Washington State Patrol Capt. Dion Glover said the event-data recorder of the 2022 Tesla Model S shows the vehicle was in "full self-driving" mode at the time of the crash. The 56-year-old driver admitted he was looking at his cellphone while the Tesla was moving, and when he looked up, he hit the motorcyclist. The crash killed 28-year-old motorcyclist Jeffrey Nissen.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said "full self-driving" should be able to run without human supervision by the end of this year. However, he acknowledged that his predictions have been overly optimistic in the past. Musk also said he would unveil a robotaxi vehicle in October that would be fully autonomous.
This incident is the second death in the US involving a "full self-driving" system. Before this, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported 75 accidents and one death during the use of this system. Tesla says none of their systems can yet be considered fully autonomous and human drivers should always be ready.
Carnegie Mellon University professor Phil Koopman has said Tesla's robotaxi is unlikely to run without human drivers for the next decade. Musk says there must be billions of miles of data to prove the safety of autonomous vehicles.
The Seattle accident has raised questions about the safety of Tesla's "full self-driving" technology and the need for monitoring it. Although Musk and the Tesla team are emphasizing the possibilities of autonomous driving, there are still many challenges to reaching full autonomy. It remains to be seen how regulators and consumers embrace this technology and what its future holds.
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