{"id":193030,"date":"2020-02-12T11:42:09","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T10:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=193030"},"modified":"2020-02-12T11:42:30","modified_gmt":"2020-02-12T10:42:30","slug":"tesla-driver-complained-about-autopilot-defect-before-fatal-car-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=193030","title":{"rendered":"Tesla driver ‘complained about autopilot defect’ before fatal car crash"},"content":{"rendered":"
An Apple engineer who died when his self-driving Tesla hit a concrete barrier had previously complained about the car malfunctioning on the same stretch of road.<\/p>\n

Walter Huang had been driving a 2017 Tesla Model X near Mountain View in California at the time of the collision in March 2018.<\/p>\n

But documents released by the National Transportation Safety Board say the 38-year-old had told his wife that the vehicle’s autopilot feature had veered it towards the barrier where he later crashed.<\/p>\n

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\"Elon<\/p>\n<\/div>

Elon Musk is chief executive officer of Tesla<\/span><\/figcaption>The family’s lawyer wrote: “Walter said the car would veer toward the barrier in the mornings when he went to work.”<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Mr Huang had also described the malfunctioning to his brother and a friend who owned the same model, the lawyer added.<\/p>\n

He had discussed with the friend how a patch to the autopilot software adversely affected its performance.<\/p>\n

The NTSB is investigating the collision, as well as another similar case in Delray Beach, Florida, which killed driver Jeremy Banner about a year later.<\/p>\n

Tesla says autopilot is only partially automated, keeping a car in its lane and a safe distance from vehicles in front. It is only intended for driver assistance and a driver must be ready to intervene at all times, the manufacturer added.<\/p>\n

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Walter Huang was driving a 2017 Tesla Model X when he crashed. File pic<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Records from an iPhone found at the scene showed Mr Huang may have used it less than a minute before the crash but, while data had been used while the vehicle was moving, the source of the transmissions was unclear.<\/p>\n

Mr Huang’s family is suing Tesla and California’s Department of Transportation for allegedly failing to maintain the road.<\/p>\n

The NTSB said transport officials failed to fix the barrier after it was damaged in another crash, 11 days before the one that killed Mr Huang.<\/p>\n

A hearing will be held on 25 February when the NTSB will determine the cause of Mr Huang’s crash and make safety recommendations.<\/p>\n

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\nNovember: Tesla armoured glass demo goes wrong<\/span>
<\/figcaption>In the Florida crash, Mr Banner had turned on the autopilot of his Tesla Model 3 and taken his hands off the steering wheel 10 seconds before his crash, NTSB documents revealed.<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The vehicle then drove under a tractor-trailer that was crossing in front of it, slicing the car’s roof off and killing Mr Banner.<\/p>\n

The tractor-trailer’s driver Richard Wood had said he saw the car’s headlights as he pulled onto the highway but thought he had time to make it across.<\/p>\n

Data from the Tesla’s computer showed Mr Banner hit the brakes less than a second before the crash.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Apple engineer who died when his self-driving Tesla hit a concrete barrier had previously complained about the car malfunctioning on the same stretch of road. Walter Huang had been driving a 2017 Tesla Model X near Mountain View in California at the time of the collision in March 2018. But documents released by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":193031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[9661],"class_list":["post-193030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-more","tag-tesla"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=193030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/193031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=193030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=193030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=193030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}