By Jonathan Stempel and David Shepardson
June 24 (Reuters) – The National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday it will investigate last week’s crash of a Tesla Model 3 that struck a home at high speed in Katy, Texas, fatally injuring a 76-year-old resident.
The NTSB has investigated numerous Tesla crashes where its driver assistance systems were in use. On Monday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was probing the crash.
Separately, the family of the woman killed filed a lawsuit in the fatal crash, the family’s lawyers said.
According to a complaint filed on Tuesday, Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker should be liable for the wrongful death of Martha Avila, reflecting gross negligence and failure to warn that its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems were defective.
Avila’s daughter, Jennifer Barbour, and her husband, Justin Barbour, said the Model 3’s driver, Michael Butler, told law enforcement he engaged Autopilot before plowing through the front wall of Avila’s home in Katy, Texas, on June 19, pinning her.
She died later at a nearby hospital. Justin Barbour said he was also injured.
The lawsuit filed in a Harris County, Texas, state court seeks more than $1 million in damages, and punitive damages reflecting Tesla’s alleged “reckless disregard for a substantial risk of severe bodily injury.”
The Harris County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that the driver said he was using a driver assistance system at the time of the crash.
Tesla and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Musk, the world’s richest person, posted on X on Monday night: “FSD drives slowly through neighborhood streets and this was a high speed crash!”
Ashok Elluswamy, vice president of AI software at Tesla, posted separately on X that “the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area.”
DOZENS OF TESLA PROBES
Since 2016, the NHTSA has opened nearly 50 special investigations of Tesla crashes believed to involve advanced driver assistance systems. About two dozen deaths were reported.
In March, the NHTSA escalated its probe into 3.2 million Teslas equipped with Full Self-Driving, concerned the system may fail to detect or warn drivers in poor visibility.
In 2023, Tesla recalled about 2 million vehicles, nearly all of its electric vehicles on U.S. roads, to better ensure that drivers pay attention when using Autopilot.
Tesla has said Autopilot enables vehicles to steer, accelerate and brake within their lanes, while Full Self-Driving lets vehicles obey traffic signals and change lanes.
The automaker has also said both technologies require “fully attentive” drivers whose hands are on the wheel.
Butler is also a defendant in the Barbours’ lawsuit. It is unclear whether he has a lawyer. Efforts to reach him were not immediately successful.
The Barbours’ lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis and David Gregorio)
