Two men, one 69 years old and the other 59, died Saturday night in Texas in a terrible accident near Spring, a suburb north of Houston, on the night between Saturday and Sunday. The two were aboard a 2019 Tesla Model S launched at great speed. The car took a wrong turn and went off the road, crashing into a tree. After the crash the car caught fire. It took more than four hours to put out the fire, the relatives of the victims who rushed in, said the car’s batteries, even if turned off, caught fire again. Rescuers even had to contact Tesla to find out how to put out the flames.
Harris County officers arrived at the scene and found that one of the two victims was in the passenger seat, while the other was sitting in the rear seats. The driver’s seat was empty. “Based on the position of the bodies after the impact,” said one officer, “we’re pretty sure no one was behind the wheel.” It is not yet clear whether the autonomous driving system that Tesla cars are equipped with was in operation at the time of the crash.
Federal authorities are investigating similar incidents involving Tesla cars and in which the driving assistance system could always be involved. On March 19, for example, a Tesla driving at high speed in driving assistance mode near Detroit hit a police car that was parked on the side of the road. On March 11, another Tesla landed under the trailer of an articulated lorry, and was still in driving assistance mode.
Tesla on its website recalls that this system reduces the risk of accidents and helps the driver to manage the vehicle, but it cannot replace the driver as if it were an autopilot and that therefore the supervision of a driver is always required. For the moment, the company has not made any comments.