Image copyright Reuters Image caption The driver of the Tesla Model X died shortly after the crash

Electric carmaker Tesla says a vehicle involved in a fatal crash in California was in Autopilot mode, raising further questions about the safety of self-driving technology.

One of the company's Model X cars crashed into a roadside barrier and caught fire on 23 March.

Tesla says Autopilot was engaged at the time of the accident involving the driver, 38, who died soon afterwards.

But they did not say whether the system had detected the concrete barrier.

"The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive," a statement on the company's website said.

"The driver's hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision."

"The driver had about five seconds and 150m (490ft) of unobstructed view of the concrete divider... but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken," the statement added.

Tesla's Autopilot system does some of the things a fully autonomous machine can do. It can brake, accelerate and steer by itself under certain conditions, but it is classified as a driver assistance system, is not intended to operate independently and as such the driver is meant to have their hands on the wheel at all times.

In 2016, a Tesla driver was killed in Florida when his car failed to spot a lorry crossing its path.

It led the company to introduce new safety measures, including turning off Autopilot and bringing the car to a halt if the driver lets go of the wheel for too long.

Federal investigators said last year that Tesla "lacked understanding" of the semi-autonomous Autopilot's limitations.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Uber dashcam footage shows moment before fatal impact

The accident in California comes at a difficult time for self-driving technology.

Earlier this month, Uber was forbidden from resuming self-driving tests in the US state of Arizona.

It followed a fatal crash in the state in which an autonomous vehicle hit a woman who was walking her bike across the road.

It was thought to be the first time an autonomous car had been involved in a fatal collision with a pedestrian.

The company suspended all self-driving tests in North America after the accident.</s>Tesla Inc has said that a Tesla Model X involved a fatal crash in California last week had activated its Autopilot system, raising new questions about the semi-autonomous system that handles some driving tasks.

Tesla also said vehicle logs from the accident showed no action had been taken by the driver soon before the crash and that he had received earlier warnings to put his hands on the wheel.

"The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken," Tesla said.

The statement did not say why the Autopilot system apparently did not detect the concrete divider.

The fatal crash and vehicle fire of the Tesla near Mountain View, California, involved two other cars and delayed traffic for hours. The 38-year-old Tesla driver died at a nearby hospital shortly after the crash.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which launched an investigation into the crash earlier this week, did not immediately comment late Friday. The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating the fatal crash.

Autopilot allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel for extended periods under certain conditions. Tesla requires users to agree to keep their hands on the wheel “at all times” before they can use autopilot, but users routinely tout the fact they can use the system to drive hands-free.

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

That death -- the first fatality in a Tesla vehicle operating in Autopilot mode -- raised questions about the safety of systems that can perform driving tasks for long stretches with little or no human intervention, but which cannot completely replace human drivers.

The NTSB said Tesla could have taken further steps to prevent the system’s misuse, and faulted the driver for not paying attention and for "overreliance on vehicle automation."

In January, NHTSA and NTSB launched investigations into a Tesla vehicle, apparently traveling in semi-autonomous mode, that struck a fire truck in California. Neither agency nor Tesla has offered any update.

The government probes raise the risk for Tesla and automakers at a time when the industry is seeking federal legislation that would ease deployment of self driving cars.

The crash comes soon after an Uber vehicle in Arizona in self-driving mode struck and killed a pedestrian in the first death linked to an autonomous vehicle.

Tesla said late Friday that "Autopilot does not prevent all accidents – such a standard would be impossible – but it makes them much less likely to occur. It unequivocally makes the world safer for the vehicle occupants, pedestrians and cyclists."

Tesla said that in the United States "there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers. For Tesla, there is one fatality, including known pedestrian fatalities, every 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware."

Tesla in September 2016 unveiled improvements to Autopilot, adding new limits on hands-off driving.

On Thursday, Tesla said it was recalling 123,000 Model S sedans built before April 2016 in order to replace bolts in the power steering component that can begin to corrode after contact in cold temperatures with road salt. No accidents or injuries were reported.</s>In a statement Friday night, Tesla reported that the Autopilot system was engaged when a Model X crashed into a highway divider on March 23rd. Further, Tesla says the unnamed male driver’s hands were “not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision,” and that he had received “several” automated warnings to keep his hands on the wheel earlier in the same drive.

The driver, according to data in the vehicle’s logs, had about five seconds to react before striking the divider, but did not. The driver was killed in the crash, which Tesla says was made worse by an unrepaired highway crash guard.

