DETROIT (AP) – The company that made the camera and computer system for Tesla Motors’ semi-autonomous Autopilot says the electric auto maker ignored its warnings of safety problems. The system Tesla rolled out in the fall allows drivers to remove their hands from the wheel while the vehicle takes control of steering and other functions.
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Elon Musk’s Tesla is suing an oil industry executive it claims impersonated Musk in an email, according to aForbes report.
Mobileye’s statement escalates a public spat with Tesla and will nearly certainly draw the interest of two federal agencies investigation the death of a driver while using Autopilot in a May crash in Florida. Mobileye stopped supplying components to Tesla a few weeks ago.
Elon Musk “hopes” to introduce a new version of Tesla Motors Inc.’s Autopilot software on Wednesday, while the automaker remains under scrutiny for a fatal crash in May.
Tesla said in a statement on Thursday that relations broke down with Mobileye over Tesla’s plans to develop its own, competing vision system to help drivers avoid collisions.
“As a result of Katz’s impersonation of Musk, Tesla- a publicly traded company responsible for ensuring the integrity of its non-public financial information, trade secrets, and data – has incurred costs, damages, and losses”, the lawsuit alleged.
Mobileye Chairman Amnon Shashua said of Autopilot: “It is not created to cover all possible crash situations in a safe manner”.
This means that drivers should still focus on taking control of their vehicles even when the autopilot feature is activated. But Musk’s auto company is confident that they can iron out the kinks in their system, and regarding Shashua’s company the tech giant said that Mobileye was unable to keep up with their demands, which is why they parted ways.
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Radar was added to all of Tesla’s vehicles in October 2014 but it was only supposed to be a supplementary sensor to the car’s primary camera.
