Tesla car that killed Seattle motorcyclist was in ‘Full Self-Driving Mode,’ police say

Reuters Agency
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Police said a Tesla Model S car was in “full autonomous driving” mode when it struck and killed a 28-year-old motorcyclist in the Seattle area in April, marking at least the second fatal crash involving the technology Tesla CEO Elon Musk has pinned his hopes on.

Police said in a statement that the 56-year-old driver was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter after he admitted to looking at his mobile phone while using the driver assist feature.

Tesla says its “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” software requires active driver supervision and does not make the vehicles autonomous.

Previously, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that between August 2022 and August 2023, there was one fatal crash involving a Tesla vehicle using FSD software.

NHTSA said it was “aware of this accident and is collecting information from local law enforcement and Tesla.”

Police said the case is still under investigation, but experts say Tesla’s technology is limited by cameras and artificial intelligence. Tesla’s rivals, such as Alphabet’s Waymo, also use expensive sensors like lidar to detect their surroundings while driving.

“There are so many things that can go wrong” with Tesla’s camera-only system, said Guidehouse Insights analyst Sam Abuelsamid. For example, he said the system might not accurately measure the distance of an object.

“Collecting and curating data on all kinds of real-world objects, such as motorcycles and bicycles, across a wide range of possible weather, atmospheric, road and traffic conditions is a huge challenge,” said Raj Rajkumar, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

This year, Musk shelved Tesla’s all-new, affordable cars and ramped up his commitment to autonomous vehicles, saying he’d be shocked if Tesla didn’t achieve full autonomy by next year.

In an interview with the Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley club last weekend, he said the vehicle of the future will be something like a “tiny mobile living room” where drivers will be able to watch movies, play video games, work, even drink and sleep.

Musk has been pursuing a car capable of autonomous driving for several years, and the technology has come under increasing regulatory and legal scrutiny.

NHTSA began investigating Autopilot in August 2021 after identifying more than a dozen crashes in which Tesla vehicles struck stationary emergency vehicles and reviewed hundreds of crashes involving Autopilot.

In December 2023, Tesla was forced to pull nearly all of its vehicles from U.S. roads to implement software safeguards.