Although no probable cause was stated by the board, the investigation found the Model S was traveling nearly 10 miles per hour over the posted speed limit before striking a semi-truck. He said Tesla took a number of steps to “reduce complacency” among Autopilot users.
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The Tesla Model S involved in the fatal crash on May 7, 2016 is shown with the top third of the vehicle sheared off by the impact of a collision with a truck and trailer unit in the US.
The upstart electric auto company, which has yet to make a full-year profit, wants to transition from a maker of luxury vehicles to a full-line maker of affordable cars, pickups and even semi-trucks.
Tesla said drivers should keep their hands on the steering wheel while autopilot is engaged and emphasised that it is “new technology and still in the public beta phase before it can be enabled”. “Tesla is laser-focused on achieving full self-driving capability on one integrated platform with an order of magnitude greater safety than the average manually driven vehicle”.
Backers of autonomous driving say that despite the Tesla fatality, the technology is likely to eliminate a large percentage of accidents, which are attributed mainly to human error.
The incident is also under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The accident highlighted the friction between Mobileye and Tesla Motors, an issue that was brought further into light by George Hotz of comma.ai.
The developer of vision-based advanced driver assistance systems announced the end of its relationship with Tesla in its second quarter conference call today, following an earnings report that beat analysts’ expectations. Company Chairman Elon Musk said he wants the factory to produce enough batteries to power more than a million Model S sedans by 2020.
The NTSB’s initial findings are consistent with how Florida police have already described the crash. The vehicle was also equipped with automatic emergency braking that is created to automatically apply the brakes to reduce the severity of or assist in avoiding frontal collisions, it said.
The NTSB report said that after the Tesla Model S passed under the trailer, it continued for nearly 100 yards (91.4 netres) before striking a utility pole.
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The NTSB said Joshua Brown, 40, of OH, was driving at 74 miles per hour with the car’s semi-autonomous driving system engaged at the time of the crash that took his life. The NHTSA has been doing an investigation since, and the preliminary report is the first official information to come from it.
