United States.Two dead in the accident of a Tesla who was rolling at high speed

Two men were killed on Saturday, April 17, in Texas in a Tesla's accident.The car, which seemed to be in automatic piloting according to the first elements of the investigation, crashed against a tree and caught fire, the authorities said.

The material evidence collected on the scene and interviews with the witnesses show "that no one was driving the vehicle at the time of the accident," said gendarme Mark Herman, New York Times.

The vehicle, a 2019 Model S, was rolling at a "high speed" in a turn when it came out of the road over about 30 meters and hit a tree, explained the gendarme.The accident occurred at 11:25 p.m. local time in a residential area in Woodlands, a region about 50 km north of Houston.

The men, aged 59 and 69, were on the front passenger seat and the rear seat."A few minutes before the accident, the men's wives watched them go into the Tesla after talking about the automatic vehicle steering function," said the gendarme.

In a tweet, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, responds to the Wall Street Journal and says that the "automatic pilot" mode was not triggered."The data newspapers recovered so far show that the automatic driver has not been activated," he wrote.In addition, the standard automatic driver would require that the track lines be activated, which this street did not.»»

"Thermal runaway"

The causes of deaths were not clear on Sunday, especially due to the duration of the fire, said gendarme Herman."It took four hours to put out a fire that would have normally taken only a few minutes," said Agent Herman, adding that it took more than 30,000 gallons of water to extinguish the flames.

The batteries used in electric vehicles could be responsible.According to Mitchell Weston, which investigates the causes of the fire, the batteries are "generally safe" but the high -speed impacts can cause "thermal runaway", causing "uncontrolled contact" between different materials in the batteries.

The thermal runaway can cause fires, as well as a "reinforcement of the battery", even after the extinction of the first flames.

The United States Federal Agency responsible for road safety revealed last month that it was investigating nearly twenty accidents involving Tesla in automatic piloting.

Falling stock

The investigation will therefore have to determine whether or not the automatic pilot mode was activated and whether it is the cause of this dramatic accident.The company, whose share price lost more than 5% on Monday, did not wish to react.

Earlier in Saturday, Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, promoted a recent company security report, writing on Twitter that "with automatic piloting triggers, Tesla now has a riskaccident 10 times lower than the average vehicle.»»

According to the company, automatic management is the "future of driving".She claims that this function allows its vehicles to "go, accelerate and curb automatically on its way."However, Tesla warns that" the current autopilot functions require active supervision of the driver and do not make the vehicle autonomous.»»