Tesla crashes into trailer while in autonomous Summon mode, owner claims
Imagine you're bragging to a passerby about your Tesla and it crashes itself into a trailer. Embarrassing.
A Tesla Model S owner in Utah, reportedly identified as Jared Overton, claims his Model S started up and autonomously drove itself into a semi truck trailer, according to a KSL report.
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Apparently, Overton was running errands and stopped to talk to a stranger about his Model S.
“You know, Tesla’s kind of a flashy car — he’d never seen one in person,” Overton said to KSL.
After a chat, Overton walked away. He returned 20 minutes later to find his Tesla had driven into the semi-truck trailer he had parked behind, resulting in a mashed window.
“Imagine if a child was right there — I guarantee that [Tesla] would be responding to this a lot differently.”
Overton reported the accident to Tesla. A regional company manager said that, after reviewing the car's logs, that the crash happened because Overton had indeed activated Summon mode. Moreover, the manager suggested Overton was negligent in his responsibility to safely control the car.
Whether Overton was indeed negligent or the Tesla had a glitch and Summoned itself shouldn't matter. No matter how it was engaged, Summon shouldn't have driven into anything.
The Summon mode is currently in its beta phase. As such, it hasn't been fully sorted, which is problematic.
The biggest issue, however, is that Tesla is allowing semi-autonomous cars to operate autonomously -- without anyone behind the wheel. The Model S simply doesn't have the safety systems in place to really be treated or considered an autonomous car. As I discussed last week, fully autonomous cars have a lot more going on than a semi-autonomous car.
Simply put, the Model S doesn't do anything a semi-autonomous car from another carmaker couldn't. No other brand dares allow an unfinished system out into the hands of its owners, like Tesla has with Summon.
Overton put it best when he said, “Imagine if a child was right there — I guarantee that [Tesla] would be responding to this a lot differently.”
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