The story of a Tesla Model S crash that killed two a few days ago just can’t stop getting traction as now even a senator has called out Elon Musk for talking about the crash without all proper investigations were completed. He expressed his disappointment by saying that Musk downplayed the involvement of this company’s autopilot system.
After the crash, many reporters and media outlets were blaming Tesla and their autopilot system for this crash. Which led to Elon Musk speaking out saying that those claims were completely false and any journalist saying otherwise should be ashamed of themselves. This led Senator Blumenthal to wish that Musk would have actually held off on speaking before the proper investigations were finished.
In a reply to a tweet by the Wall Street Journal, Elon Musk claimed that data logs showed that the autopilot wasn’t even turned on and that standard autopilot needs lane lines to turn on or it doesn’t work. He even called out the Wall Street Journal for their bad research. You can view his tweet below.
The Senator however was disappointed by Musk’s premature tweet, saying that “I was very disappointed that Tesla, through its CEO, took to Twitter to downplay the involvement of the company’s advanced driver assistance system before [regulatory agencies] have completed their ongoing investigation into the deadly accident”. He expressed his thoughts during a Senate transportation committee hearing.
The investigations by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration or NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board or NTSB are still ongoing but the police did tell the reporter that they were all but certain that there was no one in the driver’s seat. The NSTB told reporters that “Our investigation is ongoing. We have not drawn any conclusions at this point”.
Senator Blumenthal also spoke up about his thoughts on the future of automation, saying that “Tesla’s crash highlights that there are many unanswered questions regarding the technology that purports to be automated. Sadly, there are no current regulations to provide the public with a lot of comfort that more automation without significantly upgraded consumer protection is the answer”.
Elon Musk has yet to give any sort of reply to what the Senator said but given how much traction this crash has caused, I wouldn’t be surprised if we did hear from him in the future.
