{"id":4868,"date":"2026-07-19T09:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T09:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=4868"},"modified":"2026-07-19T09:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T09:36:15","slug":"fed-probe-suggests-teslas-self-driving-feature-wasnt-to-blame-in-crash-that-killed-a-grandmother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=4868","title":{"rendered":"Fed probe suggests Tesla\u2019s self-driving feature wasn\u2019t to blame in crash that killed a grandmother"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By BERNARD CONDON, Associated Press<\/strong><\/p>\n

NEW YORK\u00a0 \u2014 Federal safety investigators looking into a runaway Tesla that killed a grandmother in her home say the driver had pressed the accelerator to full speed, suggesting the vehicle\u2019s self-driving software was not to blame.<\/p>\n

Read more Tech review: For your consideration \u2014 several cool new gadgets<\/a><\/p>\n

The driver had told police that he had the self-driving software turned on, but a report from the National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday concluded that he had actually overridden that feature when he pushed hard on the pedal. Moments later the Tesla Model 3 raced down a residential street in Katy, Texas, at highway speeds, slammed into a brick home and killed a 76-year-old woman standing in the front room.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Systems that let drivers take their hands off the wheel don\u2019t improve safety, NTSB head says<\/strong><\/p>\n

The crash last month drew national attention because Tesla CEO Elon Musk is seeking to reassure the public its self-driving feature is safe as he prepares to turn hundreds of thousands of Teslas already on the road into fully automatic vehicles and begin selling two-seated Cybercabs missing steering wheels and pedals.<\/p>\n

The crash came two months after officials at a separate federal agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, announced it was elevating a 2024 investigation of the self-driving feature to new \u201cengineering analysis\u201d level, raising the possibility of a recall of 3.2 million Tesla vehicles.<\/p>\n

That NHTSA probe was triggered by crashes where the self-driving feature failed to alert drivers to take control in fog and other poor visibility conditions.<\/p>\n

The agency opened an investigation last year into 58 incidents in which Teslas reportedly violated traffic safety laws while using self-driving technology, leading to more than a dozen crashes and fires and nearly two dozen injuries.<\/p>\n

Read more World Cup: England survives wild French comeback to secure third place<\/a><\/p>\n

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Separate from the National Transportation Safety Board, NHTSA is also looking into the Tesla house crash in Texas, one of 46 \u201cspecial crash\u201d investigations of Tesla\u2019s self-driving or driver-assistance technology in the past decade, according to the agency\u2019s records. In more than a dozen of those crashes, at least one person \u2014 a driver, passenger or pedestrian \u2014 was killed.<\/p>\n

Tesla had originally called its driver assistance software Full Self-Driving, or FSD, but auto experts and regulators complained it was misleading because drivers must always keep their eyes on the road and be ready to take over at any time.<\/p>\n

The company has since changed the name to Full Self-Driving (Supervised).<\/p>\n

Video of the Katy, Texas, accident shows the Tesla traveling at more than 70 mph (112.65 kilometers per hour), jumping a curb then tearing across a lawn before crushing through a brick wall of a home. A woman standing feet away, Martha Avila, was found amid piles of crumbling plaster, split beams and bits of furniture and rushed to a hospital but died.<\/p>\n

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Sales of Tesla cars still haven\u2019t recovered fully from boycotts last year over Musk\u2019s far-right political stands, but the stock is rising anyway as he has successfully shifted attention away from the sales figures. He says they matter less now that the company is on the cusp of major technological advances, such as turning Teslas into hands-free vehicles and having its Optimus robots take over for humans for tasks at home and work.<\/p>\n

Tesla stock has risen 22% in the past year and is currently trading at 170 times expected annual earnings compared to 20 for the S&P 500.<\/p>\n

For its second-quarter financial results out next week, financial analysts surveyed by FactSet expect earnings per share will barely budge \u2014 32 cents versus 33 cents a year earlier \u2014 continuing a sixth quarter streak of flat or falling profits.<\/p>\n

Read more Dear Abby: After my wife\u2019s tepid answers, I feel like I should file for divorce<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The agency opened an investigation last year into 58 incidents in which Teslas reportedly violated traffic safety laws while using self-driving technology, leading to more than a dozen crashes and fires and nearly two dozen injuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nFed probe suggests Tesla\u2019s self-driving feature wasn\u2019t to blame in crash that killed a grandmother - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=4868\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fed probe suggests Tesla\u2019s self-driving feature wasn\u2019t to blame in crash that killed a grandmother - 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