Why did this happen?

Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading. For more information you can review our Terms of Service and Cookie Policy.</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tesla Inc lashed out at the National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday after the agency took the unusual step of removing the automaker as a party to its investigation of a fatal crash in March in which a Tesla vehicle’s “Autopilot” system was in use.

FILE PHOTO: Rescue workers attend the scene where a Tesla electric SUV crashed into a barrier on U.S. Highway 101 in Mountain View, California, March 25, 2018. Picture taken March 25, 2018. KTVU FOX 2/via REUTERS

The NTSB’s action means Tesla may not gain access to some information obtained by the agency’s investigators before it is made public, but frees the company to vigorously defend the Autopilot technology.

The war of words on Thursday between the Silicon Valley automaker run by billionaire Elon Musk and the NTSB stood in stark contrast to efforts this week by Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi and Facebook Inc chief Mark Zuckerberg to defuse conflicts with regulators.

Tesla “violated the party agreement by releasing investigative information before it was vetted and confirmed by the NTSB,” the safety board said in a statement. Releasing incomplete information often leads “to speculation and incorrect assumptions about the probable cause of a crash, which does a disservice to the investigative process and the traveling public,” the agency said.

Tesla in return blasted the NTSB, saying the company chose on Tuesday to withdraw from the agreement as a formal party before the agency revoked its status.

Tesla said it had “been clear in our conversations with the NTSB that they’re more concerned with press headlines than actually promoting safety” and accused the agency of violating its own rules while trying to prevent Tesla from disclosing all the facts.

“We don’t believe this is right and we will be making an official complaint to Congress,” Tesla added, saying it would make an open records request to “understand the reasoning behind their focus on the safest cars in America while they ignore the cars that are the least safe.”

NTSB spokesman Christopher O’Neil said the agency declined to comment on Tesla’s allegations.

The NTSB has three pending probes into Tesla crashes.

Tesla’s initial statement announcing its withdrawal did not disclose that the NTSB was revoking its status.

Driver Walter Huang died after a March 23 crash and vehicle fire in a Tesla Model X near Mountain View, California, prompting investigations by the NTSB and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Tesla’s announcement late on Wednesday in California came after the company publicly blamed the driver for the crash and made statements about the incident that drew criticism from the NTSB.

Autopilot is a semi-autonomous system that handles some driving tasks. Tesla has said it warns drivers that they are always responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said in a statement he was “troubled by Tesla’s reckless disregard of its legal obligations to NTSB - potentially compromising NTSB’s ability to conduct a thorough and robust investigation into the company’s flawed Autopilot system.”

AUTOPILOT

NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt told Reuters on Tuesday the agency had a good working relationship with Tesla but that companies must follow the rules. He and Musk spoke on Friday and again on Wednesday when he told the company it was revoking its status.

“It is unfortunate that Tesla, by its actions, did not abide by the party agreement,” Sumwalt said in the NTSB statement on Thursday. Tesla said that “even though we won’t be a formal party, we will continue to provide technical assistance to the NTSB.”

Huang’s family said on Wednesday it had hired law firm Minami Tamaki LLP to explore legal options, adding the firm believed the Autopilot feature probably caused his death. The firm said its preliminary review of the crash suggested Autopilot was defective.

The NTSB has not disclosed any findings.

Tesla has said Huang had activated Autopilot and it was in operation at the time of the crash. Vehicle logs from the accident showed no action was taken by Huang before the crash and that he had received warnings from the system to put his hands on the wheel, the company said.

FILE PHOTO: A Tesla dealership is seen in West Drayton, just outside London, Britain, February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

Tesla said the Autopilot system always reminded drivers to be alert and keep their hands on the wheel.

The NTSB confirmed earlier this week it had two other pending investigations of Tesla crashes, including an August 2017 Tesla battery fire in Lake Forest, California, after an owner lost control and ran the vehicle into his garage. The investigation into that fire was first reported by Reuters on Wednesday.

The agency previously faulted Tesla in a 2016 fatal crash in Florida in which Autopilot was engaged. Sumwalt said in 2017 that “system safeguards were lacking” and “Tesla allowed the driver to use the system outside of the environment for which it was designed and the system gave far too much leeway to the driver to divert his attention.” Tesla said it had made improvements in the system since the crash.</s>Tesla Inc.'s ongoing spat with the National Transportation Safety Board over a fatal crash has reached new heights, with the electric-car maker and the safety agency releasing dueling statements. Here’s a timeline of public remarks so far by Tesla and the NTSB.

