Tragedy Strikes at Home: The Truth Behind a Fatal Tesla Crash

A driver has been charged with vehicular manslaughter in connection with an incident in Texas, U.S., where a Tesla vehicle crashed into a house, killing a resident inside.

The driver claimed to have been using the Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature at the time of the accident, but an investigation revealed that the driver had overridden the system by operating the pedals and was speeding.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that authorities have charged David Butler, a man in his 40s who was driving a Tesla Model 3 when it crashed into the home, with vehicular manslaughter.

Butler, who caused the death of a resident in their 70s, claimed that he was working as a delivery driver at the time of the accident and that he had lost consciousness after changing music on the touchscreen while the vehicle was in FSD mode.

However, after securing the vehicle's black box and conducting an investigation, authorities found these claims to be false.

An investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the U.S. automotive safety regulator, confirmed that Butler had manually pressed the accelerator pedal multiple times near the crash site, ignoring the default FSD speed limits.

Butler reached speeds of up to 117 km/h (73 mph), more than double the speed limit in the residential area, and data showed that the brake pedal was never pressed during the final minute before the crash.

Investigations also revealed that Butler had searched Google multiple times regarding his dissatisfaction that the FSD system was not sufficiently aggressive.

Controversy is mounting as critics argue that Tesla's FSD system misleads U.S. consumers into believing it is a fully autonomous feature, leading to accidents and subsequent lawsuits.

The NHTSA is currently investigating over 40 collision incidents involving advanced driver-assistance systems, including FSD.

Reported by Kim Taewon | Video by Jang Yujin | Graphics by Yook Dohyun | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.