Third Tesla Crashes Amid Report of SEC Investigation (usatoday.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Tesla hasn't had the best month so far as not one, not two, but a total of three crashes have been reported with the car's Autopilot self-driving system engaged at the time -- two of which resulted in fatalities. In addition, The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Tesla violated securities law by failing to disclose more quickly a fatal accident in Florida in May involving a Tesla Model S that was in self-driving mode. The SEC didn't comment on the report, and Tesla issued a statement saying it has "not received any communication from the SEC regarding this issue." As for the Autopilot crash that was reported today, the driver said he activated Autopilot mode at the beginning of his trip. Tesla is looking into the crash and has yet to confirm whether or not Autopilot was a factor. Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased a "Top Secret Tesla Masterplan, Part 2" via Twitter that he is "Hoping to publish later this week."

Comments

Re:Why would autopilot veer?

[Rei]

The way the news cycle goes:

1) Person gets in an accident
2) Person blames autopilot
3) News widely reports that autopilot caused a crash
4) Evidence of whether autopilot was actually involved is returned.

Autopilot has been involved in crashes. But most of the "autopilot did it!" stories have turned out to be false. It seems to be a pretty easy thing to blame to try to get out of liability if you wreck your car.

That's not saying that any of the cases above specifically did not involve autopilot (we know for example that the fatal one did, that's been confirmed). But until it's confirmed, it's best to take these with a grain of salt. Tesla vehicles log bloody everything. If autopilot was in use at the time of the crash, it'll be there.