Tesla Motors has said a Model S vehicle involved in a fatal crash in the Netherlands was not operating in the company’s semi-autonomous autopilot mode and was travelling at high speed when it crashed.
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But the American electric vehicle pioneer now launching an investigation into Wednesday’s incident said the victim was not driving on auto-pilot during the crash, which happened in the eastern Dutch town of Baarn.
Tesla, founded by PayPal billionaire Elon Musk, has cautioned that the autopilot system is not a fully autonomous system and drivers should be at the wheel and in control.
Our earlier story, by Reuters, posted Wednesday.
The cause of the accident in the Netherlands is still not known.
Tesla hasn’t said whether the software in the Model S involved in crash had been updated. We are working with the authorities to establish the full facts surrounding the accident’.
Tesla said the car’s logs showed autopilot was not engaged at any time during the man’s trip, and that he was driving at more than 155 kph.
“This auto is so damaged that we are uncertain how to proceed without putting emergency responders at risk”, a spokesperson for the fire department told Dutch public broadcaster NOS, stressing that this case was unusual, and that the firefighters had been trained on the correct procedure for dealing with electric vehicle accidents (coincidentally, German firefighters have published tips here). No passenger vehicle is created to safely hit a stationary object like a tree at high speed, and the sad outcome here would nearly certainly be identical in any other auto.
Sky News also cited Dutch paper De Telegraaf, which reported that the car’s battery broke and partly caught on fire. Crews are said to be familiar with verifying battery disconnections following collisions, but only if the vehicle is mostly intact.
Ronald Boer said that since responders were certain the victim had died immediately, it did not make sense for rescue workers to risk electrocution.
Specialists from Tesla’s offices in the south of the country were called in for advice, arriving five hours after the crash.
The scene was judged safe and the man’s body was then cut free from the wreck.
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Mr Boer said: “We know a lot about electric cars, but there are always going to be cases where something unexpected happens”.
