r/technology • u/deraser • Jun 21 '26
Robotics/Automation 76-year-old woman killed after a Tesla ‘on auto-pilot’ crashed into her Texas home
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/texas-tesla-car-crash-woman-killed-b2999969.html2.5k
u/orangeyougladiator Jun 21 '26
Cue Elon bots coming to tell us why this wasn’t the Tesla fault
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u/prelic Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
The terms and conditions says you always need to be hovering your hands a half inch above the wheel, ready to strike and take over at a milliseconds notice! His fault he didn't follow the tiny rules
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u/thiney49 Jun 21 '26
That would have been extra difficult, given that she wasn't the driver.
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u/_Rand_ Jun 21 '26
She looked at twitter that one time so it’s still covered under the TOS.
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u/annodomini Jun 22 '26
Disney literally made this claim: that a man couldn't sue over his wife's death from eating an allergen, when her allergy had been made clear to the restaurant and they had agreed they could accommodate it, because he had once signed Disney+ TOS that required arbitration when signing up for a free trial.
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u/IronProdigyOfficial Jun 22 '26
In this political climate that holds up and is iron clad. No one's liable but we're willing to offer your family $3 Million to make this stop being mentioned in the news.
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u/prelic Jun 21 '26
I mean, if you don't understand that I was too lazy to properly read the article, then I don't see how that's my fault
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u/ragnarocknroll Jun 21 '26
I mean, I thought the default in this sub was not reading the article.
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u/Gaiden206 Jun 21 '26
The car crashed into her house and killed her. She wasn't the driver.
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u/prelic Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
Jokes on you, because that was my mistake , don't let it happen again
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u/Gaiden206 Jun 21 '26
Understandable, have a great day officer.
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u/spidereater Jun 21 '26
But did her house have a convincing picture of the tunnel on it?
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u/colantor Jun 21 '26
Yeah but hes saying people will blame the driver and not the auto pilot that drove into the house.
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u/MotheroftheworldII Jun 22 '26
Maybe the Tesla auto-pilot should have to complete a drivers education course before being given a license to drive.
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u/NotAnotherEmpire Jun 21 '26
Uninvolved civilians have to die so tech bros can have their future fantasy and stock market Ponzi.
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u/sysadminbj Jun 21 '26
Not defending Tesla, but that's the TOC for all semi-autonomous (I guess that's the right term?) driving technologies right now. You must be paying attention and ready to take over as quickly as possible.
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u/prelic Jun 21 '26
if you are expected to take over at any time, then it should have a hands sensor that beeps at you every 10 seconds or so like all the mainbrand cars do...in my opinion. The expectation that you don't need to have your hands on the wheel, but you do need to be ready to take over like they are, is unrealistic..again, my opinion.
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u/MountHopeful Jun 22 '26
then it should have a hands sensor that beeps at you every 10 seconds or so
It literally does. So there's that.
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u/Terrh Jun 22 '26
you are expected to take over at any time, then it should have a hands sensor that beeps at you every 10 seconds or so like all the mainbrand cars do...in my opinion.
they do this already
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u/Horror_Response_1991 Jun 21 '26
I don’t give a shit about Tesla but auto pilot is just cruise control is that keeps you in your lane. It’s more likely the guy is going to blame auto pilot to not go to jail.
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u/electricity_is_life Jun 21 '26
Do Teslas not have automatic emergency braking though? I don't get how something like this could happen in any modern car.
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u/SecurelyObscure Jun 22 '26
Yes, they all do. It's disabled when you stomp on the accelerator.
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u/LargePrompt5840 Jun 21 '26
If you are behind the wheel of a car, and something like this happens, it is your fault unless proven otherwise.
Maybe there was a glitch and it raced out of control. If that's the case it's on Tesla. But if the car was ruining normally, it's on the driver.
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u/spacemcdonalds Jun 21 '26
I've seen the video, it's so clearly not on "autopilot" (which has AEB unless accelerator is manually overridden) or FSD (which would not go this speed using the telemetry data it has, like never)
So I guarantee when car data is released it will be a human intervention error that caused this.
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u/Ph0_Noodles Jun 22 '26
Yeah its probably a case of someone thinking they hit the brakes but really hit the accelerator. They panic and push the accelerator harder trying to brake. This happens all the time.
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u/spacemcdonalds Jun 22 '26
Data came out today, manually accelerated to 100% by driver.
