After a fatal accident in Spring, Texas involving a Tesla Model S garnered widespread attention and a probe from federal vehicle safety regulators claiming that Autopilot had been engaged, results from the study showed no signs of the driver assistance system’s use.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) completed an investigation into the 2021 accident involving a Tesla Model S, finding no evidence that Autopilot had been engaged at the time of the crash, according to an announcement made this week and reported by CNBC.
At the time of the accident, a local constable alleged that he was “confident” nobody had been behind the wheel at the time of the crash, though a joint investigation from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the NTSB quickly began on the claims.
The accident gained tons of public attention after the reports, and weeks later the local fire department chief on the scene said that Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta appeared not to be factors. The original claims also alleged that a fire had been burning for several hours, which the chief added was also not true.
CEO Elon Musk criticized reporters from the Wall Street Journal for publicizing the story, adding that the company’s data logs showed that the vehicle had not been on Autopilot.
The report showed that excessive speed and driver impairment were the primary factors, adding that the owner of the 2019 Model S P100D had been drinking and taking over-the-counter antihistamines at a restaurant that evening, according to a toxicology report.
The NHTSA has yet to announce findings from its investigation of the accident, and it did not respond to a request for comment.
The NTSB added that it has “long been concerned about alcohol-impaired driving, which accounted for nearly 30 percent of highway fatalities in the United States in 2020.”
NHTSA Expands Tesla Autopilot Probe Related to First Responder Accidents https://t.co/hAA2hIqpRp
— TeslaNorth.com (@RealTeslaNorth) June 9, 2022
