An unidentified driver's Tesla sedan crashed into a parked police vehicle in Laguna Beach, California, on Tuesday morning, while the car was cruising in semi-automated "Autopilot" mode. Nobody was in the parked vehicle when the crash happened.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the collision happened at 11:07 am (PST) at 20652 Laguna Canyon Road. The driver suffered minor injuries.
"Thankfully there was not an officer at the time in the police car," Laguna Police Sgt. Jim Cota told the LA Times. "The police car is totaled."
Cota noted that last year a similar incident occurred — raising questions around the safety of Tesla's Autopilot feature.
"Why do these vehicles keep doing that?" Cota said to the LA Times. "We're just lucky that people aren't getting injured."
Tesla responded to the LA Times report, casting blame on the driver.
"Tesla has always been clear that Autopilot doesn't make the car impervious to all accidents, and before a driver can use Autopilot, they must accept a dialogue box which states that 'Autopilot is designed for use on highways that have a center divider and clear lane markings,'" a Tesla spokesperson said in an email.
Tesla’s Autopilot mode has been activated during a number of collisions over the last couple years.
In May 2016, a driver of a Tesla Model S electric sedan was killed when the car, in autopilot mode, crashed into a tractor-trailer. In March 2018, a Tesla Model S crashed in California; reports stated it was also using Autopilot at the time of the crash.
Most recently, in Northern Greece, a driver of a Tesla Model 3 claimed the car's autopilot malfunctioned before he got into a crash. Fortunately, no injuries were sustained.
Such news does not bode well for Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Following the March 2018 crash in California, Tesla released two updates reiterating their commitment to passenger safety, and claimed that Autopilot can actually save lives.
The blog post stated:
Over a year ago, our first iteration of Autopilot was found by the U.S. government to reduce crash rates by as much as 40%. Internal data confirms that recent updates to Autopilot have improved system reliability.
In the US, there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers. For Tesla, there is one fatality, including known pedestrian fatalities, every 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware. If you are driving a Tesla equipped with Autopilot hardware, you are 3.7 times less likely to be involved in a fatal accident.
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