Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The driver of a Tesla Model S who crashed into a fire truck on a California freeway last year was not paying attention to the road thanks to “overreliance” on Autopilot, the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday. In addition, investigators determined that another probable cause for the crash was the design of Autopilot, “which permitted the driver to disengage from the driving task.”
No one was injured in the crash, but the driver’s use of Autopilot has brought regulator and media attention to the incident. There have been a number of reports of Tesla owners who were using Autopilot at the time of a crash, as well as a handful of people who have been killed. Tesla has consistently said that drivers who use Autopilot are…