A Tesla reportedly operating in "Full Self-Driving" mode on I-80 Thursday morning struck and killed a 71-year-old pedestrian in Vallejo.
The collision happened around 2:35 am on westbound I-80 at the I-780 interchange, as NBC Bay Area reports. A 26-year-old man from San Francisco was operating the Tesla, he said, in "Full Self-Driving (FSD)" mode when the car struck a 71-year-old man in the roadway. The driver remained at the scene and cooperated with officers.
The man was reportedly trying to cross the freeway on foot from the right shoulder to the center divide.
CHP officers reviewed the Tesla's dash cam footage, as the agency explained in a social media post, and determined that the car was traveling at 70 miles per hour when it struck the pedestrian in the #2 lane.
"The video showed the Tesla’s brakes being applied as the vehicle steered to the left in an effort to avoid the pedestrian," CHP writes. "Despite these evasive actions, the right front portion of the Tesla struck the individual."
According to the CHP, following the impact, the victim was struck by at least one additional vehicle, but only the Tesla driver remained at the scene.
CHP Officer Scott Heitman tells the Chronicle that the Tesla driver was not cited at the scene, but if the investigation determines that the driver was in any way responsible for the crash, charges could be filed by the Solano County District Attorney's Office.
Tesla's purported self-driving capabilities have been the subject of lawsuits and federal investigations for years now, after multiple fatal crashes, some involving pedestrians. In 2023, a 71-year-old woman was struck and killed on an Arizona freeway by a Tesla Model Y operating in FSD mode, and earlier this year, Tesla quietly settled a lawsuit brought by the woman's family.
Last fall, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation into Tesla's self-driving snafus, including 58 reports of the FSD system ignoring red and green lights, veering into oncoming traffic while changing lanes, and using the incorrect lane to turn or go straight.
An open letter to the NHTSA in June from Democratic senators Edward Markey (MA) and Richard Blumenthal (CT) suggests that the NHTSA may be going to easy on Tesla, and urges the agency not to use Tesla's "hand-picked metrics" and misleading data in making its determinations about the safety of FSD.
FSD mode purports to control the car's steering, lane-changing, and speed, as well as parking, but the company maintains that a driver must remain in control at all times.
Last week, a federal court stalled a class-action suit against Tesla over its website's so-called Hardware Statement, which states that all Teslas are manufactured with full self-driving capability built in — though this was largely over a technicality about where the statement exists in relation to the online sales pages.
Previously: Feds Launch New Tesla Probe After Several Cars Run Red Lights, Veer Into Traffic in Self-Driving Mode
