NTSB releases details in 2 Tesla Autopilot crashes
An Apple engineer who died when his Tesla Model X slammed into a concrete barrier had previously complained about the SUV malfunctioning on that same stretch of Silicon Valley freeway.
His complaints were detailed in a trove of documents released this week by federal investigators in two Tesla crashes involving Autopilot.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the March 2018 crash that killed Walter Huang near Mountain View. It’s also probing a crash in Delray Beach, Fla., that happened about a year later and killed driver Jeremy Banner.
The documents say Huang told his wife that Autopilot had previously veered his SUV toward the same barrier on Highway 101 where he later crashed. Huang died at a hospital from his injuries.
“Walter said the car would veer toward the barrier in the mornings when he went to work,” the Huang family’s attorney wrote in a response to the agency’s questions.
Records from an iPhone recovered from the crash site showed that Huang may have been using it before the accident. Records obtained from AT&T showed that data had been used while the vehicle was in motion, but the source of the transmissions couldn’t be determined, the agency wrote. One transmission was less than a minute before the crash.
Huang had described Autopilot’s previous malfunctioning to his brother, the Huang family attorney wrote, in addition to talking with a friend who owns a Model X. Huang, a software engineer, discussed with the friend how a patch to the Autopilot software affected its performance and made the Model X veer, according to the attorney.
The Huang family is suing Tesla and Caltrans for allegedly failing to maintain the highway.
Autopilot is a partially automated system designed to keep a vehicle in its lane and keep a safe distance from vehicles in front of it. It also can change lanes with driver approval. Tesla says Autopilot is intended to be used for driver assistance and that drivers must be ready to intervene at all times.
The full board is scheduled to hold a hearing on the Mountain View crash on Feb. 25. At that time, it will determine a cause and make safety recommendations.
Staff members have already recommended that California transportation officials move faster to repair highway safety barriers damaged by vehicles.
A report from the agency says Caltrans failed to fix the barrier that was damaged in a crash 11 days before Huang was killed. In that incident, a 2010 Toyota Prius traveling faster than 75 mph crashed against the attenuator, a cushion that protects vehicles from hitting the end of concrete lane dividers.
The California Highway Patrol responded to the March 12 crash but did not notify Caltrans of the damage as required, the safety agency said.
Huang’s 2017 Tesla Model X was traveling at 71 mph when it crashed against the same attenuator, which the agency determined had been damaged and repaired more frequently than any other left exit in Caltrans District 4, which includes all of the Bay Area.
In the three years before the Tesla crash, the device was struck at least five times, including one crash that resulted in fatalities. A car struck it again on May 20, 2018, about two months after the Tesla crash, the agency said.
The federal agency released some details from its investigation in September.
Caltrans said this week that it has “identified and is implementing several steps to enhance monitoring and tracking of the repair of damage” to highway infrastructure.
“These efforts include updates to its policies and maintenance manual, training of staff, and enhanced reporting on the timely repair of high priority traffic safety devices,” Caltrans said.
In the Florida crash, Banner turned on the Autopilot function of his Model 3 sedan 10 seconds before the crash, then took his hands off the steering wheel, National Transportation Safety Board documents said. The car then drove underneath a tractortrailer that was crossing in front of it, sheering off the car’s roof and killing Banner. It was eerily similar to another Florida crash in 2016 in which a Tesla on Autopilot went beneath a semi trailer.
The federal agency said in a preliminary report that it still hasn’t determined the cause of the crash. According to the report, traffic was light on the fourlane highway and dawn was breaking when Banner, 50, set his speed at 69 mph and activated the Autopilot as he headed to work. The speed limit was 55 mph. Seconds later, a tractortrailer driven by Richard Wood, 45, pulled from a driveway and began to cross to the other side of the highway.
Wood said he saw two sets of car headlights coming toward him, but he thought he had time to make it across. “It was dark and it looked like the cars was back further than they was,” Wood told federal investigators four days after the crash.
A photo taken by the agency from Tesla’s frontend video camera showed Wood’s trailer fully blocking the road 1.5 seconds before the crash. Data from the Tesla’s computer shows that Banner hit his brakes less than a second before the crash, but the car went under the trailer. Wood says he saw a second car but it didn’t hit the trailer.