This story is another latched on to by the press because of its sensationalist nature. Same thing happened when a few Model S vehicles caught fire. All the naysayers jumped on board to dump on Tesla - that is until the statistics for ICE incidents of fire came to light - "In 2003-2007, U.S. fire departments responded to an average of 287,000 vehicle fires per year. These fires caused an average of 480 civilian deaths, 1,525 civilian injuries, and $1.3 billion in direct property damage annually." -
http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-resear...ehicle-fires/vehicle-fire-trends-and-patterns.
How many people died on the same day as this Tesla driver in the US - the average (2014 figures) is 90 every day - 32,675 per annum. This is the first auto-pilot death in 130 million miles driven (the average for all vehicles in the US is 1 death per 94 million miles driven - rest of the world it is 1 death per 60 million miles driven).
The Tesla haters will love this news but sad though the fatality was, for a new technology in its infancy it's doing much better than the human equivalent as far as fatalities go. No doubt there will be lessons learnt by Tesla just as there were with the vehicle fires (which were caused by debris on the road puncturing the battery pack). Tesla then put a titanium cover on the pack and there hasn't been a fire since from this type of incident.
This auto pilot death happened in bright sunshine where neither the driver or auto-pilot saw the (white) truck which had turned across its path. Unfortunately the Model S went under the tray and the impact happened at the windscreen level. Had it happened, as with most accidents, as a front end then the Tesla safety systems would have been activated with a good chance of the driver surviving. No doubt Tesla will study this very hard to see how it can improve the safety features even more for the world's safest car.
