Morave, vice president of Tesla Vehicle Engineering, claimed during the latest call from the company’s investor relations that the car’s steering wheel in this accident showed signs of deformation, indicating the presence of a person behind the driver’s seat.
We have reached out to local authorities for comment on this new information but have yet to receive a response.
We will continue to update this story as more details emerge.
And several US media attacked Tesla, accusing it of no longer having a public relations team to answer any questions about the accident.
Musk’s latest Twitter post retweeted a private Tesla report posted by Tesla Owners Online that autopilot-powered Tesla have 10 times fewer crashes than cars without it.
News agencies said
there have been at least 23 autopilot-related accidents under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, but this appears to be the first fatal crash where there was no driver in the driver’s seat.
Tesla has previously warned its customers that the Autopilot is not an autonomous drive system and still requires constant attention to the road in use.
The company’s cars only check that interest using a sensor that measures torque in the steering wheel, though that leaves room for misuse — something the National Transportation Safety Board warned against Tesla last year.
Reports that recently, Tesla launched a test drive of what it calls the Full Autonomous Driving (FSD) program, an expansion of its autopilot system.
As Tesla and other automakers have repeatedly noted, these systems are not intended to be a substitute for a human driver, who must be able to take full control of the vehicle at any time.
It is not clear at this time whether the vehicle involved in the crash had the beta FSD system installed.
In fact, Tesla started firing drivers who pushed the limits of FSD out of testing.
Malaki.com cautions that autopilot systems and other systems such as the General Motors Super Cruise are not completely autonomous systems, but rather are driver assistance features.
And they can’t work on their own, especially since they are Level 2 systems that aren’t equipped with the expertise of a human driver, and on the other hand, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has warned himself in the past that drivers become too complacent, which can lead to inattention and accidents.
Notably, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has in the past rejected calls from Tesla engineers to add better safety monitoring when the car is in autopilot mode, such as eye-tracking cameras or additional sensors on the steering wheel, saying the technology is “ineffective”.
He said in 2018 that Tesla would regularly release safety data about the autopilot feature, but added that “negative” press coverage about it may convince customers not to use it.
“Whenever there’s a serious accident, it’s always, actually maybe always, an experienced user, and the issue is more about complacency,” Musk said in a May 2018 phone call with investors.
“They are used to it.
This tends to be more of a problem.
It’s not a lack of understanding what autopilot can do.
Where [drivers] think they know more about autopilot than they do.”
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