Tesla’s driver-assist nightmare bursts through living room wall
Martha Avila was standing inside her home in Katy, Texas, when a Tesla Model 3 came through the brick wall and killed her.
The New York Times reports that the driver, Michael Butler, told investigators he was using Tesla’s automated driver-assistance system when the car left the road and slammed into the home. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office said the Tesla entered the brick residence at high speed and struck Avila, who was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Butler showed no signs of intoxication, was alert and cooperative, so it’s a mystery why he didn’t take over from a car traveling at that speed in a residential neighborhood. Investigators are still trying to determine what caused the vehicle to fail to control its speed before the crash. The specific Tesla system allegedly in use has not been publicly confirmed, which matters because “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” are marketing names for systems Tesla still says require a human driver to pay attention.
While this distinction may matter in court filings and crash reports. It does not help a private citizen standing in their front room when the future of transportation explodes through the wall, and the future is now.
Tesla recalled more than two million vehicles in 2023 after federal regulators demanded its Autopilot safeguards do more to ensure drivers remained attentive.
Hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, yet still the algorithm may decide it’s grandma’s time.
Even if the "supervisor" in the driver's seat is nominally alert, it will likely take several seconds for them to figure out that something bad is going on and to take over and fix things. (A gedanken-only experiment: someone in the passenger seat grabs the wheel and mashes your foot onto the accelerator; how long would it take you to regain control?)
Maybe Leon’s surveillance machine was just trying to get a better look inside the building.