Safety of Tesla Autopilot under scrutiny again, this time in China

Tesla Motors is once again facing controversy over the safety of its Autopilot technology for assisting car drivers, this time in connection with the death of the driver in a Model S crash in China. The father of the deceased filed a lawsuit in a Beijing court in July against the car dealer who sold him the car, alleging that his son had turned on the Autopilot feature before he crashed into a vehicle in January in the northeastern province of Hebei, according to reports citing Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. Tesla has said it is unable to determine whether or not Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash. As a result of the damage caused by the collision, the car was physically incapable of transmitting log data to Tesla servers, wrote spokeswoman Keely Sulprizio late Wednesday. "We have tried repeatedly to work with our customer to investigate the cause of the crash, but he has not provided us with any additional information that would allow us to do so," Sulprizio added in an email.