The pileup was caused by a Tesla making an unsafe lane change.
A Tesla driver is blaming the Full Self-Driving (FSD) software on his Tesla for causing an eight-car pileup in California last month.
According to a police report obtained by CNN Business, the driver of a 2021 Tesla Model S told California authorities the vehicle was in ‘full self-driving mode’ when the technology malfunctioned.
On Wednesday, a police report was made public describing the crash that happened last month on Thanksgiving Day.
The report said that California Highway Patrol (CHP) reviewed tunnel footage and found that a Tesla made an unsafe lane change before abruptly slowing down from 55 mph to 20 mph — causing vehicles behind it to crash into one another.
The driver of the Tesla blamed his car’s Full Self-Driving software in the report, for allegedly malfunctioning and causing a sudden slowdown.
However, police were unable to determine if the FSD software was in operation and verify the driver’s claim.
The accident left nine people with minor injuries and two children hospitalized.
The incident is only the latest in a string of Tesla-related accidents being investigated by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
This particular crash occurred hours after its owner Elon Musk said Tesla would make FSD software available to anyone in North America who requested it. Previously, the software was only available to drivers with high safety scores.
Tesla’s FSD software is sold as a $15,000 add-on to the vehicle itself, but it faces legal, regulatory and public scrutiny.
The police report said that if FSD malfunctioned, the driver should have manually taken control.
Tesla maintains that it’s advanced self-driving technology requires ‘active driver supervision’ and that its vehicles ‘are not autonomous’ but critics say the company is overstating the capability of its features.
‘Elon Musk’s attitude towards road safety is reckless and extremely dangerous,’ said Dan O’Dowd, Founder of The Dawn Project, a tech safety group. ‘The Dawn Project’s tests have shown that Tesla Full Self-Driving will run down a child in a school crosswalk, swerve into the path of oncoming vehicles, speed in school zones with children present and run over a stroller,’
‘Yet Elon Musk decided to make Tesla’s Full Self-Driving available to “anyone in North America”, despite knowing about hundreds of critical safety defects,’
Musk’s car company is already on thin ice with the US safety regulator investigating its Autopilot system following a series of crashes.
Just this year, a Tesla crashed into a building causing nearly £286,692 in damages while another self-driving Tesla crashed into a £1.5 million private jet while being ‘summoned’.
Recent research showed that 58% of UK residents were uncomfortable using self-driving cars while 55% of them did not feel safe sharing the road with them.
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