On June 19, a Tesla vehicle crashed straight through a house in a residential suburb of Houston, Texas, killing 76-year-old Martha Avila, who was inside. The driver, Michael Butler, was working as a delivery driver for the food delivery app DoorDash and was making a delivery at the time. Butler told rescue workers that the car was on "Autopilot". When reports emerged that the crash occurred while using Autopilot—a driver-assist feature that maintains lane position and distance from other vehicles—the incident became a hot topic not only in the United States but also in South Korea. Doubts erupted over whether Tesla's driver-assist system had caused a fatality and whether the technology is truly safe. The fallout grew even larger during the investigation when it was revealed that the vehicle was actually using "Full Self-Driving" (FSD)—a feature that reads traffic lights, handles turns at intersections, and navigates to a destination—rather than Autopilot. Although named "Full Self-Driving," it is legally a Level 2 driver-assist system that requires constant driver supervision.
1. "I Lost Consciousness"... The Truth Revealed by the Dashcam
However, two weeks later, the case took a complete turn. Butler, the driver, was indicted on manslaughter charges—a felony carrying a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison, which is more severe than involuntary manslaughter under South Korean law. Butler had claimed that he only remembered changing the music on the touchscreen while driving in FSD mode before losing consciousness, only to wake up after the crash had occurred. However, when investigators searched the vehicle's dashcam, cameras, and his mobile phone, a completely different picture emerged. While it was true that FSD was engaged, Butler had manually overridden the system's speed control by pressing the accelerator pedal himself. In the six seconds leading up to the crash, he pressed the pedal all the way to the floor, reaching a speed of 117 km/h—more than double the speed limit for the residential area. He did not step on the brakes once during the final minute. His claim of "losing consciousness" also fell apart. Medical tests showed no signs of alcohol, drugs, seizures, or heart abnormalities. The deciding blow came from his phone. A series of Google searches from weeks before the crash were found, including queries like "Tesla FSD is too timid" and "FSD is not aggressive enough for city driving." Prosecutors are now using these search records as evidence that Butler intentionally sped up.
2. Human Controlled the Speed, Machine Held the Wheel
To summarize: what was initially thought to be a crash caused by autonomous driving turned out to be a case where a human pressed the pedal to speed up, resulting in a fatality. Tesla has pushed back along these lines. CEO Elon Musk stated that "FSD drives slowly in residential areas," while Tesla's head of AI software noted that "the driver manually overrode the system by pressing the accelerator pedal to 100%". At first glance, it seems Butler is solely to blame. However, there is one crucial point to consider. In Tesla's FSD system, when the driver presses the accelerator, only speed control is handed over to the driver, while steering, lane-keeping, and navigation remain under the system's control. In other words, up until the moment of impact, the human controlled the speed, but the machine held the steering wheel. There is also the question of why drivers feel compelled to keep their feet on the pedal. Many complain that FSD is frustratingly slow because it comes to a complete stop at every stop sign, yet in its "Mad Max" driving mode, it travels well over the speed limit. Because the car crawls at times and speeds at others, drivers develop a habit of "correcting" the system with the pedal. Consequently, the family of the late Martha Avila has filed a lawsuit not only against Butler but also against Tesla. They are seeking damages of over $1 million, alleging that FSD has design defects and lacked adequate warnings. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have also launched joint investigations to determine how much the autonomous driving system influenced the crash.
3. Driver 67 : Tesla 33... The Story Behind the 300 Billion Won Verdict
What kind of legal consequences will Butler and Tesla face going forward? A past case offers a clue. In 2019, a man driving with Autopilot engaged in Florida struck a parked car and a couple standing next to it while he was distracted trying to pick up a dropped phone from the floor. A woman in her 20s was killed, and her boyfriend was severely injured. After a trial lasting several years, a federal jury in Miami reached a verdict in August 2025, assigning 67% of the blame to the driver and 33% to Tesla. This was the first federal jury verdict to hold Tesla liable in a fatal Autopilot crash. The jury concluded that "driver inattention" is entirely foreseeable, yet Tesla lacked sufficient safeguards against it, and that executives aggressively marketed the system as safer than it actually was, instilling a false sense of security. Tesla was ordered to pay over $240 million—combining its one-third share of the compensatory damages (about $43 million) with $200 million in punitive damages. This amount exceeds 300 billion Korean won. Tesla, of course, is appealing the verdict. However, the two cases are not identical. While the Miami crash involved a driver who was distracted, the recent incident involved a driver who actively intervened by pressing the accelerator pedal all the way down for six seconds. Whether the argument that Tesla should have prepared for driver distraction can also apply to a driver who intentionally stepped on the gas pedal is the key point to watch in this trial.
