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Federal authorities will investigate a fiery car crash that killed two people in a Tesla in Florida last week.
The National Transportation Safety Board announced on Twitter he would send three investigators to investigate the operation of a Tesla Model 3 that rolled off the road at Coral Gables and collided with a tree, and the fire that followed.
“We are always looking closely at new technologies,” said Peter Knudson, spokesperson for the NTSB.
The accident happened near a residential intersection. It was not immediately clear if speed was a factor or if the car’s automated driving system was activated.
Police identified the victims as a 20-year-old man, who was driving the car, and a 19-year-old woman.
The NTSB said it would begin its investigation on Monday, complete on-site work in a week and issue a preliminary report in about 30 days.
The investigation comes a month after the U.S. government launched a formal investigation into Tesla’s driver assistance system, Autopilot, after a series of collisions with stationery emergency vehicles using first-class vehicle lights. relief, flares, light arrows and road cones.
In June, regulators said they had opened 30 investigations into Tesla crashes since 2016 in which an advanced driver assistance system was suspected to have been used. Of the 30 crashes, which killed 10, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said autopilot was ruled out as a factor of three.
In Texas in April, two men died after a Tesla Model S that was running with no one in the driver’s seat crashed into a tree near Houston. The car failed to negotiate a curve and rolled off the road, crashing before catching fire.
Tesla CEO billionaire Elon Musk tweeted: “The data logs collected so far show that the autopilot was not activated and this car was not purchased [Full Self-Driving]. Also, the standard autopilot would require activating the lane lines, which this street did not have.
Tesla offered advice to first responders on battery fires in its electric vehicles, but also said high-speed collisions can result in a fire in any type of car.
Authorities in California said on Thursday that a woman who had apparently passed out while her Tesla was on autopilot – before the car hit a freeway wall – was arrested on suspicion of impaired driving. drunkenness.
Karla Villanueva, 31, was arrested in Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles. According to audio of a dispatch call obtained by KABC-TV, her husband said she was “unconscious in a Tesla” and the vehicle “was driving on its own.”
The husband was following the Tesla in a Volkswagen, the dispatcher said, adding: “Again, apparently the wife is unconscious in the vehicle. And I guess there are vehicles ahead, that’s what makes the vehicle slow down.
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