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NHTSA to Investigate New Model X Crash too on Suspicion of Autopilot Involvement

They say that one misfortune brings on another, and that certainly seems to be the case for Tesla. After 130 million miles of pretty uneventful Autopilot use (there were the occasional crashes, but nothing serious), the Californian company is now facing two NHTSA investigations following accidents where its semi-autonomous function is suspected to have been active.
Tesla Model X rollover 1 photo
Photo: Tesla Motors (modified)
The more recent of the two involves a Model X electric SUV that was traveling on the Pennsylvania Turnpike last Friday when it hit a guardrail, ricocheted into the concrete median and then rolled over.

Luckily, the driver and one passenger came out of the crash alive and well, but the man at the wheel apparently told the police that he had Autopilot switched on.

This couldn't have come at a worse time for Tesla, as it is still struggling with the aftermath of the Model S crash in May that had only recently been made public. There, a Model S user cruising on a highway in Florida (allegedly at speed) with the Autopilot activated smashed into the side of a semi as the sensors failed to notice the heavy vehicle. The driver, Joshua Brown, was fatally injured in the incident, thus becoming the first victim of a self-proclaimed semi-autonomous driving system. The NHTSA investigation is still in progress.

Regarding the more recent Model X crash, Tesla initially said that it had "no data to suggest that Autopilot was engaged." Later on, though, it released a more complex statement basically saying that Tesla has no data whatsoever on the matter, so it's impossible to tell at this moment whether Autopilot had anything to do with it or not:

We received an automated alert from this vehicle on July 1 indicating airbag deployment, but logs containing detailed information on the state of the vehicle controls at the time of the collision were never received. This is consistent with damage of the severity reported in the press, which can cause the antenna to fail. As we do with all crash events, we immediately reached out to the customer to confirm they were ok and offer support but were unable to reach him. We have since attempted to contact the customer three times by phone without success. Based on the information we have now, we have no reason to believe that Autopilot had anything to do with this accident.

Up to the May unfortunate incident, Tesla's record was pretty clean having proved that a few drivers tried to blame the system after they crashed due to human error. The ongoing NHTSA investigation into this matter will soon shed more light on what exactly happened.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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