The case highlights a key and persistent worry about Tesla’s Autopilot system – not whether it is effective, but whether drivers understand its intended use. Despite its name, Autopilot is not a full self-driving system, and Tesla has implemented a variety of safeguards and alerts to remind drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road when Autopilot is activated.

But this is not the first time a crash apparently resulted when a driver did not heed those warnings. A fatal May 2016 crash was caused in part by overreliance on Autopilot, according to a National Transportation Safety Board investigation. Autopilot was also active during a nonfatal Model S crash in California this January.

Despite those incidents, statistics show that Autopilot increases driver safety overall. The U.S. Department of Transportation has found that Autopilot reduces crash rates by 40%, and Tesla says Autopilot-equipped vehicles are 3.7 times less likely than average to be involved in a fatal accident.

Despite that bigger picture, the latest crash has helped hammer the carmaker’s stock, which dropped more than 15% early this week before recovering slightly.</s>Tesla Inc said on Friday that vehicle logs from last week's fatal accident of a Tesla Model X in California showed that the autopilot had been engaged prior to the crash.

Tesla said that the autopilot was on with adaptive cruise control follow-distance set to minimum.

The company also said no action had been taken by the driver, who had a 5-second view of the concrete divider.

"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 said.

The fatal crash and vehicle fire of the Tesla Model X near Mountain View, California, last week involved two other cars. Tesla vehicles have a system called Autopilot that handles some driving tasks.

The 38-year-old Tesla driver died at a nearby hospital shortly after the crash.</s>
• A Tesla Model X destroyed in a fiery crash that also killed the driver had been operating on Autopilot moments before the collision, Tesla announced on Friday night, citing information collected from vehicle logs.
• The company said the driver had set a distance-control feature that determines how much space the Model X keeps between itself and other vehicles to the "minimum" setting.
• Tesla also asserts that the driver had received "several visual and one audible hands-on warning," and their hands were not detected on the wheel "six seconds prior to the collision."

Tesla revealed new information about a collision involving a Model X, in which the driver of the electric SUV was killed last week.

The company said in a blog post on Friday night that the Model X had been operating on Autopilot, its semi-autonomous driving system, before the crash, according to data obtained from onboard vehicle logs. The driver had also set a distance-control feature that determines how much space the Model X keeps between itself and other vehicles to the "minimum" setting, the company said.

According to Tesla, the driver had received "several visual and one audible hands-on warning" during the drive, and their hands were not detected on the steering wheel "six seconds prior to the collision."

The Model X slammed into a highway barrier in the Northern California city of Mountain View on March 23. The driver later died at a hospital.

Tesla said the driver "had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken."

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating. Two other vehicles were involved in the collision.

It is the second collision involving a Tesla operating on Autopilot that the NTSB has investigated so far this year. The agency was also looking into a Model S sedan that collided with a fire truck in the Los Angeles suburb of Culver City in January.

Tesla has said that "Autopilot is not a fully self-driving technology and drivers need to remain attentive at all times."

The Autopilot system is designed to warn drivers whenever it detects that the driver's hands are not on the wheel. The severity of those alerts gradually escalates if the driver does not respond. The Autopilot system eventually deactivates itself if the driver ignores the warnings.</s>(KGTV) - The Tesla vehicle involved in a deadly California crash last week was operating in "Autopilot" mode, the company confirmed Friday.

The vehicle is now the latest accident involving an autonomous vehicle in the last month.

The fatal crash on March 23 occurred in Mountain View, Calif. The vehicle had been engaged in Autopilot and alerted the driver with "several" visual and audible "hands-on" warnings, Tesla said in a release.

The driver, identified as 38-year-old Walter Huang, did not have his hands on the wheel in the six seconds leading up to the fiery crash, according to the drive logs Tesla recovered.

"The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken," according to Tesla.

Tesla said the force of the crash was so severe the highway safety barrier designed to reduce impact into the concrete lane divider had been crushed.

"We have never seen this level of damage to a Model X in any other crash," Tesla said.

Officials from Tesla said they are working with investigators to understand what led to the crash.

The company maintained, however, that drivers using Autopilot are 3.7 times less likely to be involved in a fatal crash.

"No one knows about the accidents that didn’t happen, only the ones that did. The consequences of the public not using Autopilot, because of an inaccurate belief that it is less safe, would be extremely severe," Tesla said.

In March, a self-driving Uber vehicle hit and killed a pedestrian in Arizona. That crash had also been utilizing a self-driving system. Dashboard video showed the driver appeared to not have his hands on the wheel at the time of the collision.</s>Tesla's Autopilot feature was on during the recent fatal crash of a Tesla Model X car, the company said late Friday, potentially increasing concerns over the safety of automated-driving technologies.

