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Federal investigators announced Tuesday that the design of Tesla's semiautonomous driving system allowed the driver of a Tesla Model S in a fatal 2016 crash with a semi-truck to rely too heavily on the car's automation.
"Tesla allowed the driver to use the system outside of the environment for which it was designed," said National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt. "The system gave far too much leeway to the driver to divert his attention."
The board's report declares the primary probable cause of the collision as the truck driver's failure to yield, as well as the Tesla driver's overreliance on his car's automation — or Autopilot, as Tesla calls the system. Tesla's system design was declared a contributing factor.
[...] A Tesla spokesperson provided a statement to ABC News that read, "We appreciate the NTSB's analysis of last year's tragic accident, and we will evaluate their recommendations as we continue to evolve our technology. We will also continue to be extremely clear with current and potential customers that Autopilot is not a fully self-driving technology and drivers need to remain attentive at all times."
According to The Associated Press, members of Brown's family said on Monday that they do not blame the car or the Autopilot system for his death.
A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report on the crash can be found here. The NTSB has yet not published its full report; a synopsis of it can be found here.
(Score: 3, Informative) by theluggage on Thursday September 14 2017, @10:37AM
Blame and responsibility doesn't obey a conservation law: The car driver can be responsible and the truck driver can be responsible and Tesla can be responsible. Lawyers and insurance companies like there to be one victim and one villain - for their own profit and convenience - but when it comes to learning lessons for the future you really need to look at the big picture.
I don't think anyone here is saying that the driver wasn't stupid to ignore the warnings - but would it have made any difference if his hands were on the wheel unless his mind was on the job?
There's an inconvenient truth about self-driving: it won't be ready until it is ready. Any system in which the car drives itself, but expects Joe Public to stay alert and intervene when the computer screws up is an accident waiting to happen. Telsa's problem is that they want to crowdsource the alpha testing of their system rather than relying on expensive test drivers.