Who remembers that Tesla Model S crashed in Texas, in the suburb of Fouston Spring two years ago, in 2021, which cost the lives of two people? The driver, a 59-year-old man, was found in the back seat after the crash after tragic contact with the other car.
From there, the discussions about autonomous driving, etc. etc. began. Well, two years later, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board have solved the mystery of why there was no one behind the wheel (deformed) of that Tesla.
Well, that wasn’t the fault of Tesla’s ‘Autopilot’: the system could not have been used on the road where the accident occurred because there were no lane lines. Tests showed that the car’s “Traffic Aware Cruise Control” system could have been used, at most, up to the top speed of 50 km/h.
Instead that Tesla was going 108 kilometers per hour two seconds before hitting the car and then ending up, at 92 kilometers per hour, against a tree before being consumed by flames with the lithium-ion battery catching fire.
Tesla’s event data recorder showed that the throttle moved ‘consistent with driver activity’ in the five seconds prior to the crash and that the driver’s seat belt was engaged at the moment of impact.
Therefore, the investigators have no doubts: “Although the driver’s seat was found empty and the driver was found in the left rear seat, the available evidence suggests that the driver was sitting in the driver’s seat at the time of the accident and moved to the back seat after the accident”.
It is therefore a question of a trick by the driver to blame Tesla. Simply because he was drunk: he had a blood alcohol level of 0.151 grams per deciliter, nearly double the Texas legal limit of 0.08. Two over-the-counter sedative antihistamine drugs had also been found in the driver’s blood.
Finally, the report was corroborated by evidence from a home security video showing how the man got out of the car to sit in the back seat. So, human error.