An Apple engineer who died when his Tesla Model X slammed into a concrete barrier had previously complained about the SUV malfunctioning on the same stretch of Silicon Valley freeway.
His complaints were detailed in a trove of documents released Tuesday by federal investigators in two Tesla crashes involving Autopilot, one in the Bay Area and the other in Florida.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the March 2018 crash that killed Walter Huang, 38, near Mountain View. It's also probing a crash in Delray Beach, Florida, that happened about a year later and killed driver Jeremy Banner.
The documents say Huang told his wife that Autopilot had previously veered his SUV toward the same barrier on U.S. 101 near Mountain View where he later crashed. Huang died at a hospital from his injuries.
"Walter said the car would veer toward the barrier in the mornings when he went to work," the Huang family's attorney wrote in a response to NTSB questions.
Records from an iPhone recovered from the crash site showed that Huang may have been using it before the accident. Records obtained from AT&T showed that data had been used while the vehicle was in motion, but the source of the transmissions couldn't be determined, the NTSB wrote. One transmission was less than one minute before the crash.
Huang had described Autopilot's previous malfunctioning to his brother, the Huang family attorney wrote, in addition to talking with a friend who owns a Model X. Huang, a software engineer, discussed with the friend how a patch to the Autopilot software affected its performance and made the Model X veer, according to the attorney.
drumsand on February 12nd, 2020 at 11:30 UTC »
Was he flying?! Half a car is missing
Wedidit4thedead on February 12nd, 2020 at 11:25 UTC »
It would have taken me veering to the concrete wall once on autopilot to NEVER use it again. That has to be scary af.
chicaneuk on February 12nd, 2020 at 10:33 UTC »
I'm not sure if there have since been improvements in autopilot but the video clips from a year or more ago where the car would have this unnerving habit of veering into those central dividers were pretty scary. Plenty of such videos out there.. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z8v9he74po
That said, the guy had complained about it happening before. So why would you be using the function in an area where you know it happens :| It's terrible he lost his life from it but you'd think if it was a dangerous location, you'd just remember to turn it off for that section of road. And not be using your phone too...