Another Driver Died in a Tesla That Was on Autopilot

Friday night's admission by Tesla that its autopilot mode was activated during a deadly crash by a Model X SUV earlier this month is bad for Tesla, bad for the cause of self-driving cars, and certainly bad for anyone who rides in semiautonomous or autonomous vehicles or shares the road with them. On March 23, the vehicle hit a barrier on Highway 101 near Mountain View, California, then caught fire and was hit by two other vehicles. In an earlier statement about the incident, before Tesla had been able to retrieve the SUV's logs, the electric-vehicle company was preemptively defensive of its technology, stressing that while autopilot can't prevent all accidents, it makes them "less likely to occur." In the moments before the collision, which occurred at 9:27 a.m. on Friday, March 23rd, Autopilot was engaged with the adaptive cruise control follow-distance set to minimum. The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver's hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision.