The 58-year-old driver of a Tesla is blaming the electric vehicle’s Autopilot system for a rollover crash in central Minnesota.
According to CBS News, David Clarke was heading eastbound on 172nd Avenue when he engaged the Autopilot system and the vehicle suddenly accelerated down the road. He claims that the acceleration caused the Tesla to speed off the road and flip over.
It’s not yet known if the Tesla in question was a Model S or a Model X, but police officers say the driver and four passengers suffered minor injuries in the crash.
This is not the first time Tesla’s driver-assistance system has been blamed for a crash. In fact, we have reported on numerous cases in the past and, typically, Tesla is able to analyze data logs from the car to see what really happened.
In this case, the automaker released a statement reading the following:
“We are glad the driver and passengers are safe. We are working to establish the facts of the incident and have offered our full cooperation to the local authorities. We have not yet established whether the vehicle’s Autopilot feature was activated, and have no reason to believe that Autopilot, which has been found by NHTSA to reduce accident rates by 40%, worked other than as designed. Every time a driver engages Autopilot, they are reminded of their responsibility to remain engaged and to be prepared to take immediate action at all times, and drivers must acknowledge their responsibility to do so before Autopilot is enabled.”
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