Electric carmaker Tesla says on Friday, a Tesla model x was involved in a fatal crash in California, which was in Autopilot mode, raising further questions about the safety of self-driving technology.
Tesla further revealed that the vehicle's logs from the accident showed no action had been taken by the driver soon before the crash and that he had received earlier warnings to put his hands on the wheel.
According to Tesla “The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken.”
The statement did not say why the Autopilot system apparently did not detect the concrete divider.
The fatal crash and vehicle fire of the Tesla near Mountain View, California, involved two other cars and delayed traffic for hours. The 38-year-old Tesla driver died at a nearby hospital shortly after the crash.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which launched an investigation into the crash earlier this week, did not immediately comment late Friday. The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating the fatal crash.
Autopilot allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel for extended periods under certain conditions. Tesla requires users to agree to keep their hands on the wheel “at all times” before they can use autopilot, but users routinely tout the fact they can use the system to drive hands-free.
The NTSB faulted Tesla in a prior fatal autopilot crash.
In January, NHTSA and NTSB launched investigations into a Tesla vehicle, apparently traveling in semi-autonomous mode, that struck a fire truck in California. Neither agency nor Tesla has offered any update.
The government probes raise the risk for Tesla and automakers at a time when the industry is seeking federal legislation that would ease deployment of self driving cars.
Tesla said late Friday that “Autopilot does not prevent all accidents such a standard would be impossible but it makes them much less likely to occur. It unequivocally makes the world safer for the vehicle occupants, pedestrians and cyclists.”
Tesla said that in the United States “there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers. For Tesla, there is one fatality, including known pedestrian fatalities, every 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware.”
Tesla in September 2016 unveiled improvements to Autopilot, adding new limits on hands-off driving.
On Thursday, Tesla said it was recalling 123,000 Model S sedans built before April 2016 in order to replace bolts in the power steering component that can begin to corrode after contact in cold temperatures with road salt. No accidents or injuries were reported.
One of the company's Model X cars crashed into a roadside barrier and caught fire on 23 March.
Tesla says the 38-year-old driver, who died shortly afterwards, had activated Autopilot seconds before the accident.
But they did not say whether the system had detected the concrete barrier.
"The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive," a statement on the company's website said.
"The driver's hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision."
"The driver had about five seconds and 150m (490ft) of unobstructed view of the concrete divider... but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken," the statement added."
Tesla's Autopilot system does many of the things a fully autonomous machine can do. It can brake, accelerate and steer by itself under certain conditions.
The accident in California comes at a difficult time for self-driving technology.
Earlier this month, Uber was forbidden from resuming self-driving tests in the US state of Arizona.
It followed a fatal crash in the state in which an autonomous vehicle hit a woman who was walking her bike across the road.
It was thought to be the first time an autonomous car had been involved in a fatal collision with a pedestrian.
The company suspended all self-driving tests in North America after the accident.
