New Details Emerge in Fatal Tractor-Trailer Tesla Collision

Tesla Motors, which is known for producing high-end, cutting edge electric vehicles, gained media attention in May when Joshua Brown of Canton, Ohio died in a crash with a tractor trailer as a result of what appeared to be a failure of his Tesla S’s Autopilot program. While Tesla contends that the crash was due to a failure of its breaking system and not Autopilot, which is responsible for steering and changing traffic lanes, the incident prompted investigation by both the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Securities and Exchange Commission because of the emerging semi-autonomous driving technology. New details have been released from the ongoing investigation, shedding new light on what happened.

The accident occurred west of Williston, FL along U.S. 27A and involved a truck transporting a 53-foot trailer van containing blueberries to a farmer in the region. The highway had four lanes with cross traffic. Initial reports stated that Tesla believed the Model S could not separate the white van from the brightly-lit sky, however, Tesla presented a competing theory during a meeting with the US Senate Commerce Committee that the radar for the braking system interpreted the trailer as a large structure like a building, and ignored it.

In addition to probable failures of the Tesla S braking, it has been released that the vehicle was speeding when it hit the trailer, going 74 mph in a 65-mph speed zone. A neighbor of Brown’s said that he frequently sped and had speeding tickets. It has already been reported that Brown was watching a Harry Potter film when the crash occurred, suggesting that he was not watching the road. Brown believed in Tesla Autopilot and confirmed this in comments on YouTube. It is likely that had Brown been watching the road and noticed the tractor-trailer as it made a left turn against oncoming traffic, he could have used the brake and avoided the collision as most drivers would.

While the investigation has yet to identify a cause for the accident, it is beginning to look like this is a result of a combination of driver and technological errors.

Sources:

Truckinginfo.com
Engadget.com