Tesla's Self-Driving Mode Causes It to Get Hit by Train
As Pennsylvania-based broadcaster WFMZ reports, a family of three was forced to exit their Tesla in the wee hours of the morning after it decided, when in an assisted driving mode, to turn left onto some train tracks.
Jared Renshaw, the fire commissioner for Southeastern PA's Western Berks County, told WFMZ that the car was in "self-driving" mode when it decided to take a jaunt down the train tracks. Though we can't be sure, Renshaw probably meant the Tesla was using "Full Self-Driving" (FSD) mode, the erroneously-named software that helped the company become the most accident-prone carmaker in the US for two consecutive years.
A few minutes after the unnamed travelers ditched the car, a train came barreling down the opposite tracks to the Tesla's crappy parking spot. As indicated by social media photos from the local company that towed the car, it was apparently just inches from the train that hit it, though it came away mostly unscathed save for a clipped mirror. Because the family had already vacated the Tesla, they were uninjured.
(That close call, while mighty undesirable, is far preferable to last year's big Tesla versus train story, when one of Elon Musk's self-driving electric vehicles was caught on video careening straight towards a moving train while the driver tried and failed to steer it away.)
Though little damage to the car's body occurred, getting it off the tracks was apparently another story. As WFMZ notes, the Tesla had to be lifted via crane due to concerns that trying to roll it onto a flatbed would damage its highly flammable lithium-ion battery. Though the commissioner didn't explicitly say so, such damage could result in a massive, outrageously hot blaze that would require tens of thousands of gallons of water to put out.
Despite its polarizing CEO ruining its sales and brand image, Tesla's ubiquity has led to more law enforcement interaction with the EVs. According to Renshaw, however, this was the first time he'd had to deal with the faulty autonomous driving software.
"We've had accidents involving Teslas," he explained to WFMZ, "but nobody has expressed to us [in the past] that the vehicle was in self-drive mode when it happened."
Unfortunately, the faulty FSD software also undergirds the Robotaxis that Tesla just unleashed onto the streets of Austin — which is, in part, why the rollout has already been such a disaster.
More on FSD: Watch in Horror as Cybertruck Driver Plays "Grand Theft Auto" While Screaming Down Highway on Self-Driving Mode
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