The driver of a 2015 Tesla Model S who was killed in a crash while it was operating with its Autopilot system activated was speeding, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.
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Released Tuesday, the preliminary report determined that the Tesla was traveling at 74 mile-per-hour on a Florida highway with a 65 mile-per-hour speed limit when it truck pulling a semi-trailer.
The NTSB said the driver was using the advanced driver assistance features called Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer lane keeping assistance.
That crash has triggered an initial probe by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and wider scrutiny of semiautonomous-vehicle technology. Reports revealed that the electric car’s self-driving technology was not able to detect a cutting tractor trailer due to the white color of its side, and the resulting impact led to the driver’s death. Mobileye has said the system was not created to deal with vehicles crossing laterally in front of it, like the truck that Joshua Brown’s Tesla slammed into while using Autopilot on May 7th.
The radar technology of a Tesla Model S containing Autopilot features is pointed out during a Tesla event in Palo Alto, California. The tractor-trailer, which was turning left in front of Brown, sustained only minor damage, according to the NTSB.
Brown, a 40-year-old Navy veteran from OH, was pronounced dead at the scene.
In a December blog post, Tesla said Mobileye’s EyeQ3 chip, which is used in the Model S and Model X, “is the best in the world at what it does, and that is why we use it”. 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.
“As a result of the initial impact, the battery disengaged from the electric motors powering the auto”, the accident investigation agency said.
Mobileye’s current system relies heavily on a single camera, but its next-gen system will fuse data from other sensors, notably LIDAR, the laser-imaging system that Google cars use and that most automakers are experimenting with now.
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Mobileye’s new EyeQ5 “system on chip” will be an important component in a fully autonomous driving system being jointly developed with BMW AG and Intel Corp and aimed at production in 2021.
