As Tesla has pointed out before, the Autopilot feature of their Model S cars is not meant to be a self-driving feature. If anything, we could just call it a smarter, more advanced version of cruise control, meaning that you still need to pay attention to what you’re doing and keep your hands on the wheel at all times.
Unfortunately it seems that some drivers still haven’t gotten that message because in a new video (which has since been made private, unfortunately), it seems that a Model S on Autopilot mode has crashed into a van that was parked alongside the highway. What happened was the Model S was behind a car, which later switched lanes to avoid a van that had stopped on the highway that blocked half a lane.
It would seem that maybe the system kicked in too late because it assumed that by the car switching lanes that the road ahead was clear, and thus it actually accelerated a bit. Unfortunately what happened was the Model S ramming into the van in which the owner claims a lot of repair and replacements are needed as a result.
The driver initially blamed the car and the auto brake system for failing to trigger, but commenters on the video pointed out that Tesla had already issued warnings about such situations, to which he conceded that they had a point. That being said, Elon Musk has touted the Autopilot feature as being able to reduce accidents by as much as 50%, and in the past we have seen how some Tesla drivers have narrowly avoided accidents like a head-on collision thanks to the feature.