• by Chuck Martin , April 1, 2018

The Tesla that crashed last week killing the driver was operating in Autopilot mode, according to the company.

The Model X electric SUV crashed in Mountain View, California, on Friday.

The car’s Autopilot was engaged with the adaptive cruise follow-distance set to minimum, according to Tesla.

"The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken," Tesla said in a blog post. “The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision.”

The severity of the crash was attributed to the highway safety barrier called a crash attenuator having been crushed in a prior accident and not yet replaced. The barrier is designed to reduce the impact into a concrete lane divider.

“In the U.S., there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers,” read the Tesla statement. “For Tesla, there is one fatality, including known pedestrian fatalities, every 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware. If you are driving a Tesla equipped with Autopilot hardware, you are 3.7 times less likely to be involved in a fatal accident.”