National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators may never know why the driver of a Tesla failed to heed alerts for him to put his hands on the steering wheel in the minutes before a fatal crash.
The ongoing inquiry into the accident on U.S. Highway 1010 in Mountain View, California on March 23, 2018 has determined that the Tesla provided two visual alerts and one auditory alert for the driver to place his hands on the steering wheel more than 15 minutes before the crash. Although the driver’s hands were detected on the steering wheel for a total of 34 seconds, on three separate occasions, in the 60 seconds before impact, the vehicle did not detect the driver’s hands on the steering wheel in the six seconds before the crash.