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A grandmother in Texas was killed after a Tesla allegedly in self-driving mode swerved off the road and crashed into her family’s home.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office said that the driver of the vehicle, a Tesla Model 3, veered out of the lane, left the roadway, and failed to make a right turn before slamming into the home at a high speed on Friday evening, local broadcaster KHOU 11 reports.
Martha Avila, 76, was in the front room when the Tesla crashed through the wall. She was flown to a hospital, but later died from her injuries.
“She didn’t deserve to go that way,” Jennifer Barbour, Avila’s daughter, told KHOU 11.
Barbour said she heard a loud boom from her backyard when the crash happened. Her husband and three children who were also home were unharmed, but her mother had been struck. The room the car came through was a playroom for the children.
What caused the crash hasn’t been confirmed. KHOU 11 obtained footage showing the Tesla driving down the street before the crash, and another video showing it plowing into the family’s home at high speed.
The driver, a 44-year-old man whose identity hasn’t been released, told investigators that an automated driving assistance system was engaged at the time of the crash. That could mean Tesla’s Autopilot mode which once came standard on newer vehicles, or its more advanced Full Self-Driving (Supervised) mode, an optional upgrade.
Investigators, however, haven’t confirmed if one of these driving modes were active during the crash.
But both Autopilot and FSD have a history of driving erratically and malfunctioning. The automaker is being investigated by federal regulators after a Tesla running FSD ran down and killed an elderly pedestrian on the side of the road, with footage showing the car’s front camera being blinded by sunlight right before the accident. Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened another investigation into Tesla after mounting reports of FSD driving into the path of oncoming trains.
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