We continue to discuss what happened may 11 on the road in Utah. Then a Tesla Model S crashed into a fire truck at the speed of 95 kilometers per hour. The driver reported that during the accident he worked the autopilot function. The driver was looking at phone screen. The new data allow us to understand why Tesla autopilot worked correctly.
The data obtained from the computer of the crashed Tesla Model S indicate that before the accident the car accelerated for 3-5 seconds. This is confirmed by witnesses who did not notice the braking.
According to the police, Tesla was at a given speed of 95 kilometers per hour behind another car. Following a vehicle ahead slowed to 88 miles per hour before changing lanes into another lane. Tesla is also slowed, and after changeover EN route ahead of the vehicle again started to gain until a speed of up to 95 kilometers per hour and crashed into a fire truck.
Heather Lommatsch, the driver, told me that she owned this car for two years and used the autopilot on a variety of roads. Based on this experience, it believes that automatic emergency braking system were to work in this situation.
We remind you that the Tesla requires the driver to keep hands on the steering wheel during operation of the autopilot. Model S is equipped with a system warning the driver about the need to keep control over the movement. If the driver ignores these warnings, the autopilot system is turned off.
According to the data obtained from the Tesla Model S, Heather Lommatsch removed his hands from the steering wheel 80 seconds before the time of the accident, but it’s not like the autopilot disconnected, since it is known that the car was gaining speed.
The obtained data of the autopilot Tesla Model S that crashed on a fire truck
Ernest Vasilevskiy