[UPDATED] 2 die in Tesla crash - NHTSA reports driver seat occupied

[EVNow]

No road markings or centre line as it's residential.

set AP to 60 and see how long it takes to go 400ft. Or does AP not work that way from a stop?

You can't engage AP in a street without center markings. AP can only be 5 miles above Speed Limit.

I see some possibilities
- The owner knew how to rig the system to drive in AP without sitting in the seat. He helped the two non-owners. That would call for homicide charges ...
- They set a high speed "cruise control", thought they were in AP (one clock down vs two) and assumed AP would take the turn - but it went straight ? Given that the people were non-owners and probably unfamiliar with the car, this is a possibility. I don't use Cruise Control - so not sure if this is possible.

Given the circumstances - a lot of details will change as the fog of the fire clears, I'm sure.

 

[yourhero]

Ghost ridin the whip

 

[yourhero]

Automaker faces serious questions as investigators discover its cars can be crashed into trees

 

[JohnnyEV]

At least you were more fortunate than these two: ‘No one was driving the car’: 2 men dead after fiery Tesla crash in Spring, officials say

There goes the neighborhood. The push for regulations are about to heat up, they may even temporarily ban FSD in Tesla's. Why on God's green earth would you trust the car to drive itself enough to get in the back seat. We all know the systems are great, but need manual intervention from time to time.

 

[ThomasD]

Or owner was in car. Car crashes. Starts to catch fire owner/driver is able to escape. Others not so lucky. Driver/owner lies to police

 

[cb32000]

Harris County Constable Precinct 4 deputies said the vehicle was traveling at a high speed when it failed to negotiate a cul-de-sac turn, ran off the road and hit the tree.

KPRC 2 reporter Deven Clarke spoke to one man’s brother-in-law who said he was taking the car out for a spin with his best friend, so there were just two in the vehicle.

The owner, he said, backed out of the driveway, and then may have hopped in the back seat only to crash a few hundred yards down the road. He said the owner was found in the back seat upright.

So the car went less than 500 yards along the road into a dead end cul de sac known by the driver (who seemingly may have hopped into the back seat at some point) so fast it caused a battery fire after hitting a tree?

Why would you put your car into autopilot and then drive it into a known dead end cul de sac? Isnt that like testing emergency braking by driving at a high speed into a brick wall to see if it works?

So the driver accelerated to a high speed, engaged or thought they engaged autopilot and then jumped in back seat? Not a teenager but a 59 or 69 year old adult?

 

[Nosken]

What if the person driving was in the driver's seat until the collision. After the collision, he goes into the back seat to try get out of the car. Could be not knowing where the unusual interior door release is, or jammed door, or the fire, forced him to try exit the car from the rear?
I have had 2 Model S cars, many times, first time passengers don't recognize where the interior door latch is.

 

[qdeathstar]

There has to be a better way to put out these fires.

4 hours of firefighters’ time and 30,000 gallons of water? What a complete and unnecessary waste of resources.

not sure why you got two dislikes but I agree with you.

I think these guys did not test the accelerator prior to find out it achieves 0-60 almost as fast as a tree achieves 60-0...

 

[qdeathstar]

- They set a high speed "cruise control", thought they were in AP (one clock down vs two) and assumed AP would take the turn - but it went straight ? Given that the people were non-owners and probably unfamiliar with the car, this is a possibility. I don't use Cruise Control - so not sure if this is possible.

that is possibly, I’ve made that mistake before and noticed my car drifting and looked down and noticed I wasn’t on autosteer. Usually happens after I disengage autosteer for some reason...

 

[qdeathstar]

I don’t see how the car could have autopilot activated here.

 

[qdeathstar]

Firey crash’s in a Tesla? Riding the lightning!

 

[Gwgan]

what's the purpose of the titanium plate in the Model S

It is to reduce damage to the battery pack when driving over road debris. The pack is set up to shunt fire away from the cabin to buy some time before the cabin is engulfed.

 

[alexgr]

Sad to hear. Question though-can autopilot be engaged when no one is in the driver’s seat? My guess would be “no” but not sure.

Not unless you intentionally trick the car to detect torque on the wheel and weight on the seat. If this crash was truly done with AP, then this is simply a suicide by playing Russian roulette.

 

[alexgr]

Harris County Constable Precinct 4 deputies said the vehicle was traveling at a high speed when it failed to negotiate a cul-de-sac turn, ran off the road and hit the tree.

