In the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, a video shows a Tesla Model Y with autopilot involved in a deadly car accident in which the self-driving car seems to go on a rampage, hitting and killing pedestrians.
Check out the video below (warning: the video contains graphic content).
In the video, you can see the Tesla trying to park before it suddenly speeds up to a very high rate of speed, swerving between lanes and hitting other cars and people.
The car seems to speed up to almost highway speeds as it hits a bicyclist, barely misses hitting a lot of people on foot, and then crashes into the side of a truck. Two people died in the event. One of them was a young high school girl. The driver’s family says that the accident was caused by problems with the brakes.
People on social media have said that the car’s autopilot could have caused the accident, but these claims have not been proven. Some people say that the autopilot was trying to park itself when it went haywire and sped off in a dangerous way.
However, this claim has been looked into because the video shows the car swerving and speeding up quickly, which are not typical autopilot behaviors. This has led many to deny the accusations.
Also, both the autopilot and the speed could have been stopped by tapping the brake. Even so, this doesn’t stop people from talking about it on social media.
The vehicle logs, according to Tesla, show that the brake pedal was not pressed during the accident. Instead, the accelerator pedal was pressed for most of the video. The video never shows the brake lights coming on until almost 30 seconds after the rampage starts, which backs up this idea. So, one possible conclusion is that the driver of the Tesla made a mistake and put their foot on the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal.
Even so, there have been other major reports of Tesla brake failure, and last year, a customer who was unhappy about the same thing protested at Tesla’s booth at the Shanghai Motor Show. Tesla got a lot of bad press because of what happened.
This is also not the first time that people have wondered if the Tesla autopilot had anything to do with a fatal car accident.
A high-profile car accident in California in 2019 will soon go to trial. The driver of a Tesla Model S had the autopilot turned on when the car ran a red light, killing two people in the accident. Critics say that the autopilot in Teslas has led to fatal car accidents by accident and made drivers less careful.
This brings up the question of how much autopilot would be to blame for car accidents, which is a gray area of the law right now. Would it all be the fault of the driver, or would the machine be to blame?
Especially in a situation like the one above, where it seems like the autopilot was to blame for not noticing a red light.
In response to the accident in Guangdong, Tesla said they would help Chinese police investigate the crash that killed people. “Police are currently seeking a third-party appraisal agency to identify the truth behind this accident and we will actively provide any necessary assistance,” the company said.
Featured Image screenshot from embedded YouTube video.
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