The first self-driving car death may have just happened
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday that it is opening a preliminary evaluation into the performance of Autopilot, Tesla's semi-autonomous system, after a fatal accident.
The 2015 Model S was in Autopilot mode when the accident occurred, the agency said. The evaluation is aimed at "determining whether Autopilot worked according to expectations," according to Tesla.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared his condolences and called the death a "tragic loss" in a tweet.
According to a company blog post published Thursday, the Model S was driving down a divided highway when a tractor trailer cut across the highway perpendicular to the vehicle.
"Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. The high ride height of the trailer combined with its positioning across the road and the extremely rare circumstances of the impact caused the Model S to pass under the trailer, with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S," Tesla said in its blog post.
Tesla rolled out Autopilot in October and has always maintained that users keep their hands on the wheel at all times while the system is engaged. When the car is in Autopilot mode, the system also reminds users to keep their hands on the wheel with visual and audio alerts.
"This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles," Tesla said in its statement.
Tesla declined to share specific information about the driver and the accident out of respect for privacy, but according to a Verge report the driver was Joshua Brown, a 40-year-old Ohio man who had previously been saved by his Tesla's Autopilot system.
In April, Brown posted a YouTube video showing a near accident while he was driving his Model S on the highway.
In the video, you can see Autopilot controlling the car to avoid the collision. The system also alerted Brown to take immediate control of the car.
Read Tesla's full blog post about the investigation below.