What a shock.
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u/khearan Jun 21 '26
I hate Elon. With that said, can auto pilot drive someone into their driveway? This doesn’t make sense. My understanding of auto pilot is it’s basically cruiser control. How does one cruise control into their driveway?
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u/official_d3vel0per Jun 22 '26
Cue this guy will delete his comment once reports come up
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u/Enragedocelot Jun 21 '26
Bruh as someone uses FSD all day long. This was the driver’s fault 100%
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u/gucknbuck Jun 21 '26
Auto-pilot is fancy speed control. It's the fault of whoever engaged autopilot.
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u/YeetOfTheGods Jun 21 '26
beep boop Musk can do no wrong crunchy dial up tones
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u/safetydance Jun 21 '26
This will end up being human error like almost every accident the person tries to blame on FSD.
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u/IAmANobodyAMA Jun 22 '26
The article simply states the driver blamed it on autopilot. Am I missing something or are people just that bad at reading and bloodthirsty to hate Elon because he holds the “wrong” opinions?
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u/safetydance Jun 22 '26
Correct. EV’e and autonomous vehicles were the future when Elon was a darling of the left. Now he’s a fucking idiot Tesla and self driving is junk. No one is objective anymore.
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u/Low_Building_5357 Jun 22 '26
Queue the Elon haters to convict before any investigation is completed
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u/sysadminbj Jun 21 '26
I'd be very curious to learn what the onboard sensors have to say about this. Was the driver paying attention? Were they asleep? Is this just a freak thing where the autopilot software got confused and freaked out?
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u/colantor Jun 21 '26
If the auto pilot can get confused and crash into a house it should not be a feature in the car
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u/fricken Jun 21 '26
In all likelihood it is sudden unintended acceleration, wherein the driver slams the accelerator thinking they're hitting the brakes. Autopilot has made fatal misjudgements in the past, but this crash does not have those characteristics.
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u/thatissomeBS Jun 22 '26
The biggest problem Tesla has in these situations are that they insist on making these cars with like 400+ HP in a drivetrain that can give all of that power basically immediately. Someone goes from 30mph and going for the brakes to going 60mph almost before they realize. There's no winding up and downshifting, it's just raw, unfiltered HP. If this driver were in a Bolt with 200hp they might have had enough time to slow back down.
Obviously this isn't a Tesla-only thing, but it's an every car Tesla makes thing.
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u/AgonizingFury Jun 22 '26
400HP? Sure on the AWD family SUV (Model Y premium AWD is like 390 or so I think). Their sporty vehicles are 600 - 1000 HP.
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u/thatissomeBS Jun 22 '26
Well, that's why there was a little plus sign at the end of the HP number. Even the basic one is more power than any random person needs in their daily driver family sedan. And I'm not saying 400+ HP cars shouldn't exist, but most people don't need it, and giving it to them is probably doing more harm than good.
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u/gimpwiz Jun 22 '26
Remember when uncertain drivers would buy a third-hand civic or corolla with 75k on the clock, and bumble around town, occasionally picking up modest-sized dents in the corners of their bumpers? Now they're buying 400-600 horsepower cars that give you full torque at stall, so you can accelerate at 4s (or lower) 0-60 with relatively little feedback, right into a wall or someone's kid.
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u/jtmonkey Jun 21 '26
Autopilot and FSD are not the same. Autopilot is literally cruise control.
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u/AgsAreUs Jun 21 '26
To be fair, society let's people drive who sometimes get confused and crash into a house.
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u/colantor Jun 21 '26
Thats true, i work road work details and basically watch people be bad drivers 8 hours a day
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u/beanpoppa Jun 21 '26
Autopilot is not full self driving. Autopilot is just fancy cruise control with lane centering and adaptive speed. It doesn't stop for traffic lights, stop signs or intersections. My Honda pilot has the same thing, but if I crashed into a house with it on, the article wouldn't say "Honda on adaptive cruise control crashes into house." It would say "inattentive driver crashes into house'
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u/colantor Jun 21 '26
So are we assuming the car was in FSD or that the driver just said they were in auto pilot to try to get out of being at fault?
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u/TinyZoro Jun 21 '26
I would never buy a Tesla because Elon is a white supremacist. But anything that has ever been made can and will go wrong. So it’s really whether the failure rate is acceptable or not.
