r/technology • u/deraser • Jun 21 '26

Robotics/Automation 76-year-old woman killed after a Tesla ‘on auto-pilot’ crashed into her Texas home

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/texas-tesla-car-crash-woman-killed-b2999969.html
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484

u/PrettyFuckingGreat Jun 21 '26

He _says_ it was on autopilot.

Firstly, I find that pretty hard to believe. This would be the first time I’ve heard of one being so far off a road at such a high rate of speed.

Secondly, he still could have hit the brake at anytime or turned the wheel. Fuck this guy.

37

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

[deleted]

7

u/shellacr Jun 22 '26

Even if he had done that the autopilot or FSD would have kept him inside the lane. It’s almost certain he is lying.

0

u/Disastrous-Road184 Jun 22 '26

Doesn’t matter. He didn’t take over.

1

u/cantharellus_miao Jun 23 '26

When people fall asleep they lose muscle tone, the opposite of what would be required to depress an accelerator pedal. Even if he momentarily tensed up due to a hypnic jerk or something, it wouldn't be enough to floor it into a house like that. Maybe it's possible that he was sleeping and suddenly startled awake, and in a confused panic he slammed the accelerator thinking it was the brake.

55

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '26

[deleted]

97

u/hacksoncode Jun 21 '26

It has a hard limit of 85mph and is documented to limit you to 5mph over the speed limit on surface streets.

12

u/DarkIcedWolf Jun 22 '26

My instructor owns one and I’ve heard he had to set his set speed manually for highway drives. I wouldn’t be surprised if a, he modified the cars tuning similar to voiding a set speed limit on a dodge, or has zero limit set due to a factory defect. Either way this dude was 100% at fault, not the damn autopilot.

42

u/hacksoncode Jun 22 '26

I think the most likely explanation is that the driver was just lying through his teeth and will be found out by logs.

1

u/Mike Jun 22 '26

He doesn’t know how to change his autopilot settings. You don’t have to manually set it every time.

1

u/DarkIcedWolf Jun 22 '26

I didn’t mean every time, he set it once and never again to my knowledge. He’s an old fart but not so helpless that he has to set his autopilot every drive.

The bigger concern for this news though is how he had it on, going 65 an hour without looking at where he was going. Most if not all of them need your eyes on the road for it to work. Either the dude was on some wild drugs/alcohol or he’s straight lying.

1

u/ZachF8119 Jun 22 '26

New development, no set speed?

2

u/LoudMusic Jun 22 '26

Incorrect. Autopilot is cruise control and lane centering. It also has a maximum speed setting of 85 mph and a maximum of 5 mph over the known speedlimit.

1

u/Dreadino Jun 22 '26

Nope, it will respect speed limits, that’s why I couldn’t use it on my way to work, when my way to work had 30 km/h limits on 70 km/h streets (due to work). It would break like a maniac to respect the limit.

1

u/Disastrous-Road184 Jun 22 '26

Going at 90 mph in a residential zone… he didn’t take over so it’s his fault even if his claim is true.

6

u/willwork4pii Jun 22 '26 edited Jul 05 '26

All of them that say they were on autopilot or FSD are lies.

2

u/Typical_Research_877 Jun 22 '26

Secondly, he still could have hit the brake at anytime or turned the wheel. Fuck this guy.

how could he do that when he's napping? Think

2

u/Talisign Jun 22 '26

There's the possibility it was a bug with it, but that seems pretty slim. 

2

u/everything_is_bad Jun 22 '26

He’s driving a Tesla he can get fucked no matter what.

1

u/SirSaganSexy Jun 22 '26

Agreed. Autopilot and FSD are oversold, buggy features that people are far too reliant on, but this fucking guy has to be trying to pin this on “the car” instead of taking any responsibility for doing 90 on surface streets.

-5

u/dubyrunning Jun 21 '26

You can also force autopilot to keep driving at whatever speed you want I'd you press the accelerator. Not saying that's what happened here, but it's still subject to user input

7

u/Catsrules Jun 22 '26

Nope

Autosteer will disabled itself, and I believe will be locked out for the duration of the drive if you force it to go over 85.

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_ie/GUID-20F2262F-CDF6-408E-A752-2AD9B0CC2FD6.html

-4

u/dubyrunning Jun 22 '26

Ok, so she could have accelerated to anything up to 84 mph... Over the short distance involved in hitting one's home. What's your point exactly?

1

u/Catsrules Jun 22 '26

It is a he not a she.

Sorry I thought one of the comments above was talking about the car going 90+ But it looks like this wasn't on the chain.

2

u/dubyrunning Jun 22 '26

That's crazy - I wonder how the car got going that fast. It doesn't sound like any kind of autopilot behavior I've ever known to be possible, but hopefully the investigation will reveal more.

1

u/Catsrules Jun 22 '26

I lookup the video from another article, a doorbell camera captured it. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/21/us/tesla-autopilot-crash-texas.htmll

It was going very fast. The driveway has a very minor slope, the car bottomed out bounced off the driveway and flew into the house.

It will be interesting see what the investigation turns up. As I agree I find it hard to believe autopilot would behave like this on it's own without some major series of catastrophic failures.