Federal investigators are looking into the crash of a Tesla that killed two people in Los Angeles. A spokesman for the national highway traffic safety administration is not saying whether or not the “Tesla Model S” was on auto pilot when it crashed on Sunday in Gardena.
The black Tesla left the freeway and was traveling at a high speed when it ran a red light and slammed into a Honda Civic. A man and woman in the civic died at the scene. A man and woman in the Tesla were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries. No arrests were made.
Another Tesla crash killed a woman Sunday in Indiana. 25-year-old Derrick Monet of Arizona was seriously injured when his Tesla rear-ended a fire truck parked along interstate 70. The accident killed his wife. She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Monet says he didn’t recall whether he had activated his Tesla’s autopilot mode.
Both Tesla and the NHTSA are advising drivers that autopilot is not entirely autonomous. It requires drivers to pay attention at all times.
They blame driver overconfidence for the fatal Tesla crashes.
