Data from an eight-car pileup led by a Tesla Model S in San Francisco, California shows that the vehicle’s driver assist system was engaged within 30 seconds of the accident, according to a report from CNN. It’s unclear if this was referring to Autopilot or Full Self-Driving beta, according to the CNN report, as it only refers to “driver-assist system” in a story update.
The accident took place on Thanksgiving day, and the driver claimed that “full self driving” had braked unexpectedly before triggering the pileup.
The data shows that the Model S slowed to just 7 mph on the highway just before the crash, while a video that surfaced online showed the vehicle stopping abruptly and moving into the far-left lane. The video shows the Tesla signalling and pulling over to the left, then stopping.
When using Autopilot, if a driver is inattentive and ignores warnings to show they are still paying attention by moving the steering wheel, an abrupt noise will happen with the screen showing ‘red hands’ to take over the steering wheel. It’s a startling alert that’s hard to miss.
The accident also came just hours after CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla’s FSD beta had become available to anyone who paid for it in North America.
A special crash team from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was deployed to investigate the accident, as part of roughly 100 crashes per year specifically investigated by the agency.
Tesla FSD beta users are expected to maintain close attention at all times during the program’s use, and the automaker even shares a message on-screen for drivers when the software is first booted, saying that FSD “may do the wrong thing at the worst time.”
Tesla vehicles collect active driver data so until the investigation is fully completed, we still don’t know exactly what happened. But you can be sure Tesla will provide the NHTSA with vehicle metrics showing what happened leading up to the accident, to determine if it was vehicle or driver error.
The NHTSA has been probing Tesla’s Autopilot driver-assist system after a series of crashes with first responder vehicles, and it released the first driver-assist car crash data ever last year, admitting that context on the report is still lacking.