March 23: Walter Huang, a 38-year-old Apple Inc. engineer, dies after his Model X crashes into highway barrier in Mountain View, California.

March 27: The NTSB sends two investigators to the crash scene and notes on Twitter: “Unclear if automated control system was active at time of crash.”

March 27: Tesla releases its first blog post, “What We Know About Last Week's Accident,” saying it hasn’t been able to retrieve computer logs from Huang’s vehicle and blames the damaged highway safety barrier for the severity of the crash. Tesla also claims the U.S. government found a year ago that Autopilot reduced crash rates by 40 percent, a characterization of data from a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report that some safety experts call misleading. “Out of respect for the privacy of our customer and his family, we do not plan to share any additional details until we conclude the investigation,” Tesla writes.

March 30: Tesla releases a second blog post late on Friday night that acknowledges its driver-assistance software, Autopilot, had been engaged at the time of the crash. “The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision,” Tesla writes.

April 1: An NTSB spokesman tells reporters that the agency is “unhappy with the release of investigative information by Tesla.” The agency’s protocols require companies who are a party to an agency accident investigation to not release details about the incident to the public without NTSB's approval.

April 9: NTSB discloses agency Chairman Robert Sumwalt spoke to Musk over the preceding weekend. An agency spokesman said Sumwalt described the conversation as “very constructive.”

April 10: Tesla puts out a statement that faults Mr. Huang and denies moral or legal liability for the crash.

“According to the family, Mr. Huang was well aware that Autopilot was not perfect and, specifically, he told them it was not reliable in that exact location, yet he nonetheless engaged Autopilot at that location. The crash happened on a clear day with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, which means that the only way for this accident to have occurred is if Mr. Huang was not paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings to do so.”

April 11: Tesla says it has withdrawn from its party agreement with the NTSB: “We believe in transparency, so an agreement that prevents public release of information for over a year is unacceptable.”

April 12: NTSB releases a statement saying it had removed Tesla as a party to its crash investigation. “The NTSB took this action because Tesla violated the party agreement by releasing investigative information before it was vetted and confirmed by the NTSB.” The agency also releases a letter from its chairman to Musk.

April 12: Tesla releases another statement, again claiming to have withdrawn from its agreement with the NTSB.

“It’s been clear in our conversations with the NTSB that they’re more concerned with press headlines than actually promoting safety. Among other things, they repeatedly released partial bits of incomplete information to the media in violation of their own rules, at the same time that they were trying to prevent us from telling all the facts. We don’t believe this is right and we will be making an official complaint to Congress. We will also be issuing a Freedom Of Information Act request to understand the reasoning behind their focus on the safest cars in America while they ignore the cars that are the least safe. Perhaps there is a sound rationale for this, but we cannot imagine what that could possibly be.”</s>It's been less than two weeks since the stock of Tesla tumbled, when amid a flurry of scandal, production setbacks and Wall Street downgrades, the company admitted that its autopilot had been engaged during a fatal March 23 crash in which Apple engineer Walter Huang died when his Model X collided with a highway barrier in Mountain View, California, and caught fire.

At the time, Elon Musk enraged the NTSB, when his company broke a public embargo and claimed that the autopilot was not at fault, even though the government agency had not yet concluded what was the reason behind the crash. This in turn prompted a furious rebuke from the NTSB, which was angry that Tesla was clouding the conclusion by presupposing that the autopilot had no guilt:

And now, just hours after Huang's family hired a law firm in preparation for a major lawsuit against Tesla, Musk doubled down and once again placed the blame for the fatal Model X crash on the deceased driver, claiming in an emailed statement that the tragic accident happened on a clear day, with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, and that Huang didn’t have his hands on the steering wheel for six seconds before his vehicle collided with a highway barrier in Mountain View, California, and caught fire.

“The only way for this accident to have occurred is if Mr. Huang was not paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings to do so,” the statement said. “The fundamental premise of both moral and legal liability is a broken promise, and there was none here.”

Others, such as Huang's widow, disagree.

Speaking to ABC7, Sevonne Huang, the wife of the killed Apple engineer said "I just want this tragedy not to happen again to another family." She says her husband complained on several occasions about how the Autopilot behaved on the Tesla Model X near the very same barrier where he crashed and died.

