A Tesla Model S that crashed into a fire truck in Los Angeles on January 2018.
CBS LA via Youtube
Tesla’s Autopilot system was activated and the driver’s hands were off the steering wheel when the 2014 Model S crashed into a parked fire truck on a Los Angeles freeway last year, the National Transportation Safety Board found after an investigation.
The NTSB posted its findings Tuesday as Reuters first reported.
The accident occurred on Interstate 405 in Culver City, Calif., in January 2018.
Investigators determined that the car’s Autopilot system had been operating for nearly 14 minutes before the crash occurred. During that period the driver had not touched the steering wheel for more than three minutes immediately before the crash.
“I was having a coffee and a bagel. And all I remember, that truck, and then I just saw the boom in my face and that was it,” the driver told NTSB investigators. Somehow, he was not injured. No one was in the fire truck at the time.
The Tesla was following another vehicle at about 21 miles per hour when that vehicle moved into another lane. The Tesla automatically began accelerating to its pre-set cruise control speed of 80 miles per hour, but hit the fire truck well before reaching that speed. The NTSB found the car was traveling at 30.9 miles per hour at the moment of impact.
Phone records showed that the driver was not texting or talking on his cellphone at that time, but it was unclear whether he was using the phone for another purpose.
The NTSB expects to release a more comprehensive report on the incident later this week. Tesla did not comment.
Tesla’s vehicles have been involved in other crashes when a disengaged driver relied too much on the Autopilot system. The company’s owner manuals advise that drivers should always keep hands on the wheel, many find the temptation to let go too hard to resist.
In May 2016 Joshua Brown of Canton, Ohio, died in Williston, Fla., while his Tesla Model S was in Autopilot mode as it slammed into a tractor trailer.
Two other incidents happened in March 2018. One involved a Tesla Model X in Mountain View, Calif. The second occurred when a Tesla Model 3 crashed in Delray Beach, Fla. Both accidents are being investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
In the Mountain View crash, the driver, Wei Huang, was going southbound on Highway 101 when his Model X crashed into a barrier separating the carpool lane from an off-ramp. The front of the car was torn off by the impact, it caught fire and two other cars hit Huang from behind. He died from his injuries shortly after the accident.
The fact that some of these crashes have happened with the Autopilot system engaged has raised questions about the technology’s reliability.
Tesla didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, in the past the company has defended the functionality and safety of Autopilot.
But in its investigation of the Joshua Brown fatal accident, the NTSB concluded that the system operated as intended most of the time, but “gave far more leeway to the driver to divert his attention to something other than driving.”
Engineers experienced with automated vehicles have said that one of the most difficult challenges is to re-engage a driver who has relinquished control of the car completely to the automated system.
