Fatal 'Driverless' Tesla Crash | Autopilot

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As federal and state crash investigators look into how a Tesla Model S that appeared to have no one in the driver seat crashed into a tree and killed the vehicle's two occupants, Tesla CEO Elon Musk publicly stated that the vehicle's Autopilot driver assistance feature was not active at the time of the crash.

Although independent investigators have yet to determine whether Autopilot was at all a factor, safety advocates including those at Consumer Reports say that Tesla could be doing a better job using technology to prevent a scenario where a driver relies on the car to automate steering, acceleration, and braking functions while not paying attention, as other automakers already have done.

The occupants of the 2019 Tesla Model S sedan—a 59-year-old man and a 69-year-old-man—were killed in the one-vehicle crash near Houston in Spring, TX, according to Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman. The constable told CR that he does not yet know whether Autopilot was active at the time of the crash, but he called it a definite possibility. “We are certain that no one was in the front driver's seat at the time of the crash, so our investigation is leading us in that direction,” he says. “Right now, where we stand is that there was no one operating that vehicle in the driver's seat.”

In a tweet Monday evening, Musk cast doubt on the idea that Autopilot was involved with the crash. "Data logs recovered so far show Autopilot was not enabled & this car did not purchase FSD," or Full Self-Driving, he wrote. "Moreover, standard Autopilot would require lane lines to turn on, which this street did not have."

Earlier, Herman told local news affiliates that one man was in the Tesla's front passenger seat and the other was in the backseat. He said the two men were talking about the vehicle’s features with their wives before dropping them off at a nearby home before the crash.

Jake Fisher, senior director of Consumer Reports’ Auto Test Center, says that no vehicle on the market is truly self-driving. He points out that in recent CR testing of driver assistance systems, Tesla's Autopilot scored near the top overall but lagged other systems in driver monitoring performance.

“While much is still unknown about this crash, I can say for sure that it was not caused by a self-driving car,” he says. ”That's because no Tesla or any other vehicle you can buy can drive itself. In our tests, Tesla’s AutoPilot, even with the Full-Self Driving option, doesn’t make the car self-driving, and without adequate driving monitoring, Tesla lags behind General Motors’ SuperCruise system.”

When activated, Autopilot can automatically brake, accelerate, and keep the vehicle within a travel lane in certain situations. Another suite of features, what Tesla calls "Full Self-Driving Capability," does not turn a Tesla into a self-driving car but adds additional features, including the ability to make lane changes without driver input, and to move a vehicle out of a parking space without a driver in the vehicle.

Tesla vehicles do not currently offer any real-time driver monitoring systems to ensure a driver is in the driver seat, awake, and looking at the road when Autopilot or Full Self-Driving Capability features are activated. A Model S, like the one in the crash, looks for the force of a driver's hands on the steering wheel. If that force is not detected, the driver will encounter a series of escalating alarms up until the vehicle disables Autopilot or Full Self-Driving entirely. In contrast, GM’s Super Cruise relies on an in-car camera to determine if the driver is looking at the road. If the driver ignores repeated warnings to pay attention, the vehicle will eventually bring itself to a stop gradually, activate the flashers, and notify emergency services. Systems from BMW, Ford, and others have similar driver monitoring systems.

In the past, Tesla owners have been known to “trick” the system meant to confirm active driver engagement by attaching a device to the steering wheel, says Kelly Funkhouser, program manager for vehicle interface testing at CR. “It’s not impossible to engage the system from the back seat," she says.

Funkhouser and Fisher tested Tesla's Autopilot and the suite of Full-Self Driving features as part of an evaluation of more than 15 driving assistance systems, and Tesla's system fell short of GM's Super Cruise system, particularly when it came to ensuring the driver stayed engaged.