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Claimed to have used "FSD feature," but sped at 117 km/h after disabling basic settings.
In Texas, USA, a Tesla vehicle crashed into a house, killing a resident inside. The driver has been charged with negligent homicide in connection with the accident.
The driver claimed to have been using the 'Full Self-Driving (FSD)' feature at the time of the accident, but investigations revealed that he had overridden the system by operating the pedals and was speeding.
According to a report by the US daily Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 2nd, investigative authorities charged Michael David Butler (44), the driver of the Tesla Model 3, with negligent homicide in connection with the incident where the vehicle crashed into a brick house in Katy, near Houston, Texas, on the 19th of last month, killing a 70-year-old resident.
Butler told police and paramedics that he was on a delivery job and was driving the vehicle in FSD mode when he changed music on the touchscreen and then lost consciousness.
However, investigations by authorities, including securing the vehicle's black box, revealed that the driver repeatedly pressed the accelerator pedal directly in the residential area where the accident occurred, overriding the basic FSD speed settings.
The vehicle reached speeds of up to 117 km/h at one point, which was more than double the speed limit in that residential area.
The brake pedal was not pressed once during the last minute before the accident.
It was also found that he had complained that FSD was not 'aggressive' enough and had searched for related content on Google multiple times.
Teslas come standard with Autopilot, which maintains a safe distance from other cars, and also offer the FSD feature, where artificial intelligence (AI) handles everything from lane changes to driving, with human supervision only.
In the US, there is ongoing controversy that such names mislead consumers into believing that there are perfect autonomous features, leading to accidents, and related lawsuits are also increasing.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has investigated over 40 collision accidents related to advanced driver-assistance systems, including FSD.
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