Tesla doubles down on 'safer' autopilot despite latest fatal crash
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Palo Alto: For more than a decade, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has been trying to convince the car-buying masses that it’s OK to take our shaky hands off the steering wheel and entrust our lives to a hodgepodge of sensors and algorithms.
But the carmaker’s safety reassurances faced another challenge last week, as a sobering image made its way around the world: a photo of a Tesla SUV, battered and charred and missing two front wheels after a fiery wreck that left a father of two dead.
On Friday the company tried to explain the March 23 crash that killed Walter Huang, an Apple engineer whose electric SUV was on Autopilot mode when it crashed into a median on Highway 101 in Mountain View, California. In 557 words, Tesla sought to counter that alarming photo, using statistics and figures to argue that an artificially intelligent driver is still safer than a human one.
Still, Tesla had to acknowledge two realities made clear by Huang’s death: Autonomous vehicle technology is still in its infancy, and, because no tech is perfect, people in even the most advanced cars will still be involved in fatal crashes.
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