{"id":348159,"date":"2026-06-24T06:28:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/348159\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T06:28:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:28:25","slug":"top-auto-regulator-investigates-deadly-tesla-crash-into-texas-home-tesla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/348159\/","title":{"rendered":"Top auto regulator investigates deadly Tesla crash into Texas home | Tesla"},"content":{"rendered":"

The top US auto regulator opened an investigation on Monday after a Tesla<\/a> using an automated driving feature slammed into a Texas home at high speed and killed<\/a> a 76-year-old woman standing inside.<\/p>\n

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was opening a special investigation into the Tesla Model 3 crash on Friday near Houston, a significant investigation because the car was using technology that Elon Musk<\/a> considers key to his company\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

The Tesla<\/a> CEO is rolling out robotaxis using automated software in several US 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 \u2013 but it\u2019s not clear what role, if any, it played in the incident.<\/p>\n

Constable Terry Allbritton\u2019s deputies are investigating the Tesla crash that sent two people to the hospital. Photograph: Terry Allbritton, Harris County Constable Precinct 5<\/p>\n

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment but the head of the company\u2019s artificial intelligence efforts suggested on social media later on Monday that the self-driving feature was not to blame.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 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,\u201d wrote Ashok Elluswamy on X, the platform that is now part of Musk\u2019s rocket company, SpaceX. \u201cThey reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.\u201d<\/p>\n

The police report noted that the driver was not drunk and was cooperating. It identified the woman killed as Martha Avila.<\/p>\n

Video obtained by the Houston television news outlet, KHOU<\/a>, 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

The auto safety regulator, known as the NHTSA, has launched several investigations into Tesla, including one late last year into 58 incidents in which Teslas reportedly violated traffic safety laws while using self-driving technology, leading to more than a dozen crashes and fires \u2013 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 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 \u2013 a driver, passenger or pedestrian \u2013 was killed.<\/p>\n

Tesla stock fell sharply early in 2025 as car sales plunged amid a boycott of Musk after he waded into federal US politics, leading Donald Trump\u2019s budget-cutting \u201cdepartment of government efficiency\u201d (Doge<\/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 \u2013 and done so successfully. The stock is up 16% in the past year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The top US auto regulator opened an investigation on Monday after a Tesla using an automated driving feature…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-348159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}