What happened

Apple employee Walter Huang was driving to work when his car drifted from a faded lane line and crashed into a highway barrier at 71 mph, caught fire and was rear-ended by two other cars.

The 38-year-old driver later died from his injuries in Stanford Hospital. 

The car's Autopilot driver-assistance system had reportedly been active and Huang had been playing games on his mobile phone while "driving".

Why it happened

A few days after the crash, Tesla acknowledged in a blog post that Autopilot had been engaged at the time of the crash and that Huang's hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision.

Tesla's statement was seen to have violated an agreement between the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the automaker that Tesla would not comment on any crash during the course of the investigation. 

Accordingly, the NTSB removed the car maker as a party to its investigation of the crash.

In its statement, the company also claimed that Autopilot "unequivocally makes the world safer for the vehicle occupants, pedestrians and cyclists" - a claim that is seen likely to have lulled Huang into a false sense of security. 

Tesla had been in the firing line for multiple misleading marketing claims it and its CEO Elon Musk had been making about the efficacy and safety of its product.

What it means

The incident raised questions about the accuracy and reliability of Autopilot. 

It also highlighted what is seen as Tesla's inadequate and unethical approach to transparency, openness and accountability.

Tesla later updated its software to remind drivers to touch the wheel more often and, ideally, remain attentive even with Autopilot enabled. 

The fact that the two parties settled out of court was seen to potentially create a legal precedent for self-driving car incident liability.

➕ April 2019. Huang's family filed a lawsuit against Tesla and California state alleging that Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system misread lane lines and failed to detect the safety barrier, in which the car accelerated rather than braked. 

The suit also accused Tesla of 'defective' product design and false advertising.

➕ 2020. An NTSB investigation concluded that Autopilot was one of the 'probable' causes of the crash, and that Huang had been 'overly confident' in the system's capabilities, evident in the fact that he had been playing a mobile game while using Autopilot before the crash. 

It also accused the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of taking an overly hands-off approach to regulating automated driving systems.

➕ January 2023. Tesla senior engineer Ashok Elluswamy testified during the trial that a 2016 Tesla video used to promote Autopilot had been staged to show capabilities like stopping at a red light and accelerating at a green light that the system did not have.