In Texas, a Tesla car with autopilot on killed two people. The electric car crashed into a tree and caught fire.
According to the portal The Verge, the accident occurred last Saturday, April 17, at about 21:00 local time near the city of Houston, Texas. The 2019 Tesla Model S car was moving at high speed and, not fitting into the corner, crashed into a tree. As a result, the car’s battery caught fire and the firefighters who arrived at the scene spent more than 113 cubic meters of water to extinguish the flames. The fire was extinguished only four hours later.
It is reported that the car was on autopilot and there was no one behind the wheel. There were two passengers in the cabin – one sat in the front passenger seat, and the other in the back. Unfortunately, it was not possible to save them. Whether the airbags were deployed in the accident is still unknown.
Tesla’s press service has not yet responded to a request from journalists for comment. But, most likely, representatives of the automaker will comment on the accident that happened after the weekend.
It’s worth noting that the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating at least 23 auto-raft-related accidents. But this appears to be the first fatal accident in which the driver was not driving a moving car.
By the way, Tesla has previously warned its customers more than once that the autopilot system built into the brand’s electric vehicles is not a fully autonomous control system and the driver still needs to keep a close eye on the road. Earlier, the head of Tesla, Elon Musk, said that most often when a serious accident happens, one of its main reasons is the self-confidence of drivers who think they know more about autopilot than its creators.
Putting out an ignited electric car is much more difficult than a car with an internal combustion engine. In this case, the problem is re-ignition of the battery, because, unlike fuel vehicles, the battery of an electric vehicle still retains energy even after the fire has been extinguished. And Tesla management believes that in this case, it is better to let the fire go out on its own than to continue to make vain attempts to extinguish it.
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