For the second time, Tesla has admitted that one of their cars got involved in a car accident due to a malfunction with their autopilot feature. The driver did survive the accident but the incident is now undergoing further investigation.
The recent accident happened in Montana when the car crashed into a post on the edge of a street. According to a spokeswoman of the Tesla Company, the vehicle was driven along an undivided road. Tesla has initially warned its customers that the autopilot function was not advisable to be used on those kinds of roads; instead, the feature is more appropriate to be used while driving on a highway.
BBC reported that the driver ignored the alerts sent by the car by saying that he should return to handling the steering wheel. However, the motorist said that the instructions were in English, which he could not understand since he spoke Mandarin.
The National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) is now investigating all the Tesla vehicles built with an autopilot function in order to reduce, or better yet, end any future accidents involving the feature. During the first accident that occurred in May, the driver involved in the incident died, because the function reportedly could not differentiate a bright sky from a white truck, as reported by The Guardian.
The company is also under investigation for releasing $2 billion worth of stock after the crash. The SEC is now looking into whether the incident had information that Tesla should have disclosed ahead of time. On both accidents, Tesla's defense was that the drivers' hands were not on the steering wheel when the accident happened, which should not be the case as per the company's instructions. Tesla maintains that the autopilot feature is intended to be used while still holding the steering wheel of the car.
