It was reported last week that a Tesla Model X was involved in a fatal accident last week near Mountain View, California. The car had caught on fire as well. The report has prompted a federal field investigation by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. The news that the NTSB is looking into the crash has spooked some Tesla investors as the company’s stock dropped sharply after the investigation was confirmed.
A Tesla Model X driver died last week after suffering injuries in a crash on the highway in the Bay Area. According to the California Highway Patrol, the car had hit the median barrier on highway 101 in Mountain View and quickly caught on fire before being hit by two other cars.
Images of the accident soon surfaced online and they showed that the front end of the Model X was completely destroyed. However, it’s not immediately clear whether that was because of the accident, the subsequent fire or the extraction process used to rescue the driver who was rushed to a nearby hospital but later succumbed to his injuries.
It’s also unclear whether the Autopilot system was engaged at the time of the accident. Autopilot is what Tesla calls its suite of semi-autonomous driving features though the company noted in a blog post that the same stretch of highway has been driven with Autopilot engaged roughly 85,000 times and there has never been an accident that the company knows of.
“We have been deeply saddened by this accident, and we have offered our full cooperation to the authorities as we work to establish the facts of the incident,” Tesla said in a statement.
Filed in . Read more about Electric Cars and Tesla. Source: reuters