He Trusted Tesla Autopilot, and Paid With His Life
This week in 2016, Joshua Brown, 40, drove Tessy, his new Tesla Model S sedan, one last time after completing a family vacation in Disney World. The drive lasted 41 minutes. It's then that Brown became an ignominious footnote in automotive history: he was the first person to die in a Tesla in the United States while using its semi-autonomous Autopilot driving software.
Brown, a former Navy SEAL in the Naval Special Warfare Development Group-aka SEAL Team 6-and a business owner, was a devoted Tesla enthusiast who clocked 45,000 miles in the first nine months of Model S ownership. Weeks before the fatal crash, he even posted a video titled "Autopilot Saves Model S," in which his car is shown swerving on an interstate highway to avoid a truck that has cut in front of him. A frame grab from the video is shown above.
He died in his Model S when it failed to brake as a tractor-trailer made a left turn in front of the Tesla while traveling at 74 mph. The Automatic Emergency Braking did not engage, and Autopilot didn't recognize the white truck in front of him despite a bright sky and ideal lighting conditions. His car struck the side of the tractor-trailer head-on at windshield level, causing the Model S to slide under the truck and continue down the road, driving through two fences before striking a pole.
The Florida Highway Patrol charged the truck driver, Frank Baressi, 62, with a right-of-way violation. Baressi told the Associated Press at the time that Brown was "playing Harry Potter on the TV screen" and that "he went so fast through my trailer I didn't see him".
In its 500-page report, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that Brown, shown below, was required to have his hands on the wheel for 37 minutes of the trip, but only did so for 25 seconds. The car issued a visual warning seven separate times, saying, "Hands Required Not Detected," while a chime sounded between each warning.
The crash report led the NTSB to recommend that manufacturers develop ways to monitor whether drivers are paying attention while driving. This caused automakers to install inward-facing Driver Monitoring Systems, which use infrared sensors and cameras to monitor the driver's eye position, head movement, and other factors to detect fatigue or distraction. Some systems can also proactively slow the car down and steer it off the road, not just sound a warning. Such systems are common today, even in cars without self-driving systems, but despite all of the technology, mitigating the human factor is the biggest challenge, and one not easily solved.
Tesla introduced Autopilot in October 2014 by fitting hardware to the Model S sedan that could automate steering, braking, and throttle input. The software to run it was released a year later, along with Autosteer, which was basically lane-centering software. Brown's crash caused the automaker to update the software, reducing the amount of time drivers can have their hands off the wheel. By October 2016, Tesla released what it called full self-driving software, offered as a $5,000 Enhanced Autopilot option and a $3,000 Full Self-Driving Capability option.
While it continues to be improved, Tesla's Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems have been tied to at least 51 reported fatalities as of October 2024, according to Forbes. In addition, Autopilot has been connected with 736 crashes since 2019. Similarly, Ford's BlueCruise self-driving technology has been linked to three deaths in two separate fatal crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). There has also been one pedestrian death involving an Uber-operated autonomous Volvo XC90. GM's Cruise driverless taxi service has no reported fatalities. Fatality data from other automakers is not publicly available.
Time will, of course, improve these technologies. As of right now, however, we need to exercise caution and rely on our reflexes and instincts more often than not, lest we forget the past.
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