In January, Tesla did add restrictions to Autopilot so that cars can not drive faster than 5 miles above the posted speed limit on residential roads or roads without center dividers.
Advertisement
Mobileye cited concern over the negative perception of autonomous technologies attributed to Tesla as part of its reasoning for ending future development with the automaker, which is likely a reference to the death of Joshua Brown in a Model S using Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system earlier this year. The auto was also equipped with automatic emergency braking.
Tuesday’s report involves only preliminary findings, NTSB stressed. There’s no set date for the final report, although it typically takes a year or more for the safety board to complete an investigation.
The accident in question occurred on May 7 near Williston, Fla., along a stretch of USA 27A. The Florida Highway Patrol had estimated Brown was traveling at 65 miles per hour at the time of the crash.
Brown’s vehicle reportedly went under the trailer.
Neither Brown nor the automated system applied the brakes as a tractor-trailer carrying blueberries turned left across the sedan’s path. Tesla said shortly after the accident that the car’s sensors failed to recognize the white truck against the bright sky. His Tesla Model S was left largely intact aside from the roof of the vehicle folding backwards as it struck the underside of the truck. The vehicle reportedly passed through and smashed into two fences and hit a power pole.
Brown, a 40-year-old Navy veteran from OH, was pronounced dead at the scene. It has said Brown’s death is the first known fatality in over 130 million miles driven with autopilot, while there is a US traffic fatality once every 94 million miles for cars not using autopilot.
USA federal safety regulators are investigating the system after a man died in May when his Tesla Model S hit a truck that was turning in front of him.
In revealing the crash on June 30, nearly two months after it happened, government officials and the automaker said the car’s cameras failed to distinguish the white side of the turning tractor-trailer from a brightly lit sky and didn’t automatically activate its brakes.
The NTSB report said the force of the initial impact of the crash resulted in the battery disengaging from the electric motors powering the vehicle.
Advertisement
Tesla has yet to issue a statement following the NTSB’s release of its preliminary report.
