Confirmed by police

Tesla killed motorcyclist in autopilot mode

Symbolic image of a Tesla Model S

(Bild: Stephan Schätzl)

A motorcyclist was killed in a collision with a Tesla Model S in the USA. Police have now confirmed that Autopilot was active during the accident. The driver had relied on the software and was looking at his cell phone during the accident.

The tragic incident occurred back in April, near Seattle in the US state of Washington. The 56-year-old driver admitted to the cell phone distraction and autopilot use immediately after the crash and was subsequently arrested on suspicion of vehicular homicide. The 28-year-old motorcyclist was killed instantly.

Now, after reading the vehicle's memory, the police have confirmed that Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode was activated. Tesla points out that FSD does not authorize a car to drive autonomously, but faces criticism that Teslas rely solely on cameras instead of sensors like the competition.

"There are so many things that can go wrong with Tesla's camera-only system," said Guidehouse Insights analyst Sam Abuelsamid. For example, it can inaccurately measure how far away an object is.

"It's extremely difficult to collect and process data from all sorts of things like motorcycles and bicycles under all sorts of weather, light, road and traffic conditions," Reuters quotes Raj Rajkumar, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

Tesla recently put the development of an affordable car model on the back burner in order to achieve true self-driving by next year. He would be "shocked" if he did not succeed. However, Tesla has long been criticized for its assistance system and had to issue a recall at the end of 2023.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched an investigation in August 2021 after Autopilot Teslas hit stationary emergency vehicles in more than ten cases