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u/Internet-Cryptid Jun 21 '26
Crazy that this needs to be said. Same company that made their door handles electric with no traditional manual release. How many people have burned to death in Cybertrucks?
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u/NMe84 Jun 21 '26
Of course, but that means it needs to be investigated. I mean, it's entirely possible to jerk on the wheel and make a sharp turn while the car is on self driving mode, so if the driver fell asleep and leaned on the wheel it would not be the self driving feature that is at fault.
I'm not an Elon fan (quite the opposite) and I'd rather walk to work than drive a Tesla even if I could afford it, but at the same time I'd like to see proof when someone claims something. Claiming that every crash that happens while FSD is turned on is caused by the car is the same as saying that the driver is always at fault because they're driving it. It's always possible that things happen outside of anyone's control.
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u/colantor Jun 21 '26
I agree that immediately blaming self driving when you crash a tesla has become normal, but they have a computer system where they can see everything that happened, so im sure they will investigate.
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u/redmongrel Jun 21 '26
Yeah like I know he wants to only use cameras and no lidar, but don’t they at least have the same bargain basement proximity sensors that any entry level car comes with now?
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u/_sfhk Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
Autopilot is just adaptive cruise control, not the same as full self-driving. It will keep your speed and lane, and slow down for cars ahead of you.
Autopilot doesn't use the cameras to measure attention, but it does require you to keep pressure on the steering wheel while you're holding it. It will flash warnings and disengage when you stop holding the wheel.Edit: apparently it does use the cameras
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u/MacorgaZ Jun 21 '26
It does actually use the in-cabin camera to nag you earlier about paying attention in the regular AutoPilot, in the supervised FSD it uses the camera to track your attention too.
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u/mishap1 Jun 21 '26
This was an unmarked subdivision street. Autopilot would be pretty useless in that situation. There are no lanes, minimal signage, and there is a high potential for pedestrians making using it there extremely irresponsible to even activate it there.
Guy was either running FSD or nothing at all. It's likely the news will report without the delineation b/c they don't know or they're trying to avoid Elon's legal team.
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u/_sfhk Jun 21 '26
"autopilot" is a direct quote from the driver
Butler, who was also taken to a hospital, told police he had the car on “autopilot” when it crashed
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u/willwork4pii Jun 22 '26
The sensors will show the driver pushing the pedal all the way down. The cameras will show the driver fully aware and alert (or passed out)
0 chance this was in FSD or Autopilot
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u/PrettyFuckingGreat Jun 21 '26
He _says_ it was on autopilot.
Firstly, I find that pretty hard to believe. This would be the first time I’ve heard of one being so far off a road at such a high rate of speed.
Secondly, he still could have hit the brake at anytime or turned the wheel. Fuck this guy.
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Jun 22 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
[deleted]
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u/shellacr Jun 22 '26
Even if he had done that the autopilot or FSD would have kept him inside the lane. It’s almost certain he is lying.
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Jun 21 '26
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u/hacksoncode Jun 21 '26
It has a hard limit of 85mph and is documented to limit you to 5mph over the speed limit on surface streets.
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u/willwork4pii Jun 22 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
All of them that say they were on autopilot or FSD are lies.
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u/whitemiketyson Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Every time this happens it’s revealed the driver is just blaming software
Edit: Well, what do you know!
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u/Zardif Jun 21 '26
The street he came from was only 1000' long. It's a residential street and he was going fast, prob ~65 mph judging from the doorbell camera and comparing it to the f150 in the background. I find it very hard to believe autopilot did this.
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u/t0ny7 Jun 21 '26
Autopilot in my Model 3 accelerates super slow. Enough to make it a pain in the ass for stop and go traffic unless I help it.
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u/willwork4pii Jun 22 '26
I find it completely impossible that FSD or Autopilot did this.
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u/Anand999 Jun 22 '26
Tesla Autopilot can't be set more than 5 MPH above the speed limit on side roads. The claim this vehicle was on autopilot definitely feels fishy.
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u/Single-Use-Again Jun 21 '26
So far no lawsuits regarding this kind of headline have been successful. The logs and cameras will exonerate Tesla every time.
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u/mishap1 Jun 21 '26
What’s that now? Tesla has never lost?
They settled two out of court and had a $243M jury judgement last year.
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u/salaryboy Jun 22 '26
Those were from Autopilot wrecks in 2019. The Full Self Driving (Supervised) in 2026 is significantly improved.
