Tesla’s no-good rotten couple of weeks see more fingers pointed at Autopilot

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It has been a rough couple of weeks for Tesla. Until now, the electric vehicle maker has been a media doyenne, wowing us with EVs that are credible alternatives to the traditional combustion-powered car or SUV—even attractive finally to some drivers for whom not being able to go on a cross-country road trip at a moment’s notice is a deal-breaker.

It all started at the end of June, when Tesla revealed in a blog post that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had begun an investigation into the company’s Autopilot system following a fatal crash in Florida in May. Since then, the Detroit Free Press has reported on another pair of Tesla crashes—a Model X SUV that rolled over on the Pennsylvania Turnpike on July 1, followed by another Model X crash that took place on July 10—calling into doubt the safety of Autopilot. Unlike the May crash, neither of the subsequent incidents involved fatalities.

Tesla has said that it does not have data to support Autopilot being a factor in the July 1 crash, telling the Detroit Free Press in a statement that “We received an automated alert from this vehicle on July 1 indicating air bag 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.”

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Source: Ars Technica – Tesla’s no-good rotten couple of weeks see more fingers pointed at Autopilot