Authorities in Washington have determined that a Tesla in which a motorcyclist was hit and killed near Seattle in April, was equipped with the company’s “Full Self Driving” system at the time of the accident.
Washington State Patrol investigators made the discovery after downloading information from the 2022 Tesla Model S’s crash data recorder, agency spokesman Captain Deion Glover said Tuesday.
“The investigation into this case is ongoing,” Glover said in an email to The Associated Press. The Snohomish County District Attorney will decide whether to file charges in the case, he said.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said last week that “Full Self Driving” will run without human supervision by the end of this year. He promised Fleet of robot taxis for several years. During the company’s earnings conference call he admitted that his predictions on this issue “have been too optimistic in the past”.
A message was left on Tuesday seeking comment from Tesla.
After the accident in a suburb about 15 miles northeast of Seattle, the driver told a police officer that he had used Tesla’s autopilot system and looked at his cellphone while driving.
“The next thing he remembers is a bang and a sudden lurch forward as the vehicle accelerated and collided with the motorcycle in front of him,” the officer wrote in a probable cause document.
The 56-year-old driver was arrested as part of the investigation on a charge of negligent homicide “because he admitted to being inattentive while driving while the autopilot mode was engaged and to being distracted by his cell phone while driving and trusting that the machine would drive for him,” the affidavit states.
Motorcyclist Jeffrey Nissen, 28, of Stanwood, Washington, was underneath the car and was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities reported.
Nissen’s death is at least the second in the United States involving Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” system. In investigation documents, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had previously stated that it had identified one death and 75 accidents, while the System was usedIt was not clear whether the system was responsible for the death.
Tesla has two partially automated driving systems: Full Self-Driving, which can take over many driving tasks even on city streets, and Autopilot, which can keep a car in its lane and away from objects in front of it. Sometimes the names are confused by Tesla owners and the public.
Tesla says that currently none of the systems can drive alone and that human drivers must be ready to take control at any time.
“Fully autonomous driving” is being tested by selected Tesla owners on public roads. The company recently called it FSD Supervised.
Musk said last week he did not believe approval from government regulators would be a limiting factor in the deployment of robotaxis. “If billions of miles show that unattended FSDs are safer than humans in the future, what regulator could really stand in the way of that?” he asked.
But Phil Koopman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a researcher in the field of autonomous vehicle safety, does not believe that Tesla will be able to deploy robot taxis without human drivers on almost all roads in the next decade.
The safety record cited by Musk is based on a human driver supervising the automated system, he said. “Unless there is data to show that the driver never has to supervise the automated system, there is no basis for claiming it is acceptably safe,” he said.
Musk has announced that Tesla will dedicated robotaxi Vehicle at an event on October 10. The event was postponed from August 8 to accommodate Musk’s requested changes to the vehicle.
Musk has explained to investors that Tesla is less of an automaker and more of a robotics and AI company. Many investors have poured money into the company because of the long-term prospects of robot technology.
Musk has touted self-driving vehicles as a growth catalyst for Tesla since the “Full Self Driving” hardware hit the market in late 2015.
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