Tesla says Model X did not crash itself with Autopilot, despite owners' claims

Who are you going to believe, a computer log or a shaken owner?

Monday morning, Electrek broke the story of a Model X owner and his wife claiming their five-day-old Model X crashed itself into a building last Saturday in Irvine, California.

On the Tesla forum, the owner, Puzant Ozbag, stated that his new all-electric luxury SUV "suddenly and unexpectedly accelerated at high speed on its own climbing over 39 feet of planters and crashing into a building."

Understandably, this is a frightening scenario that no one wants to be in. Of course, that's just one side of the story. Later the same day, Tesla, after having reviewed the car's logs, gave Electrek its side of the story:

"We analyzed the vehicle logs which confirm that this Model X was operating correctly under manual control and was never in Autopilot or cruise control at the time of the incident or in the minutes before. Data shows that the vehicle was traveling at 6 mph when the accelerator pedal was abruptly increased to 100%. Consistent with the driver’s actions, the vehicle applied torque and accelerated as instructed. Safety is the top priority at Tesla and we engineer and build our cars with this foremost in mind. We are pleased that the driver is ok and ask our customers to exercise safe behavior when using our vehicles.”

Following the official Tesla response, Ozbag sent Electrek a rebuttal: "My wife is a 45-year-old woman with a great driving record... She knows the difference between brake and accelerator pedal."

It looks like this is less of a 'he said, she said' issue as it is a 'computer said, she said' matter.

Though computers don't lie, automakers sometimes do. Every car brand that has faced sudden and unintended acceleration accusations immediately disavows all responsibility and often throws the driver under the proverbial bus.

Sometimes, it is the owner and sometimes it is the car.

For a recent example, we only need to look back two years to the issue of the Toyota Prii (official plural of Pruis) that suffered from unintended acceleration. Turns out, Toyota lied about -- and hid -- knowledge of acceleration glitches. Accordingly, the U.S. Attorney's Office fined the Japanese carmaker $1.2 billion.

So, is it the car or the driver at fault? We'll have to wait and see.

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