"Unfortunately, it appears that Tesla has tried to blame the victim here," Huang family attorney Mark Fong told ABC7. "It took him out of the lane that he was driving in, then it failed to break, then it drove him into this fixed concrete barrier. We believe this would've never happened had this Autopilot never been turned on."

Musk's repeat defense of the autopilot, which we also learned that Huang had previously complained about, and which nearly caused a similar fatal crash at exactly the same location, will once again infuriate the National Transportation Safety Board, whose investigators are currently looking into the causes of the crash that killed Huang, as well as a collision in January involving a Tesla Model S using Autopilot that rear-ended a fire truck parked on a freeway near Los Angeles.

In keeping with Musk's inimical style, the Tesla email also repeated said it is “extremely clear” that Autopilot requires drivers to be alert and have hands on the steering wheel. The system reminds the driver this every time it’s engaged, according to the company.

While Minami Tamaki LLP, the law firm that announced its hiring by Huang’s family earlier Wednesday, declined to comment on Tesla’s statement, others did not feel the need to hold back.

"Tesla’s response is reflective of its ongoing strategy of doubling down on the explicit warnings it has given to drivers on how to use and not use the system,” said Mike Ramsey, an analyst at Gartner Inc. “It’s not the first time Tesla has taken this stance.”

Another way of putting that is that the stakes for Tesla are great, and Musk knows that if the NTSB concludes that the electric carmaker was at fault, any modest demand momentum it may have, could be gone overnight.

After partially faulting Autopilot for a May 2016 fatal crash, NTSB investigators last year called on carmakers to do more to ensure drivers stay engaged as next-generation cars start to steer themselves. Tesla has lagged behind automakers including General Motors Co. and Subaru Corp. in embracing driver-facing camera systems that can monitor head and eye movement and disengage partially autonomous systems when the driver isn’t paying attention.

This who fiasco also begs the question: why is it called "Autopilot" in the first place, if it disengages the moment the driver's attention is diverted.

Meanwhile, a bit of a turf war has erupted between the NTSB and NHTSA. As Bloomberg reports, while the NTSB has no regulatory powers but makes safety-related recommendations to both the government and transportation companies, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does have the power to order recalls and fine manufacturers; it also investigated the 2016 Tesla crash and closed its probe in January 2017, saying it didn’t find a defect.

One can guess which particular agency Musk has been lobbying.

Meanwhile, with a major lawsuit looming, Tesla continues to defend a system which - at least as of this moment - appears woefully inadequate. According to data Tesla gave investigators, Autopilot prevents the rate of crashes per million miles driven by about 40%, a figure it continues to cite in defending the system.

And yet, the company has declined to say how long drivers can now use Autopilot between visual or audible warnings to have a hand on the wheel, how many alerts can be ignored before the system disengages, what version of software was in Huang’s Model X, or when it was built.

“We empathize with Mr. Huang’s family, who are understandably facing loss and grief, but the false impression that Autopilot is unsafe will cause harm to others on the road,” Tesla said in Wednesday’s statement. “NHTSA found that even the early version of Tesla Autopilot resulted in 40 percent fewer crashes and it has improved substantially since then. The reason that other families are not on TV is because their loved ones are still alive.”

No matter how the lawsuit ends, or how many more lives are lost as Musk beta tests his favorite invention, the far bigger delusion continues. As John Thompson, head of Vilas Capital Management, put it best: "As a reality check, Tesla is worth twice as much as Ford, yet Ford made six million cars last year at a $7.6 billion profit, while Tesla made 100,000 cars at a $2 billion loss."</s>Federal investigators say they have booted electric car maker Tesla Inc. from a group that’s investigating a fatal crash in California that involved an SUV using the company’s Autopilot system.

DETROIT — Federal investigators say they have booted electric car maker Tesla Inc. from a group that’s investigating a fatal crash in California that involved an SUV using the company’s Autopilot system.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it removed Tesla as a party to the investigation after the company prematurely made information public.

“Tesla violated the party agreement by releasing investigative information before it was vetted and confirmed by the NTSB,” the agency said in a statement. “Such releases of incomplete information often lead to speculation and incorrect assumptions about the probable cause of a crash.”

Tesla, however, disputed the claim and said it withdrew from the agreement two days earlier, after being told that it would be removed if it made additional statements before the NTSB finished its probe in the next 12 to 24 months.

The company said it released information to correct “misleading” claims being made about Autopilot creating safety problems. In a statement about the escalating dispute, Tesla said it would file a complaint with Congress and accused the NTSB of being more concerned with “press headlines” than promoting safety.

