Houston Autopilot Crash: What We Know So Far (For One, Autopilot Wasn’t On)
On Saturday night, a 2019 Tesla Model S crashed into a tree in a suburb of Houston, Texas. The crash was severe enough to compromise the battery pack, causing a fire that took hours and a call to Tesla to extinguish. Normally, a car crash, even one with a fire, wouldn’t be newsworthy because they happen all the time to vehicles of all types, but in this case, investigators said they were certain there was nobody in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash.
Harris County Constable for Precinct 4, Mark Herman, said that the vehicle was traveling fast and encountered a slight curve in the roadway, and failed to navigate it. Exiting the road, the vehicle struck a tree and caught fire. After contacting Tesla and getting more information, crews were able to successfully extinguish the fire.
Once the flames were put out and the vehicle was safe to approach, investigators found human remains in the passenger seat and in the back seat.
Herman told KHOU that their investigators “feel very confident just with the positioning of the bodies after the impact that there was no one driving that vehicle.”
Many people on social media are raising other possibilities here, though. Could the person have been climbing into the back to escape fire, and then sat down as they were overcome? Or were they thrown during the collision (this would require the vehicle to be traveling the opposite direction, or spinning)? We are going to have to wait for further information from the investigators to know for sure.
CleanTechnica did put in a request for information to the investigators, and we will let you know what they respond with.
What Happened Here?
We don’t know what, exactly, the vehicle’s occupants did. Given that the vehicle burned for four hours and everyone who was there died in the crash or the fire, there’s nobody to ask and most of the evidence is gone. We may never know for sure what happened right before the crash.