July 2 (Reuters) – A Texas man has been charged with manslaughter after driving a Tesla operating with its automated driving assistance system into a suburban Houston home, killing a 76-year-old grandmother, court papers show.
Michael David Butler, 44, told police he was operating his Model 3 in Full Self-Driving mode on June 19 when he plowed into Martha Avila’s home in Katy, Texas, and told paramedics “the car was on ‘Autopilot,'” according to court papers. Avila died later at a nearby hospital.
According to an arrest affidavit, Butler said he was making a DoorDash delivery run when he changed the music on the Tesla’s touch screen, and eventually “passed out.”
His speed reached 73 miles per hour, more than double the legal limit, and the brake pedal wasn’t used in the minute before the crash, the affidavit said. Butler denied having felt ill, and no alcohol or common street drugs were in his system, the affidavit said.
A lawyer for Butler did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Harris County prosecutors did not immediately respond to a similar request.
Tesla has disputed Butler’s recollections, with Chief Executive Elon Musk saying a vehicle in Full Self-Driving mode “drives slowly through neighborhood streets” and a software vice president saying Butler manually overrode that mode by flooring the accelerator.
According to KHOU television, Butler appeared in probable cause court on Thursday where bail was set at $150,000, with requirements that he wear an ankle monitor and not drive.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been investigating the crash, and has since 2016 opened nearly 50 special investigations of Tesla crashes believed to involve advanced driver assistance systems. About two dozen deaths were reported.
Tesla has said its Autopilot system enables vehicles to steer, accelerate and brake within their lanes, while Full Self-Driving lets vehicles obey traffic signals and change lanes. Both require “fully attentive” drivers, it has said.
Avila’s family sued Tesla last week, saying her wrongful death reflected the electric vehicle maker’s gross negligence and failure to warn that its self-driving systems were defective.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Diana Novak Jones in Chicago; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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