Removing a party to an investigation is rare but has happened in the past, according to the agency. Companies and other organizations can become parties in a probe because they can give technical help and share sensitive information.

The move means that the NTSB will no longer share information about the March 23 crash of a Tesla Model X SUV on U.S. 101 near Mountain View in Silicon Valley. The driver, Walter Huang, 38, a software engineer for Apple, was killed in the crash.

In a statement on March 30, Tesla confirmed that the semi-autonomous Autopilot system was operating at the time of the crash and seemed to blame the crash on Huang. The company said Huang didn’t have his hands on the steering wheel for six seconds before the impact and also received several warnings from the vehicle.

Shortly after Tesla released the information, an NTSB spokesman said the agency was “unhappy” about the disclosure.

Tesla tells drivers that its Autopilot system — which uses cameras, radar and computers to keep speed, change lanes and automatically stop vehicles — requires drivers to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel in order to take control to avoid accidents.

The Palo Alto, California, company said its vehicle logs showed Huang took no action to stop the Model X from crashing into a concrete lane divider. The company said the crash was worsened by a missing or damaged safety shield on the end of the lane divider.

The NTSB, along with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is looking into the crash, as well as another Tesla crash in January near Los Angeles in which a Model S sedan smashed into a firetruck parked on a freeway. Tesla would not say whether the Model S in that crash was operating on Autopilot.

David Friedman, a former NHTSA acting administrator who now is director of cars and product policy for Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, said the Tesla-NTSB spat could delay the investigation if the agency doesn’t have all the electronic information it needs from the company. The agency has legal options if Tesla isn’t forthcoming, he said, but those take time and taxpayer dollars.

The NTSB, he said, has never been focused on publicity, and it has the authority to investigate new technology like Autopilot. “If anything, the NTSB is shining a spotlight on Tesla because of their innovation,” Friedman said.

Consumers Union has called for Tesla to stop testing the cars with its buyers, and Friedman said the company shouldn’t use the name Autopilot because it implies that the cars can drive themselves.

“You should name it so that it is clear what it can and can’t do,” he said.

In the crash that killed Huang, a Tesla spokeswoman would not directly answer questions about why the SUV didn’t spot the freeway barrier and stop before the collision.

The spokeswoman referred to a statement saying that Tesla owners’ manuals have warnings and notifications stating that a driver should not depend on the car’s autosteer system to pick the right driving path. It also says automatic emergency braking “is not designed to avoid a collision and is not a substitute for maintaining a safe traveling distance” from other vehicles.

In its statement Thursday, Tesla accused the NTSB of focusing on the “safest cars in America” while ignoring less-safe vehicles. Tesla says there is one auto death in the U.S. for every 86 million miles driven, but for Tesla vehicles, it’s one death for every 320 million miles.

The NTSB makes recommendations to prevent crashes, while NHTSA has authority to fine automakers, push for recalls and seek regulations.</s>DETROIT — Federal safety investigators have booted electric car maker Tesla Inc. from the group investigating a fatal crash in California that involved an SUV operating with the company's Autopilot system.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday it removed Tesla as a party to the investigation after the company prematurely made information public.

"Tesla violated the party agreement by releasing investigative information before it was vetted and confirmed by the NTSB," the agency said in a statement. "Such releases of incomplete information often lead to speculation and incorrect assumptions about the probable cause of a crash."

Removing a party to an investigation is rare but has happened in the past, according to the agency. Companies and other organizations can become parties in a probe because they can give technical help and share sensitive information.

A Tesla spokeswoman had no immediate comment.

The move apparently means that the NTSB and Tesla will no longer share information about the March 23 crash of a Tesla Model X SUV on U.S. 101 near Mountain View in Silicon Valley. The driver, Walter Huang, 38, a software engineer for Apple, was killed in the crash.

More: How safe should we expect self-driving cars to be?

More: Elon Musk fires back at National Transportation Safety Board as his bad spell continues

More: Can Elon Musk avoid the fate of John DeLorean? Tesla CEO may need to 'rethink' strategy

In a statement on March 30, Tesla confirmed that the semi-autonomous Autopilot system was operating at the time of the crash and seemed to blame the crash on Huang. The company said Huang didn't have his hands on the steering wheel for six seconds before the impact and also received several warnings from the vehicle.

