Earlier this week, a man and a woman from California were killed when the Tesla they were driving crashed into the back of a parked semi truck in a rest stop near Gainesville, Florida. Details about why the Tesla crashed into a parked truck are as yet unknown, but — according to a new report from the Associated Press (via Autoblog) — the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now looking into the incident.
Neither the NHTSA nor local law enforcement has said whether or not the Tesla was using any kind of driver assistance system at the time of the crash.
The report quotes the Florida Highway Patrol’s P.V. Riordan as saying that questions of automation will be something they’ll look into. “That is a consideration that will be explored during our investigation,” Riordan said.
The NHTSA has looked into other incidents involving Teslas in recent years – including a crash involving the Full Self-Driving Beta system and Tesla’s Autopilot system in general. It’s far too soon to say anything definitive about this latest crash, but whatever its cause might be, it’s an unsettling scene to take in. It’s also one of several things that — one assumes — Tesla’s Elon Musk is going to be thinking about in the weeks and months to come.
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