NTSB chair eviscerates Tesla for inaction over Autopilot concerns

The National Transportation Safety Board held a hearing on Tuesday regarding a deadly 2018 crash in which a Tesla Model X slammed into a Mountain View highway divider at 70mph, was subsequently struck by two other vehicles and then exploded. During that announcement, the safety board revealed that the driver, Apple developer Walter Huang, was playing a mobile game on his phone at the time of the accident, while the vehicle's Autopilot feature was engaged. "Government regulators have provided scant oversight" over the semi-autonomous driving systems that are quickly becoming standard features on modern automobiles, NTSB chair Robert Sumwalt declared. While the NTSB does not have the authority to enforce safety measures, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration can issue recalls for unsafe vehicle tech. The NTSB also determined via cellphone records and device data that Huang's phone was running a mobile game at the time of the crash.