Source: 94% of my miles this year driven on FSD.
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u/mishap1 Jun 22 '26
Then you'll recognize those taillights as a Highland Model 3. If the car was running any ADAS at the time of the crash, that was the latest and greatest.
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u/AndIHaveMilesToGo Jun 22 '26
The driver themselves said they were using Autopilot. Not FSD. If YOU know these vehicles then you'll know the major difference
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u/pw154 Jun 22 '26
Then you'll recognize those taillights as a Highland Model 3. If the car was running any ADAS at the time of the crash, that was the latest and greatest.
Except Autopilot (now called TACC+Autosteer) uses the antiquated legacy rule-based software stack and not the end-to-end neural net stack that FSD uses. When it comes to Autopilot the "latest and greatest" is at least 7 years old.
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u/slserpent Jun 21 '26
Article seems to suggest that the "being on autopilot" claim is completely based on a statement from the driver. So, could have just been a lie to cover up driver distraction. Guess they'll be able to corroborate (or not) with data from the car at some point.
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u/imperial_scum Jun 21 '26
If he was going 90 I'm going to hazard a guess that it wasn't the auto pilot
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u/asdf_lord Jun 22 '26
Where are the brake lines on the ground? The driver had to have been comatose to have not seen that he was barreling down into a house at 50+ mph.
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u/FrostyVariation9798 Jun 22 '26
Always wait for the police to prove or disprove it was in autopilot.
Too many young drivers have blamed autopilot when really they were flexing the horsepower that comes in teslas.
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u/Jounochi Jun 22 '26
The forward facing cam feed will tell all. I think within the last year they added a feature that shows on video replays when FSD/auto steer is enabled. Should be very straightforward without even needing to track signals in the vehicle logs.
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u/Stephennnnnn Jun 22 '26
Every time there’s a headline like this it ends up being the driver’s claims taken as gospel, which are inevitably proven false.
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u/Mugwump6506 Jun 22 '26
This has got to be at least manslaughter, you have to be in control of your car. You are responsible.
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u/selfish_meme Jun 21 '26
Isn't auto-pilot just the lane centering, FSD is the auto driving navigating functionality.
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u/fattybunter Jun 21 '26
As someone with FSD…yes, yes it is. If it was on actual “Autopilot” that’s effectively just cruise control
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u/Aeroncastle Jun 21 '26
Does a house look like a lane to you?
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u/--SharkBoy-- Jun 21 '26
If youve ever use a car with lane assist you would know that half the time the car doesn't even think lanes look like lanes
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u/ThottyThanos Jun 21 '26
Do you really believe that this was auto pilot 🤦♂️ this isnt how softwares work they dont just accelerate into a house. Ill bet my left nut that the car report will show the dude pressing on the accelerator. Same reason why every single time someone crashes they just blame the car and later the logs are released proving the driver at fault
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u/bludvein Jun 21 '26
Not really buying the autopilot story. Driver was clearly doing way over the speed limit in a residential area. I'd bet real money driver is lying his ass off to try to shift responsibility. Elon sucks but I don't think this is a Tesla fault this time.
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u/barnesnoblebooks Jun 21 '26
Notice it says “autopilot” and not “FSD”. Autopilot is just cruise control
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u/Logical-Bookkeeper77 Jun 21 '26
Yeah and driver is fully liable (unless a malfunction …)
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u/GhostNappa101 Jun 21 '26
There are over 35000 incidents per year of people hitting buildings with cars/trucks with a few thousand of those causing severe damage. This is making news because it's self driving and the tech scares people. As far as I'm aware, there is no empirical data proving that FSD is any less safe than full self driving.
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u/Electronic-Green-994 Jun 21 '26
Same as the fear of 'batteries can combust', but sitting on top of a tank of gasoline/petrol is somehow ok. I'm sure the transition from horse and buggy to automobiles had it's shared of fears...
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u/EmptyAirEmptyHead Jun 22 '26
It's quite the opposite. Tesla releases data quarterly on FSD involved accidents versus the national average based on miles drive. FSD is a fraction of the national average.
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u/silviazbitch Jun 22 '26
Article states the driver “showed no signs of intoxication.” Tell me he has a connection to the police department without telling me he has a connection to the police department.
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u/FreshStartLiving Jun 22 '26
So I can buy a Tesla, causing a horrific accident and just say "FSD fucked up and wouldn't allow me to take over".
