Tesla TSLA, -2.16% crashes have come under scrutiny since the company revealed in June that a Model S ran into a truck in Florida while in its Autopilot feature was engaged.
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Dutch police closed a probe on Friday (Sep 9) into a fatal crash involving a Tesla, accepting the U.S. electric vehicle firm’s findings that the Model S sedan was not on auto-pilot when it smashed into a tree.
The crash was so severe that not only did the vehicle hit the tree, but a portion of the automobile’s battery detached itself and started burning up a little way down the road.
Ronald Boer, a spokesman for emergency services, says firefighters did not immediately recover the man’s body because of fears that emergency service workers could be electrocuted.
Tesla hasn’t said whether the software in the Model S involved in crash had been updated.
Tesla’s electric cars had logged 130 million miles without a fatal accident while Autopilot was engaged before a model Model S rammed a tractor-trailer that the system failed to detect in time.
We are working with the authorities to establish the facts of the incident and offer our full cooperation. That’s because the vehicle burned for at least 30 minutes after it collided with the tree, and part of the battery pack came loose and itself caught fire down the road from the scene of the crash.
Tesla sent a representative to the crash site.
Fire department spokesman Ronald Boer said that due to the nature and severity of the wreckage, firefighters could not be certain whether the vehicle might be under high voltage. Part of the battery was wedged inside the auto prompting the rescue crew to fear electrocution.
NOS, a news broadcast station in The Netherlands, has reported that Tesla personnel came to the scene in order to find out the case of this accident.
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U.S. federal regulators also recorded two fires involving the Model S, one each in the USA states of Washington and Tennessee in 2013. If Model S was on its four wheels, the firefighters would have simply switched off the batteries. Drivers must acknowledge, when they activate Autopilot, that the system is in beta-test and that they are responsible for the vehicle.
