Not good for Musk: a Tesla in autonomous mode stops and is hit by a train

Last Saturday, the driver of a Tesla Model 3 had the fright of his life. As he stood in front of a level crossing, his vehicle allegedly went around a barrier before coming to a complete stop on tracks.

The incident took place on the railway line running through the town of Sinking Spring, in the US state of Pennsylvania. According to the driver, who was able to extricate himself from the car in time, the vehicle was in autonomous driving mode at the time of the incident. A train then hit the Tesla, reports local TV station WFMZ. Fortunately, no one was injured and emergency services were quickly mobilised to evacuate the vehicle.

According to county prosecutor John Adams, the incident did constitute a traffic offence, stressing that Pennsylvania state law did not recognise autonomous driving and that responsibility lay with the driver, even if the car was assisted by artificial intelligence, reports the media outlet 20 Minutes.

Autonomous? Not really

The accident that does Elon Musk no favours and reignites the debate on Tesla's famous Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, an advanced autonomy option sold for the modest sum of $15,000 which, according to the specialist website Rouleur Électrique, requires constant human supervision. In this particular case, it would appear that the algorithm considered the barrier as an obstacle to be avoided.

So beware of these technologies, which aren't always well understood by users.

(MH with Raphaël Liset - Source : 20 Minutes - Illustration : ©Unsplash)