Tesla is once again under scrutiny for its controversial Full Self-Driving mode. And, once again, Tesla is claiming it’s not at fault. Either way, a woman has lost her life after a Tesla using FSD crashed into her Texas home earlier this week.
According to reports, Michael Butler was driving in a Tesla Model 3 around 8 PM when he crashed through a brick home in Houston. Seventy-six-year-old Martha Avila was hit by the car, airlifted to a hospital, and pronounced dead.
Unlike most cases of a vehicle careening into a home, Butler was not intoxicated or combative. He told authorities that the vehicle was in Full Self-Driving mode.
“At this time, investigators have found no evidence of a mechanical malfunction,” the sheriff’s office told NBC News. “However, it is important to note that the investigation is not complete. Once all evidence has been gathered, the investigative file will be presented to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office to determine whether criminal charges are appropriate.”
The continued FSD controversy
Tesla is no stranger to incidents involving FSD going awry. In the past, Tesla has continuously denied that its vehicles or systems are at fault, even with more and more lawsuits popping up. Many of these lawsuits stem from Elon Musk’s decade-long claim that FSD is autonomous, which he recently admitted is nowhere near the truth. These false claims have been framed as dangerous and deceitful.
Musk caught wind of the elderly woman dying from a Tesla ramming her house while allegedly using FSD. He tweeted: “FSD drives slowly through neighborhood streets, and this was a high-speed crash!”
The social media responses were exactly what I thought: people blaming the driver and claiming FSD is flawless (“Tesla’s can drive, with no human interaction near flawlessly, so IMHO there’s really no excuse for that car going 100mph into a house in a residential area.”) and people telling “Elon fanboys” to stop thinking that FSD can do no wrong. But some people were left with another question: Will Tesla release any data or video from the car? Tesla has failed at presenting this data in the past.
“Tesla and Elon Musk like to claim that its Full Self-Driving technology is much safer than a human driver. All I’m asking from them is to prove it,” Sens. Edward Markey wrote in a comment to NBC News. “What are they hiding? That’s why I called on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to require Tesla and all autonomous vehicle companies to release comprehensive safety data on their self-driving vehicles.”
The head of Tesla’s Autopilot division has also spoken out against the claims that Tesla was using FSD. Vice President Ashok Elluswamy stated that the driver had “manually overridden” the autopilot while driving at 73 miles per hour.
In response to Musk’s outburst on X, he wrote: “In this case, the driver manually overrode the self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accelerator pedal in this residential area. They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.”
As the debate continues, a woman has lost her life. A beloved mother. Dead in her own home. “She didn’t deserve that,” a family member said.
The autopilot claims are still under investigation. Even the victim’s family has said to hold off on judgment since the reason behind the crash has not been revealed.
But many are already condemning Tesla based on its history of false claims and FSD errors. Full Self-Driving mode is currently the subject of around 50 NHTSA investigations. Sen. Richard Blumenthal told NBC News: “Tesla must be held accountable and [the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] should move much more quickly and effectively to investigate and hold it accountable.”
