Elon Musk Lost It on a Call With the Government After Autopilot Killed a Tesla Driver
Published on: 2025-04-22 09:28:27
In March 2018, Tesla Model X owner Walter Huang died after his vehicle crashed into a concrete highway median at 71 mph — while its Autopilot driver assistance software, a buzzy new feature at the time, was turned on.
The entire front of the vehicle was ripped off, sending the SUV spinning. Huan was pronounced dead hours after being taken to the hospital.
According to details released years later, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) confirmed that the software Huang had been using Autopilot, and had informed both his brother and his wife that it had previously swerved toward the exact road barrier into which he ultimately crashed.
Huang also put enough trust in the software to pull out his iPhone to play a mobile game right up until the fatal crash.
The incident, an inflection point highlighting glaring shortcomings of the driver assistance software, and the subsequent investigation by regulators, seemingly enraged Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
As detailed in a newly published
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