A Tesla car, allegedly on Autopilot, smashed into a tow truck in Moscow on Saturday night which resulted in the car exploding. Following the crash, the occupants: the driver and his two children, got sent to the hospital with injuries. A video from a passer-by, later on, shows the car bursting into flames and exploding. The crash came on the very same week that the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told Tesla off for allegedly distorting safety results.
While it’s not certain, reports suggest that the Tesla involved in the crash was on Autopilot, Tesla"s semi-autonomous driverless feature. This is not the first time that the feature has been involved in an accident, in March 2018, for example, Autopilot was involved in a fatality which Tesla believes could have been avoided if the driver had listened to instructions to keep their hands on the wheel.
Here is the video pic.twitter.com/JhtTwYl41J
— Paul Smith (@GreatPaulSmith) August 10, 2019
The vehicle was travelling along the Moscow ring road, known as MKAD when the crash happened. The speed limit along that road is 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph); if the driver did receive any warnings beforehand, the driver, 41-year-old Alexei Tretyakov, may not have had time to respond due to the speed he was travelling at.
Tesla has not yet commented on the incident.
Source: Sputnik and The Moscow Times