The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released its preliminary report on the fatal crash of Tesla Model S which . The agency said security camera footage from the vehicle owner’s home showed them entering through the driver’s side door, as their companion climbed through the front passenger door.
After traveling approximately 550 feet, the Model S veered off the road, then struck a drainage culvert, a raised manhole, and possibly a tree. The impact damaged the car’s lithium-ion battery, which started the fire that killed the two men. When police began investigating the crash, they told reporters they were “100% sure that no one was in the driver’s seat driving this vehicle at the time of the impact.”
Since news of the crash first surfaced, there has been a lot of speculation that the Model S owner was (poorly) using the autopilot. Using a test vehicle, the NTSB said it was able to activate traffic-sensitive cruise control, but not autopilot along the stretch of road where the crash took place. is produced. The latter is the function that allows a Tesla vehicle to change lanes on its own with input from the driver. However, both must be available to use Autopilot. Tesla CEO Elon Musk after the crash tweeted the data logs recovered by the company “so far, show that the autopilot was not activated and that this car was not purchased [Full Self-Driving]. “
What the investigation determines from here is difficult to say. According to the NTSB, the fire that reduced the Model S to a charred skeleton destroyed the on-board storage device located in the car’s infotainment console. It also damaged the restraint control module. This component stores data relating to the car’s speed, acceleration, as well as the condition of the seat belt and airbag.
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