An Apple engineer who died when his Tesla Model X hit a concrete barrier on a Silicon Valley motorway had complained before his death that the SUV’s autopilot system would malfunction in the area where the crash happened.
The complaints were detailed in a trove of documents released on Tuesday by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is investigating the March, 2018 crash that killed engineer Walter Huang.
The documents say that Mr Huang told his wife that autopilot had previously veered his SUV towards the same barrier involved in the crash on US 101 near Mountain View, California.
Autopilot is a partially automated system designed to keep a vehicle in its lane and keep a safe distance from vehicles in front of it. It also can change lanes with driver approval. Tesla says it’s a driver assistance system and that drivers must be ready to intervene at all times.
Mr Huang’s widow, Sevonne Huang, and his family are suing Tesla and California’s Department of Transportation for allegedly failing to maintain the highway.
“Walter said the car would veer towards the barrier in the mornings when he went to work,” the Huang family’s lawyer wrote in a response to NTSB questions.
The lawyer also wrote that Walter Huang described to his brother autopilot’s malfunctioning “in the same general area where the crash occurred” in addition to talking about autopilot problems with a friend who owns a Model X.
Huang, a software engineer, discussed with the friend how a patch to the autopilot software affected its performance and made the Model X veer, the lawyer’s response said.
The full NTSB is scheduled to hold a hearing on the crash on 25 February. At that time, the board will determine a cause and make safety recommendations.
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