In a post on its website, the electric-car maker said computer logs retrieved from the wrecked SUV show that Tesla's driver-assisting Autopilot technology was engaged and that the driver doesn't appear to have grabbed the steering wheel in the seconds before the crash.

The car's 38-year-old driver died after the vehicle hit a concrete lane divider on a Northern California freeway and caught fire. The accident happened March 23.

Three days earlier, an Arizona pedestrian was killed by a fully self-driving car being tested by Uber with a ride-along human safety driver, raising questions about whether automated technologies can be trusted.

Nearly every carmaker worldwide, including General Motors, BMW, Ford and Toyota, has plans to offer self-driving cars in the next few years. Proponents say the vehicles are safer because their software and sensors let them "see" and react to surroundings faster than humans can. But critics say the cars may not be road ready and that the process shouldn't be rushed.

On its website, Tesla, led by CEO Elon Musk, says Enhanced Autopilot includes features like Autosteer, Emergency Braking and Side Collision Warning. It adds that "every driver is responsible for remaining alert and active when using Autopilot, and must be prepared to take action at any time." The site also says all Tesla cars include hardware that in the future will allow them to go beyond Enhanced Autopilot to offer "full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver."

In its Friday post, Tesla said the crashed Model X's computer logs show that the driver's hands weren't detected on the steering wheel for 6 seconds prior to the accident. It said they also show the driver had "about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider" before the crash but that "no action was taken."

The company cited various statistics in defending Autopilot in the post and said there's no doubt the technology makes vehicles safer than traditional cars.

"Over a year ago," the post said, "our first iteration of Autopilot was found by the US government to reduce crash rates by as much as 40 percent. Internal data confirms that recent updates to Autopilot have improved system reliability."

"Tesla Autopilot does not prevent all accidents -- such a standard would be impossible -- but it makes them much less likely to occur," the post reads. "It unequivocally makes the world safer for the vehicle occupants, pedestrians and cyclists."

It's not the first time Autopilot has been involved in a fatal collision. In regard to a 2016 accident, the US National Transportation Safety Board faulted the driver for "overreliance on vehicle automation" but said that though the Autopilot system operated as designed, it didn't do enough to make sure drivers paid adequate attention.

Tesla said in the post that the driver in the recent crash had gotten several warnings at various times during the trip about the need to take control of the steering wheel. It also said the reason the accident was so serious is because the safety barrier on the concrete lane divider, designed to reduce impact, was damaged in an earlier accident and hadn't been replaced.

Tesla's business is having a difficult month, with unprecedented dips in stock prices fueled in part by the recent crash and by Model 3 production delays. On Thursday, the company recalled 123,000 Model S cars because of a faulty steering bolt.

CNET Magazine: Check out a sample of the stories in CNET's newsstand edition.

CNET en Español: Get all your tech news and reviews in Spanish.</s>After the driver of a Tesla Model X died in a fiery crash on a Bay Area freeway last week, federal and local authorities are investigating what happened.

The crash on Highway 101 near Mountain View, California, last Friday looked gruesome with the front half of the electric SUV destroyed in the crash and subsequent fire.

National Transportation Safety Board spokesperson Christopher O'Neil said in a phone call Thursday that the federal agency was investigating the crash, mostly looking into the fire after the crash and how the vehicle was transported and removed from the scene.

He said the NTSB would be "interested" in knowing if Tesla's autopilot mode was in use leading up to the crash, but its field investigation didn't have any updated information on whether that was the case.

Tesla said this week it was still working on retrieving the vehicle's logs from an internal computer. Severe damage has made it difficult to review what happened in the car and on the road before the fatal accident.

But Tesla, in a post about the accident, defended its autopilot feature even though the semi-autonomous driving mode hasn't been confirmed as a factor in the crash. Based on user data, Tesla drivers on the same part of the highway where the crashed occurred have used autopilot mode about 85,000 times since 2015 — that's 20,000 times since the beginning of this year. Tesla said it doesn't know about any accidents.

Tesla also explained that the investigation is more focused on the highway road barrier. "The reason this crash was so severe is that the crash attenuator, a highway safety barrier which is designed to reduce the impact into a concrete lane divider, had either been removed or crushed in a prior accident without being replaced," the electric car company wrote.

