Jean Louis, a 52-year-old man from Cambria Heights, New York, was struck and killed by a Tesla when he was fixing a flat tire on the left shoulder of an expressway.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) despatched a Special Crash Investigation team to investigate the incident, only the tenth time the team has been dispatched to a fatal accident. 

Initial analysis suggested the driver may have been using Tesla's partially automated Autopilot driver assistance system. Data later provided by Tesla to the NHTSA demonstrated that Autopilot was active at the time of the crash.

The incident came three weeks after the NHTSA had opened an official investigation into Tesla’s partially automated driving systems and their involvement in accidents involving parked emergency vehicles.