By BERNARD CONDON<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The top U.S. auto regulator opened an investigation Monday after a Tesla<\/a> using an automated driving feature slammed into a Texas home at high speed and killed a 76-year-old woman standing inside.<\/p>\n The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it\u2019s opening a special investigation into the Tesla Model 3 crash on Friday near Houston, a significant probe because the car was using technology that Elon Musk considers key to the company\u2019s future.<\/p>\n The Tesla CEO is rolling out robotaxis using automated software in several U.S. cities this year and plans to invite Tesla owners to put their cars into the fleet using the same system across the country.<\/p>\n The driver told the Harris County Sheriff\u2019s Office that he was using the technology, according to a police report on the crash, but it\u2019s not clear what role, if any, it played in the incident.<\/p>\n The police report also noted that the driver was not drunk and is cooperating. It identified the woman killed as Martha Avila.<\/p>\n Video obtained by KHOU-TV shows the car traveling at top speed over the front lawn of a brick home in Katy, then ramming into a front room. The next shot shows the car encased in the home amid piles of crumbling plaster, split beams and bits of furniture.<\/p>\n Tesla did not respond immediately to a request for comment.<\/p>\n The auto safety regulator, known as NHTSA, has launched several investigations into Tesla, including one late last year into 58 incidents<\/a> in which Teslas reportedly violated traffic safety laws while using self-driving technology, leading to more than a dozen crashes and fires and nearly two dozen injuries.<\/p>\n A few months earlier, the NHTSA opened an investigation into why Tesla apparently had not been reporting crashes promptly<\/a> as required.<\/p>\n As for special crash investigations, the NHTSA has opened 46 involving Teslas using self-driving or driver-assistance technology over the past decade, according to the agency\u2019s records. In more than a dozen of those crashes, at least one person \u2014 a driver, passenger or pedestrian \u2014 was killed.<\/p>\n Tesla stock fell sharply early last year as car sales plunged<\/a> amid a boycott of Musk after he waded into politics, leading President Donald Trump\u2019s budget-cutting Department of Government Efficiency<\/a> initiative and embracing European extremist candidates.<\/p>\n Musk has since shifted the Tesla story to one less about car sales and more about AI and robotaxis, and done so successfully. The stock is up 16% in the past year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By BERNARD CONDON NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The top U.S. auto regulator opened an investigation Monday after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[131502,131501,139,141,140,3395,3804,5537],"class_list":["post-316366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-fatal-tesla-self-driving-crash","tag-nhtsa","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-tesla","tag-tesla-crash","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}