4. Eliminate the Pedals vs. Cameras Can't See
Who bears the responsibility, and to what extent, when an accident occurs due to human intervention while using autonomous driving features? Faced with this question, the U.S. government is moving in a surprising direction. On June 25, the NHTSA announced plans to eliminate the requirement for brake pedals in "vehicles designed never to be driven by a human." The logic is that if the system is driving, human intervention—whether accidental or intentional—could interfere with the system and create greater danger. This reasoning aligns uncannily with Butler's crash, where human intervention caused the accident. While this is not yet finalized and is in the public comment phase until the end of this month, it is a clear signal that in the era of autonomous driving, "human intervention" is starting to be viewed as a risk factor rather than a safety net. However, a contrasting movement is underway within the very same NHTSA. The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) is conducting an intensive probe into Tesla's FSD. The core issue is that when cameras are blinded by glare or fog, FSD fails to recognize that its vision is obstructed and does not warn the driver. Nine crashes, including one that killed a pedestrian, have been identified under these conditions, leading the ODI to place approximately 3.2 million Tesla vehicles under investigation—just one step away from a recall decision. Of course, one might argue that the rule to eliminate pedals applies to driverless-only vehicles with no driver's seat, while the investigation targets consumer vehicles, making them separate issues. However, the brain of those driverless vehicles is an evolved version of the FSD currently under investigation, and they rely on the same cameras to see the world. On one hand, regulators are trying to eliminate pedals under the premise of "trust the machine, human intervention is dangerous," while on the other, they are gathering evidence that "the machine doesn't even know when it is blind."
5. Model Y Ranks No. 1 in Sales: South Korea's Timeline
Tesla has long claimed that FSD is 10 times safer than human drivers, but the methodology behind this statistic remains controversial.
[Elon Musk / Tesla CEO (Source: YouTube Tesla): "Actually, I think it's worth emphasizing that Tesla's Full Self-Driving is not just 'equivalent' to a human in terms of safety. Ultimately, it will be 10 times safer than a human."]
A verification report by Reuters revealed that Tesla compared its own data—which only counts severe accidents where airbags deployed—with general statistics that include minor accidents requiring a tow truck. When recalculated using the same standards, the claimed tenfold safety advantage shrank to about threefold. Even more damaging are the voices from within. Out of nine former Tesla employees who trained the AI by reviewing FSD driving footage daily, seven answered, "I wouldn't trust this system with my life." What is certain is that before this verification is complete, autonomous driving is entering our lives whether we want it to or not. In South Korea, FSD became available on some Tesla models late last year, and in May, the Tesla Model Y ranked first in domestic car sales, beating out all domestic and imported vehicles. This marks the first time in history that an imported car or an electric vehicle has taken the top spot in sales. Starting in the second half of this year, 200 autonomous vehicles are scheduled to be deployed on the roads of Gwangju. As cars on the road gradually transition to autonomous driving, unexpected accidents are bound to happen. If two autonomous vehicles crash, who is responsible? What if one was self-driving and the other was driven by a human? Recognizing these challenges, the Sentencing Commission of the Supreme Court of Korea put this issue on the discussion table for the first time last month. Under the current Level 3 automation, where the driver must intervene immediately when requested by the system, the primary responsibility for an accident still lies with the driver. However, discussions have just begun on whether manufacturers and operators, rather than the occupants, should bear responsibility starting from Level 4, where drivers do not even need to hold the steering wheel. There are numerous questions to address: Is a driver who still has a duty to keep their eyes on the road truly free of all liability? To what extent should system operators be held responsible if the network is disconnected or hacked? In announcing the proposal to eliminate brake pedals, the NHTSA administrator remarked, "We are on the cusp of the greatest technological revolution since the Model T." More than a century after Ford's Model T introduced the assembly line and ushered in the era of "everyone driving a car," this revolution is heading in the opposite direction—toward an era of "no one driving a car." Before unexpected accidents catch society off guard, a deep discussion on human roles and responsibilities seems urgently needed.
(Reported by Kim Tae-won | Written by Shin Hee-sook | Camera by Park Woo-jin and Kim Sang-yoon | Video by Ryu Ji-soo | Graphics by Yang Hye-min | Research Support by Kim Hye-ju and Seo Byung-wook | Produced by SBS Digital News | Source: YouTube Tesla, CBS News)
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