A Tesla car operating on Full Self-Driving mode crashed into a Texas home, killing a 76-year-old woman, Martha Avila. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reported that the driver, Michael Butler, 44, had overridden the driver assistance mode and accelerated into the building.

Investigation Findings

The NTSB found that the Tesla Model 3 was traveling at 70 mph when it crashed into the home on Rose Hollow Lane in Texas. The driver had engaged the Advanced Driver Assistance System, Full Self-Driving (Supervised), but manually overrode it by pressing the accelerator pedal to 100%.

The NTSB report stated that the weather was clear, the roadway was dry, and daylight conditions were present at the time of the crash. The residential road has a speed limit of 30 mph.

Response from Tesla and Experts

Ashok Elluswamy, vice president of AI software at Tesla, defended the vehicle’s systems, stating that the driver had manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% in a residential area. Philip Koopman, a professor emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University, suggested that the NTSB should consider the potential for human driver error, mechanical failure, electronics failure, and software failure.

Brett Schreiber, who represented the families of two victims in another Tesla crash, questioned the driver’s behavior, stating that it was not ordinary on a low-speed residential street. He also pointed out that Tesla has faced allegations from drivers who reported their vehicles suddenly accelerating without warning, only to be told that the recorded data blamed them.

Original reporting: Dallas TX News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.