Tesla defends Autopilot record amid investigation into crash that killed driver

38-year-old driver died at nearby hospital shortly after accident involving two other vehicles

Tesla vehicles have a system called Autopilot which runs some driving tasks but it is not clear if Tesla’s automated control system was driving the car (AP)

Tesla has defended its Autopilot driver-assist technology after a probe was launched into a fatal crash involving a Tesla Model X SUV.

The accident took place on the afternoon of Friday 23 March on a motorway in Mountain View, California. The 38-year-old driver died at a nearby hospital shortly after the crash.

Tesla vehicles have a system called Autopilot which runs some driving tasks but it is not clear if Tesla’s automated control system was driving the car.

According to the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) and police, the accident involved two other cars.

The NTSB announced it was investigating the accident on Tuesday. It said it would be looking into how the Model X caught fire in the wake of the collision and would take steps to make the vehicle safe before removing it from the scene of the incident.

Tesla, which specialises in electric vehicles, energy storage and solar panel manufacturing and which was founded by Elon Musk, has sought to defend the technology in spite of the NTSB saying it was unclear whether the Model X Autopilot system was engaged before the accident.

In a blog post, the company said: “Our data shows that Tesla owners have driven this same stretch of highway with Autopilot engaged roughly 85,000 times since Autopilot was first rolled out in 2015 and roughly 20,000 times since just the beginning of the year, and there has never been an accident that we know of.”

Tesla also argued part of the reason the fatal crash was so severe was to do with the fact a collision barrier on the highway was either taken away or restricted.

“We have never seen this level of damage to a Model X in any other crash,” Tesla wrote in its post.

The firm explained it is working in conjunction with authorities to recover the logs from the computer inside the vehicle to try to get a better understanding of what happened. The company statement failed to address if the vehicle had been in Autopilot mode.

“We have been deeply saddened by this accident, and we have offered our full cooperation to the authorities as we work to establish the facts of the incident,” Tesla said in a statement earlier.

The NTSB’s announcement that the accident had prompted a federal field investigation triggered a big selloff in Tesla stock.

After the investigation was announced, Tesla tumbled 8.2 per cent, or $25 a share, to close at $279.18. This is the lowest close in nearly a year.

It is not clear how long it will take the NTSB to carry out their inquiry but their investigations generally last for 12 to 18 months.

This is the second NTSB field investigation into a Tesla crash since January. The NTSB and US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent investigators to California in January to investigate the crash of a fire truck and a Tesla that apparently was moving in semi-autonomous mode. The agencies have yet to reveal any findings.

In September, NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said operational limitations in the Tesla Model S played a key role in a May 2016 crash in Florida that killed a driver using Autopilot.

The particular crash sparked questions about the safety of systems that are able to carry out driving tasks for long periods of time but cannot totally substitute human drivers.