While driving in automatic mode was engaged, a Tesla struck a police car which was in intervention on Saturday.

The facts occurred around 5 am on a highway near Orlando in Florida (United States), according to information from

Business Insider

relayed by

Capital

.

According to the first observations, the Autopilot did not allow the Tesla to detect the vehicle of the police which assisted a car on the side.

The electric vehicle then struck the two cars, including the police car, which was clearly visible with its emergency lights on.

The policeman who was outside his vehicle at the time of impact managed to narrowly avoid the Tesla.

Unfortunately, this is not the first accident involving a Tesla and its autopilot system.

An investigation opened by the NHTSA

Since 2018, 11 accidents involving a model of Elon Musk's company traveling in “automatic pilot” mode or with the cruise control (Traffic Aware Cruise Control) have been recorded.

Far too much for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the US federal agency responsible for road safety, which recently opened an investigation into the Autopilot system.

According to their report, the majority of accidents took place in the middle of the night, like the one on Saturday, and involve cars with flashing lights, emergency lights, or vehicles located near a safety device. In April, two people were killed in a crash involving a Tesla, which was likely driverless.

However, the Californian brand then defended itself ensuring that it was "probable" that a person was indeed behind the wheel at the time of the collision and by maintaining that its driver assistance software was not activated.

Tesla still specifies on its website that despite its name, Autopilot does not yet allow fully automatic driving.

“The current functionality of Autopilot requires active monitoring from the driver and does not make the vehicle autonomous,” we read.

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