NTSB Preliminary Report On Texas Tesla Crash Adds These Tidbits

There has been much speculation over the April 17 fatal crash of a Tesla

TSLA
Model S in suburban Houston, triggered by the fact that the people in the car were found in the back and passenger seats, and investigators insisted nobody was in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash. As anticipated, Tesla’s Autopilot technology apparently played no role in the crash.

Today, the NTSB released its preliminary report on the crash. Salient facts include:

1. The data recorder in the car was burned, so nothing will be learned from it. (Tesla has some uploaded data but little has been revealed about that.)
2. Video shows the two men were in the two front seats when the car pulled out of the driveway and away down the road.
3. NTSB confirms findings reported by Tesla with another car that Autopilot will not engage on this street, though cruise control could have engaged.
4. The steering wheel, reported bent by Tesla’s on scene evaluator, is being studied.
5. The crash took place quite quickly after the men left the driveway, the car running off the road, jumping a curb, hitting a manhole and then a tree.
6. Some data may exist in the controller for the restraint systems, that is being sent to forensic analysis.

Most of this was known or suspect or revealed by Tesla, which also originally stated its logs showed Autopilot was not engaged.

One main new piece of data is that Dr. Varner, the owner, was driving when the car started down the road. The distance is too short to likely have attempted a move into the back seat before the crash.

The puzzle still remains over how Dr. Varner got into the back seat after this crash, which damaged the battery case and started a fire which eventually consumed the whole car. There is no report on the condition of the driver’s door and whether it would have been impossible to exit this way, which might prompt him to crawl, mortally injured, into the back seat where he either died or could not get out.

It also rules out a third person being the driver of the car and fleeing. So while the above scenario seems unlikely, and the crash investigators stated they were certain it was false, it seems the only remaining explanation.

As expected — and insisted by Tesla at the start — this crash was fairly mundane, and it’s what happened after the crash to place Dr. Varner in the back seat that is a puzzle. It’s possible that the driver was conducting a demo of the Tesla’s “Ludicrous” mode which produces extremely high acceleration — this is a very common thing for Tesla owners to demonstrate to their friends, though usually not on quiet cul-de-sacs with 30mph speed limits. If this was such a demo, gone wrong, it would explain the violence of the crash.

Another likely target of the investigation will be the fire, as we are still learning more about EV fires. Statistics show EV fires are moderately less common than fires in gasoline vehicles, but they have special characteristics, including taking longer to bring to a complete close, as was the case here.