A fatal Tesla crash investigation in Florida in 2016 cited an "over-reliance" on Tesla's automated feature. A driver in another Tesla crash in Los Angeles earlier this year was also in autopilot mode.</s>Tesla said autopilot was activated during a fatal Model X crash last week in California.

The driver’s hands were not on the steering wheel for about six seconds before the Model X collided with a highway median on Highway 101 in Mountain View, the company said in a statement issued late Friday. And the driver had received “several visual and one audible” cue from the vehicle to grab the wheel “earlier in the drive,” it added.

The autopilot feature is not fully autonomous. It handles some driving functions, but not all, and drivers are expected to stay engaged when the feature is activated.

In a blog post, Tesla called the crash, which killed the driver, “devastating.” It also said that drivers are safer when they have autopilot activated than when they do not.

“Tesla Autopilot does not prevent all accidents — such a standard would be impossible — but it makes them much less likely to occur,” the post reads.

The company also pointed to a government report from January 2017 that found autopilot reduced crash rates for Tesla by 40%.

“The consequences of the public not using Autopilot, because of an inaccurate belief that it is less safe, would be extremely severe,” Tesla said.

The incident is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board, and the news came amid a brutal week of headlines for Tesla as the company continues to struggle with production issues of its new mass-market car, the Model 3.

And a recall for 123,000 luxury Model S sedans was issued Thursday due to an issue that can make the cars difficult to steer at low speeds.

The company’s shares are down more than 22% so far this month.

The Tesla crash followed a high-profile crash in Tempe, Arizona, in which a fully autonomous Uber car struck and killed a pedestrian.

Tesla’s semi-autonomous autopilot technology has been a factor in crashes before. In January, a Model S sedan struck a fire truck while driving down a California highway. The driver was unharmed. And federal investigators found that Tesla’s autopilot was partly to blame in the fatal crash of a Model S in 2016.

Tesla vehicles typically rank very high in terms of crash safety ratings. Last June, the Model X was deemed the safest SUV ever tested by federal regulators.</s>A Tesla Model X owner had the vehicle’s Autopilot system engaged when the all-electric SUV crashed on a California highway, Tesla confirmed on Friday while alleging the driver who died in the crash missed key warnings to take control of the car.

Prior to the March 23 collision, Tesla said the Model X owner had Autopilot engaged with adaptive cruise control follow-distance set to a minimum. The driver, Walter Huang, had received “several visual and one audible hands-on warning” earlier in the drive. Huang’s hands weren’t detected on the wheel six seconds prior to the collision, Tesla said. Huang died in the crash.



“The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken,” Tesla wrote in a blog post late Friday. 



Tesla said it believes the crash was severe because the “crash attenuator,” a highway safety barrier which is designed to reduce the impact into a concrete lane divider, had been crushed in a prior accident without being replaced.

“We have never seen this level of damage to a Model X in any other crash,” the company said. 



The confirmation that Tesla’s Autopilot system was engaged at the time of the crash comes amid a troubling time for the nascent self-driving car industry. This month, an Uber-owned self-driving car fatally struck a pedestrian, raising significant questions about the safety of automated driving technology. Following the fiery crash involving the Model X driver, the National Transportation Safety Board launched an investigation that’s expected to take months to complete.

The Model X crash is the third known fatality to occur when Autopilot was engaged. In January 2016, 23-year-old Gao Yaning died while driving a Model S on a highway in China, and his family’s attorney recently told Jalopnik that Tesla’s own data confirmed Autopilot was engaged at the time. A half-year later, Joshua Brown died in Florida after his Model S crashed into a truck. The NTSB said an over-reliance on Autopilot was partly to blame in that crash.

Tesla has been quick to post updates on the Model X crash in recent days, saying late Friday that it has been “working as quickly as possible to establish the facts of last week’s accident.”

“Our hearts are with the family and friends who have been affected by this tragedy,” the company said.

The NTSB initially said it wasn’t clear if Autopilot was engaged at the time it sent investigators to the scene earlier this week.

But the confirmation that Autopilot was on should only add more questions for an industry currently trying to untangle how to approach self-driving cars in wake of this month’s fatal Uber crash, the first known to involve a pedestrian and an autonomous car.

Update, March 31, 9:50 a.m.: This post has been updated to include more information about previous fatal crashes that occurred when Autopilot was engaged.
U.S.-based automobile manufacturer Tesla confirms that one of their Model X cars was placed into Autopilot mode moments before a fatal crash in California, United States. Tesla's Autopilot system is not intended to operate independently and as such the driver is meant to have their hands on the wheel at all times. The recorder of the system logged that the driver did not have their hands on the wheel at the time of the crash.