Tesla pushes back on Autopilot narrative after fatal Texas crash

A Tesla Model 3 left the road and plowed into a brick home in Katy, Texas, killing 76-year-old Martha Avila. The vehicle’s driver, Michael Butler, told Harris County sheriff’s deputies the car was on Autopilot when it struck the house; Avila was airlifted to a hospital and later pronounced dead.

The detail spread quickly and became the focus of debate over Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) systems. Tesla broke from its usual silence on Monday. Ashok Elluswamy, vice president of AI software at Tesla and the first engineer hired for the Autopilot team, posted on X that the data showed a different account: "In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area," he wrote.

"They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash." Elon Musk amplified Elluswamy’s point on his own X account: "This [allegation] makes no sense.

United States, Katy, Texas

tesla, autopilot, fsd, model 3, katy texas, harris county, ashok elluswamy, elon musk, michael butler, 73 mph