Brady urges Tesla’s cooperation in crash probe
Letter calls on automaker to turn over data and sets out series of questions about use
In a sometimes stinging letter to Tesla founder Elon Musk, U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady urged the company to cooperate with federal investigators as they research a fiery Spring-area crash that killed two men last week and to rethink how its autopilot systems are branded to electric vehicle owners and others.
“Surely we agree that lawmakers and their constituents should know all the risks involved when turning on Tesla’s ‘autopilot’ capabilities,” Brady wrote in the letter, released by his office Friday. “As it currently stands, some experts believe that references to vehicles as having ‘autopilot’ capabilities may illicit (sic) assumptions that these vehicles exceed the capabilities of their own technology.”
The company, which abolished its press office, did not respond to a request for comment on Hammock Dunes Place, inside Harris County.
The limitations of autopilot resurfaced following Saturday’s crash, involving a 2019 Model S that slammed into a tree along a curve in a cul de sac.
Dr. William Varner, 59, and Everette Talbot, 69, were killed in the crash.
“An educated medical leader and a trained engineer, these men were proven fatally wrong in trusting the safety of their Tesla,” Brady wrote.
Crash investigators are certain no one was in the driver seat of the vehicle when the crash happened, Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman said.
Musk has disputed some of the assumptions made during the initial investigation, saying the company’s real-time data “so far show Autopilot was not enabled,” at the time of the crash. In addition, Musk said the car lacked the software for the full self-driving package the carmaker offers, and that a lack of painted lines on the street where the crash happened would keep many of the autopilot functions from working.
Local officials, the National Transportation Safety Board and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are investigating the crash, the latest death related to a Tesla operating potentially in autopilot mode.
Brady’s letter confirmed that authorities “are in the process of serving a search warrant to Tesla,” a move he said he supported.
Further, Brady asked Musk to
respond to nine questions, some with various parts, regarding technical aspects of the autopilot systems, how Tesla markets the product, how drivers are apprised of its functions and capabilities and how the electric carmaker
has improved the system in light of past crashes.
The letter also addressed what Brady, citing the NTSB, called a “significant safety risk” related to the car’s main power source — a lithium ion battery.
“My understanding is that family and neighbors witnessed the gruesome death of their loved ones and watched helplessly
while the fire burned for four hours,” Brady said. “According to emergency responders on the scene, the battery repeatedly reignited itself, consuming the vehicle in flames that required more than 30,000 gallons of water to fully extinguish.”