KPRC 2 reporter Deven Clarke spoke to one man’s brother-in-law who said he was taking the car out for a spin with his best friend, so there were just two in the vehicle.

The owner, he said, backed out of the driveway, and then may have hopped in the back seat only to crash a few hundred yards down the road. He said the owner was found in the back seat upright.

So the car went less than 500 yards along the road into a dead end cul de sac known by the driver (who seemingly may have hopped into the back seat at some point) so fast it caused a battery fire after hitting a tree?

Why would you put your car into autopilot and then drive it into a known dead end cul de sac? Isnt that like testing emergency braking by driving at a high speed into a brick wall to see if it works?

So the driver accelerated to a high speed, engaged or thought they engaged autopilot and then jumped in back seat? Not a teenager but a 59 or 69 year old adult?

This is really interesting story. Either they all played dumb-and-dumber, or there was a foul play by someone who murdered the guys put them in the car and set it on course to collide with a tree. Something just makes no sense. And yes, you absolutely need to have clear road marking to engage the autopilot!

 

[qdeathstar]

Should be interesting what Tesla has to say. The pd seemed rushed to say no driver care on autopilot because it definitely was not on autopilot based on autopilot activation limitations

 

[alexgr]

What do we know?

The Vehicle was a 2019 Model S
One of the victims was 59 years old, and the other was 69 years old.
Neither victim owned the car or was that familiar with it
One victim was found in the passenger seat, and the other victim was found in the rear seat.
Was a high speed crash into a tree in a neighborhood not far from the owner of the car

Given what we know I think its highly unlikely it was on AP due to the requirements AP has for the seatbelt, and the seat weight sensor. Instead its more likely that it was a tragic misengagement of the throttle at the wrong time, and they simply couldn't get out of the vehicle for some reason.

Here is the article that I got some of the "what we know" information from.

PCT 4: Two killed when Tesla catches fire after crashing into tree

Constable Mark Herman said his accident investigators are confident no one was in the driver's seat when the car hit a tree.

www.khou.com

I think that since they maybe unfamiliar with Tesla AP, they may have tried to turn the AP on but instead engaged the standard cruise control, quickly set it to the maximum speed and let it go ... but then this should be a well-planned double suicide.

 

[BooMan]

Or owner was in car. Car crashes. Starts to catch fire owner/driver is able to escape. Others not so lucky. Driver/owner lies to police

Dude people died. Let’s let the experts (no experts on Internet forums) analyze this. It’s ok to speculate EXCEPT when people die.

 

[alexgr]

You can't engage AP in a street without center markings. AP can only be 5 miles above Speed Limit.

I see some possibilities
- The owner knew how to rig the system to drive in AP without sitting in the seat. He helped the two non-owners. That would call for homicide charges ...
- They set a high speed "cruise control", thought they were in AP (one clock down vs two) and assumed AP would take the turn - but it went straight ? Given that the people were non-owners and probably unfamiliar with the car, this is a possibility. I don't use Cruise Control - so not sure if this is possible.

Given the circumstances - a lot of details will change as the fog of the fire clears, I'm sure.

Yes, it is possible to kill someone this way, BUT you have to make them cooperate somehow because they need to 1) put the car in Drive and 2) Engage the Cruise and 3) Turn the speed of the cruse to the max. Something doesn't add up.

 

[alexgr]

Dude people died. Let’s let the experts (no experts on Internet forums) analyze this. It’s ok to speculate EXCEPT when people die.

I don't really know why is that. I wouldn't care if someone speculates about my death. However, if I am not dead, but only horribly injured then reading someone's speculations would cause me additional pain. So, I suggest we shouldn't speculate when people survived, but should when people died.

ABC, CNN, Fox, they all speculate ... A LOT ... when people die after all.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Dude people died. Let’s let the experts (no experts on Internet forums) analyze this. It’s ok to speculate EXCEPT when people die.

Whether people die or not is irrelevant in trying to come up with how something happened.

It's simply one possibility out of many, and what's really disturbing is how quickly the "experts" concluded that there was no driver at the time of the accident.

As owners of the car its an important for us to know what could have happened, and what likely didn't happen.

Like I'm a little concerned about why the two people couldn't get out of the car. It's happened before in a Tesla Model S. So do changes have to be made so it doesn't happen again? Or is it simply the result of typical damage from a high speed crash. This is what the experts will take a look into.