A tragic loss, that’s how Tesla announced on its blog that US regulators have opened an investigation
into the performance of autopilot in Tesla cars after a Tesla model
that was operating under its own control was involved in a fatal crash for the first time.
Joshua Brown died on May 7th after he engaged the Tesla autopilot mode
and a tractor trailer drove across the highway, colliding with his car.
Tesla have stated that: 'Neither autopilot
nor the driver noticed the white side of the
tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky,
so the brake was not applied.'
The American company went on to say that 'This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles
where autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles.'
According to a report from BI Intelligence, 10 million self-driving cars will be on the road by 2020.
Tom Chitty, CNBC, London
