Toronto, Ontario — Another fatal collision involving a Tesla vehicle, another special probe from the NHTSA to root out the cause behind a tragedy allegedly linked to the company’s highly controversial driver assistance features.
This latest incident took place in California and involved a 2018 Tesla Model 3 that is suspected to have made use of some form of driver assistance feature immediately prior to the crash, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
More than three dozen special crash investigations into Tesla have been launched since 2016, in which 20 crash deaths have been reported, with this most recent case following shortly after a fatal crash involving a Model S vehicle in February.
The NHTSA upgraded its “defect probe” to an “engineering analysis” in June—the step immediately preceding a recall—in the effort of nailing down specific defects in Tesla’s Autopilot system.
Tesla did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
