Joshua Brown, the Tesla driver who on May 7 died in a crash in Florida while the car's Autopilot was engaged was speeding, according to a National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) preliminary report.
This revelation may not surprise many people. The Model S is often billed as one of the sturdiest cars ever built. Not only does it have a five-star crash safety rating, but also its structure is so strong that it broke some of the crash-testing gear in 2013.
So for the top of the car to be sheered off as it was in the fatal Florida crash (even considering that it had collided with a tractor trailer) suggested that the Model S must have been moving at fast speeds. (After colliding with the truck, Brown's Model S continued down the road and eventually struck a power pole and split in half before coming to rest.)
This discovery by NHTSA leads to a second question: Should Autopilot be allowed to exceed the speed limit? Some semi-autonomous systems from other automakers, like Mercedes' Drive Pilot, read speed limit signs and adjust their cruising speeds accordingly.
It appears, though, that the more we learn about this crash, the more questions surrounding autonomous driving and Tesla's Autopilot will be raised.
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