The first known death caused by a self-driving car was disclosed by Tesla Motors on Thursday.
The company revealed the crash in a blog post and said it informed the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the incident, which is now investigating.
Against a bright spring sky, the car’s sensors system failed to distinguish a large white 18-wheel truck and trailer crossing the highway, Tesla said.
The car, which was operated byJoshua D. Brown, 40, of Canton, Ohio, slammed into the bottom of the truck’s tractor-trailer windshield-first. Brown later died of injuries suffered during the crash
In a tweet, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the vehicle’s radar didn’t help in this case because it “tunes out what looks like an overhead road sign to avoid false braking events.”
Musk recently hinted that the company plans to include its autopilot feature in its upcoming Model 3, which at $35,000 is being marketed to middle-class drivers.
But the Tesla accident offers the first test of how consumers will react when reminded that they are putting their lives in the hands of computer code when they turn over control of the wheel.