The sun had yet to rise in Delray Beach, Fla., when Jeremy Banner flicked on Autopilot. His red Tesla Model 3 sped down the highway at nearly 70 mph, his hands no longer detected on the wheel. Seconds later, the Tesla plowed into a semi-truck, shearing off its roof as it slid under the truck's trailer. Banner was killed on impact. Banner's family sued after the gruesome 2019 collision, one of at least 10 active lawsuits involving Tesla's Autopilot, several of which are expected to go to court over the next year. Together, the cases could determine whether the driver is solely responsible when things go wrong in a vehicle guided by Autopilot -- or whether the software should also bear some of the blame.

Interestingly, that suggests the truck driver could have foreseen the crash--if he had assumed the car would maintain a constant speed. The witness said the Model S was visible to the truck over the crest of a rise in the freeway for "several seconds" before the truck began its left turn. The implication is that the driver either didn't see the Model S coming or assumed--perhaps naturally, given the truck's size and visibility--that the Tesla's driver would brake or change lanes to avoid the collision. That seems like a safe assumption when the driver is human but perhaps less so when the driver is an automated system.

A new report from US investigators shows the driver killed in a 2016 crash while using Tesla's Autopilot feature only had his hands on the steering wheel for 25 seconds during a nearly 40-minute drive. The driver killed in the 2016 crash of a Tesla Model S took his hands off the wheel while using autopilot despite repeated warnings not to do so, government investigators have found. The National Transportation Safety Board said the driver had been using the semi-autonomous driver assistance system for extended periods when his car crashed into a 53-foot freight trailer west of Williston, Florida. The NTSB Monday released a large amount of data on the incident, but said it had not determined the cause of the crash. But it is the second agency whose findings have not faulted Tesla's driver-assistance system.

The man killed in a crash while using the autopilot function of a Tesla Model S electric vehicle posted a YouTube video a month before the fatal crash showing the technology saving him from another collision and wrote that he was "very impressed." I have done a lot of testing with the sensors in the car and the software capabilities," Joshua Brown, 40, of Canton, Ohio, wrote on April 5 in comments posted with the 41-second video. "I have always been impressed with the car, but I had not tested the car's side collision avoidance," he said. Then on May 7, Brown, a former Navy Seal, was killed when his Tesla crashed into a tractor trailer in Williston, Fla. Federal regulators said Thursday they had opened an investigation into the fatality, thought to be the first in the auto industry involving an autonomous driving feature. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said its Office of Defects Investigation was conducting a preliminary evaluation of the autopilot function. The agency is expected to issue guidelines for autonomous vehicles this month. Automakers do not need to have autonomous driving functions approved by NHTSA but must certify their vehicles meet safety standards. Calling Brown's death "a tragic loss," Tesla said it was the first-known fatality involving its autopilot feature. The technology, which is in public beta testing and must be activated by the driver, has been used in 130 million miles of driving without a fatality, the company said. The crash took place at 3:40 p.m. May 7 on U.S. Route 27A during clear and dry conditions, according to the accident report from the Florida Highway Patrol. Brown's vehicle was headed east when a tractor trailer driven by Frank Baressi of Palm Harbor, Fla., traveling in the opposite direction, made a left turn onto a side street. The Tesla's roof hit the underside of the tractor trailer. The car skidded under the truck and off the road, plowing through two wire fences before crashing into a utility pole, the accident report said. Baressi told the Associated Press that Brown was "playing'Harry Potter' on the TV screen" in the car when the crash took place. Kim Montes, a spokeswoman for the Florida Highway Patrol, told The Times that a portable DVD player was found in the Tesla but said she did not know whether it had been in use. "At the time of the impact, we don't know what the status of that DVD player was.