Federal safety investigators say a driver — not Tesla’s self-driving software — was responsible for a runaway Tesla that plowed into a Texas home and killed a grandmother inside.
The driver had told police he had the vehicle’s self-driving feature engaged at the time of the crash, but a report released Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board tells a different story. Investigators concluded the driver had actually overridden that software by pressing hard on the accelerator. Seconds later, the Tesla Model 3 was screaming down a residential street in Katy, Texas, at highway speeds before slamming through a brick wall and killing 76-year-old Martha Avila, who had been standing in the front room of her home.
Surveillance video captured the Tesla traveling at more than 70 mph — jumping a curb, tearing across a lawn, and bursting through the brick wall. Avila was found buried under crumbling plaster, broken beams, and debris. She was rushed to a hospital but did not survive.
The crash, which occurred last month, attracted widespread national attention in part because Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been publicly championing the safety of his company’s self-driving technology. Musk is working toward converting hundreds of thousands of existing Teslas into fully autonomous vehicles and plans to begin selling two-seat Cybercabs that come with no steering wheels or pedals.
The incident happened just two months after a separate federal agency — the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — announced it was upgrading a 2024 investigation into Tesla’s self-driving system to a more intensive “engineering analysis” review. That escalation raised the possibility of a recall affecting 3.2 million Tesla vehicles.
That NHTSA investigation was launched after the self-driving feature failed to warn drivers to take over in foggy or low-visibility conditions. The agency also opened a probe last year into 58 reported cases where Teslas allegedly broke traffic laws while operating in self-driving mode, leading to more than a dozen crashes, fires, and nearly two dozen injuries.
Separately from the NHTSA’s own review, the Texas house crash is now one of 46 “special crash” investigations NHTSA has conducted involving Tesla’s self-driving or driver-assistance systems over the past decade. More than a dozen of those crashes resulted in at least one fatality.
Tesla’s driver-assistance software was originally marketed under the name “Full Self-Driving,” or FSD — a label that drew criticism from auto safety experts and regulators who said it was misleading, since drivers are still required to stay alert and be ready to take control at any moment. The company has since rebranded it as “Full Self-Driving (Supervised).”
Meanwhile, Tesla’s business picture remains complicated. Car sales have not fully bounced back from boycotts tied to Musk’s political activities, yet the company’s stock has climbed 22% over the past year and is currently trading at 170 times projected annual earnings — compared to just 20 times for the broader S&P 500. Musk has argued that traditional sales numbers are becoming less relevant as Tesla pushes toward major technological milestones, including hands-free vehicles and its Optimus humanoid robots.
Financial analysts surveyed by FactSet expect Tesla’s second-quarter earnings results, due out next week, to show earnings per share of 32 cents — barely changed from 33 cents a year ago — marking a sixth consecutive quarter of flat or declining profits.