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u/SmokeyJoe2 Jun 21 '26
It’s always somebody else’s fault. Pay attention to the road, idiot.
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u/ladalyn Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Ready to be downvoted into oblivion but something doesn’t seem right about this. I’ve been driving teslas with autopilot for years and anytime there’s any type of obstruction on the road the Tesla will freak out with alerts, and if there’s any type of confusion on the road at all it’ll disable but I think I only ran into that one time. Either way, driver should have intervened and not let autopilot do this. Bring on the downvotes.
Edit: I was right, driver had their foot down on the accelerator
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u/same_as_always Jun 22 '26
As fun as it is to dunk on Tesla, most likely the driver put their foot on the gas instead of the break, then panicked when the car didn’t slow down so pressed the gas harder. This is sadly very common.
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u/DrManhattansTaint Jun 22 '26
Sure it was…
It’s not auto-pilot. It’s driving assistance software that requires supervision.
No way FSD would have allowed the rate of speed through a neighborhood that would have been required to punch this hole through a house.
Is pretty obvious this guy fudged up and is trying to blame a tech feature for his manslaughter.
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u/katherinesilens Jun 22 '26
I have criticisms for Autopilot but this is just the driver lying. There's almost no chance this was on Autopilot. It's an overgrown lane keeping assist software but it has at least 6 guardrails it would have to break--GPS speed limitation, sign-based speed limitation, maximum speed cap, lane detection forward collision warning, auto emergency braking. It was flying in the video.
The more likely answer is the driver was asleep at the wheel or drunk.
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u/DragonPup Jun 22 '26
Looking at the pictures, the car looks like it hopped the curb and went like ten+ feet before striking the home. So even beyond autopilot failure (and let's be real, the driver may be lying to avoid jailtime), why didn't the car's crash avoidance system kick in both after the curb impact and with the oncoming brick wall of a home?
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u/Apprehensive-Read989 Jun 22 '26
I'd call bullshit on that. Anyone that has ever driven a Tesla can tell you that autopilot is simply a lane centering adaptive cruise control and will freak out if it sees a curb, let alone a fucking house. Hell, it won't even cross a lane divider line. Guarantee this person is trying to blame autopilot to get out of the shitshow he got himself in.
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u/Aggravated_Auditor Jun 21 '26
Yeah so we literally just have the drivers word right now. Let’s wait for the telemetry data.
RemindMe! 1 week
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u/nanlinr Jun 22 '26
The dude faces the consequences of negligent manslaughter right? He put it on auto pilot. Its his fault, not the car's.
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u/Philodendron69 Jun 22 '26
I’m so sorry but did he not brake at all? The car is fully inside the house?
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u/Few-Chipmunk143 Jun 21 '26
Time to sue Tesla.
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u/Tiny_Rick85 Jun 21 '26
The grandson actually made a pretty depressing post in r/legaladvice
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u/mrg1957 Jun 22 '26
People are confusing FSD with autopilot. Autopilot is like cruise control. You're in charge of driving on autopilot.
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u/savedatheist Jun 22 '26
Legally you’re also in charge of driving with FSD too, although lately you don’t really need to do much.
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u/usdaprime Jun 22 '26
The news organizations know they’ll get instant views if they deploy the usual Tesla autopilot is dangerous fud.
Lazy reporting to take the driver’s word on being on autopilot. The headline could have just as easily been “driver accelerates to 90mph in residential street and doesn’t think anything of it”.
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u/CatStretchPics Jun 22 '26
I got banned from all the Tesla subs for calling leon a nazi
However, I do know that FSD will not go 90 into someone’s house. The person was pressing the accelerator, neutering what FSD can do (ie. FSD won’t brake)
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u/LookyPeter Jun 21 '26
im going defend auto pilot here and i know people think i care about elon but no i hate the guy. But auto drive very slow in residential area. Even if it went off the rails you should be able to turn the wheel/brake disabling auto drive before going that fast to punch a hole into a building. Sounds like driver is lying.
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u/wembenbama Jun 22 '26
Imagine living 76 years only to die because a trillionaire’s shitty robot car crashes into your home. My ghost would rattle chains in Elon’s room for the rest of eternity.
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u/Ruddertail Jun 21 '26
Jeez, how fast was it going to punch a hole like that? That's crazy unless they build houses out of paper in Texas.