Shortly after Tesla released the information, NTSB spokesman Christopher O'Neil said the agency was "unhappy" about the disclosure.

Tesla tells drivers that its Autopilot system, which uses cameras, radar and computers to keep speed, change lanes, self-park and automatically stop vehicles, requires drivers to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel in order to take control to avoid accidents.

The Palo Alto, California, company said its vehicle logs showed Huang took no action to stop the Model X from crashing into a concrete lane divider. Photographs of the SUV show that the front of the vehicle was demolished; its hood was ripped off; and its front wheels were scattered on the freeway.

The vehicle also caught fire, though Tesla said no one was in the vehicle when that happened. The company said the crash was made worse by a missing or damaged safety shield on the end of the lane divider that is supposed to help shield cars from any impact.

The NTSB, along with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, are looking into the crash, as well as another Tesla crash in January near Los Angeles in which a Model S sedan smashed into a fire truck parked on a freeway.

Tesla would not say whether the Model S in that crash was operating on Autopilot.

In the crash that killed Huang, a Tesla spokeswoman would not directly answer questions about why the SUV didn't spot the barrier and stop before the collision.

The spokeswoman referred to a statement saying that Tesla owner's manuals have warnings and notifications stating that a driver should not depend on the car's autosteer system to pick the right driving path. It also says automatic emergency braking "is not designed to avoid a collision and is not a substitute for maintaining a safe traveling distance between you and the vehicle in front of you."</s>DETROIT — Federal safety investigators have booted electric car maker Tesla Inc. from the group investigating a fatal crash in California that involved an SUV operating with the company’s Autopilot system.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday it removed Tesla as a party to the investigation after the company prematurely made information public.

“Tesla violated the party agreement by releasing investigative information before it was vetted and confirmed by the NTSB,” the agency said in a statement. “Such releases of incomplete information often lead to speculation and incorrect assumptions about the probable cause of a crash.”

On Thursday afternoon, Tesla issued a statement claiming that it withdrew from the agreement two days earlier after being told that it would be removed if it made additional statements before the NTSB finished its probe in the next 12 to 24 months.

The company said it released information on the crash to correct “misleading” claims being made about Autopilot creating safety problems. Tesla said it would file a complaint with Congress and accused the agency of being more concerned with “press headlines” than promoting safety.

Removing a party to an investigation is rare but has happened in the past, according to the agency. Companies and other organizations can become parties in a probe because they can give technical help and share sensitive information.

The move means that the NTSB and Tesla will no longer share information about the March 23 crash of a Tesla Model X SUV on U.S. 101 near Mountain View in Silicon Valley. The driver, Walter Huang, 38, a software engineer for Apple, was killed in the crash.

In a statement on March 30, Tesla confirmed that the semi-autonomous Autopilot system was operating at the time of the crash and seemed to blame the crash on Huang. The company said Huang didn’t have his hands on the steering wheel for six seconds before the impact and also received several warnings from the vehicle.

Shortly after Tesla released the information, NTSB spokesman Christopher O’Neil said the agency was “unhappy” about the disclosure.

Tesla tells drivers that its Autopilot system, which uses cameras, radar and computers to keep speed, change lanes, self-park and automatically stop vehicles, requires drivers to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel in order to take control to avoid accidents.

The Palo Alto, California, company said its vehicle logs showed Huang took no action to stop the Model X from crashing into a concrete lane divider. Photographs of the SUV show that the front of the vehicle was demolished; its hood was ripped off; and its front wheels were scattered on the freeway.

The vehicle also caught fire, though Tesla said no one was in the vehicle when that happened. The company said the crash was made worse by a missing or damaged safety shield on the end of the lane divider that is supposed to help shield cars from any impact.

The NTSB, along with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, are looking into the crash, as well as another Tesla crash in January near Los Angeles in which a Model S sedan smashed into a fire truck parked on a freeway.

Tesla would not say whether the Model S in that crash was operating on Autopilot.

In the crash that killed Huang, a Tesla spokeswoman would not directly answer questions about why the SUV didn’t spot the barrier and stop before the collision.

The spokeswoman referred to a statement saying that Tesla owner’s manuals have warnings and notifications stating that a driver should not depend on the car’s autosteer system to pick the right driving path. It also says automatic emergency braking “is not designed to avoid a collision and is not a substitute for maintaining a safe travelling distance between you and the vehicle in front of you.”

In its statement Thursday, Tesla says there is one auto death in the U.S. for every 86 million miles driven, but for Tesla vehicles, it’s only one death for every 320 million miles.

The company also accused the NTSB of focusing on the “safest cars in America” while ignoring less-safe vehicles.</s>US safety investigators have booted electric car maker Tesla from the group investigating a fatal crash in California that involved an SUV operating with the company's Autopilot system.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday it removed Tesla as a party to the investigation after the company prematurely made information public.

"Tesla violated the party agreement by releasing investigative information before it was vetted and confirmed by the NTSB," the agency said in a statement. "Such releases of incomplete information often lead to speculation and incorrect assumptions about the probable cause of a crash."

Removing a party to an investigation is rare but has happened in the past, according to the agency. Companies and other organizations can become parties in a probe because they can give technical help and share sensitive information.

A Tesla spokeswoman had no immediate comment.</s>It seems that Tesla and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board haven't been seeing eye to eye lately, following the fatal crash of a Model X in California last month. Now, according to Tesla, the automaker has withdrawn from its prior agreement with the NTSB over disagreements in fundamental disclosure practices.

By withdrawing from the agreement, Tesla will reportedly be able to release information to the public about the accident instead of being confined to silence while the investigation completes. In a time when autonomy is under fire from the public and press, the electric automaker understands the need to be transparent with people over its Autopilot system, especially since it was revealed to be enabled during the fatal Model X crash.

“Today, Tesla withdrew from the party agreement with the NTSB because it requires that we not release information about Autopilot to the public, a requirement which we believe fundamentally affects public safety negatively," a Tesla spokesperson told The Drive, "We believe in transparency, so an agreement that prevents public release of information for over a year is unacceptable. Even though we won't be a formal party, we will continue to provide technical assistance to the NTSB.”

Elon Musk took to Twitter earlier this month to issue a rebuttal to a statement that the NTSB issued, which stated that the board was "unhappy" that Tesla chose to break silence of the crash investigation ahead of its closure.</s>Tesla Inc. withdrew from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation of a fatal accident involving one of its vehicles, an unusual move that followed public statements by the company blaming the driver and breaching the agency’s protocols.

“Tesla withdrew from the party agreement with the NTSB because it requires that we not release information about Autopilot to the public, a requirement which we believe fundamentally affects public safety negatively,” the company said in an emailed statement. “We believe in transparency, so an agreement that prevents public release of information for over a year is unacceptable.”

Although Tesla won’t be a formal party to the probe, the company said it will continue to provide technical assistance to the NTSB.

Tesla issued a statement this week in response to a local television appearance by the family of Walter Huang, a 38-year-old who died last month in his Model X using the driver-assistance system Autopilot. The company said the “only” explanation for the crash was “if Mr. Huang was not paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings to do so.”

It was the third time the company has commented on the Huang incident. In a March 30 blog post, Tesla said that the Model X driver’s hands weren’t on the steering wheel for six seconds prior to the fatal crash. An NTSB spokesman said the agency was “unhappy” with the company for disclosing details during the investigation.

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt spoke by phone over the weekend and had what an agency spokesman said was a constructive conversation.

The NTSB is looking into the crash that killed Huang, as well as a collision in January involving a Tesla Model S that was using Autopilot when it rear-ended a fire truck parked on a freeway near Los Angeles.

The stakes for Tesla’s bid to defend Autopilot are significant. The NTSB’s investigation of the March 23 crash involving Huang contributed to a major selloff in the company’s shares. Musk claimed almost 18 months ago that the system will eventually render Tesla vehicles capable of full self-driving, and much of the value of the $51 billion company is linked to views that it could be an autonomous-car pioneer.

The NTSB guards the integrity of its investigations closely, demanding that participants adhere to rules about what information they can release and their expected cooperation. These so-called parties to investigations must sign legal agreements laying out their responsibilities.

The safety board has in some cases thrown airlines, aircraft manufacturers and unions off of investigations in cases where they were either making unauthorized statements or not producing information the NTSB expected of them.

Because it’s a relatively small agency with a limited numbers of employees, the NTSB relies heavily on these parties to assist its investigations. The safety board has subpoena power that it’s used in rare instances to compel companies involved in investigations to provide information.
Tesla Inc. withdraws from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board's probe of a fatal Model X crash in California. Tesla had drawn the NTSB's ire by releasing information publicly about its view of the case and about the car's Autopilot feature, something the Board does not allow during active investigations.