Tesla’s onboard vehicle logs showed that Autopilot was not engaged during the Model X crash that occurred in Pennsylvania earlier this month, according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk.




The point was in dispute, as the driver of the car, art dealer Albert Scaglione, claimed that the semi-autonomous system was active before and during the crash, with Tesla stating that it had no reason to believe it was on. Tesla said it could not be fully sure, however, until it had physical access to the onboard vehicle logs.

In a tweet, Musk said that the onboard logs backed the company up:


The incident prompted the NHTSA to investigate whether or not the system was truly on. Scaglione has since been cited by the Pennsylvania State Police for careless driving.

The second part of Musk’s Tweet, where he claims that the crash would not have occurred if Autopilot was on, is a bit of a bold claim that can’t really be backed up until further data is released.

A Tesla spokesperson has told Jalopnik:

We got access to the logs. Data from the vehicle shows that Autosteer was not engaged at the time of this collision. Prior to the collision, Autosteer was in use periodically throughout the approximately 50-minute trip. The most recent such use ended when, approximately 40 seconds prior to the collision, the vehicle did not detect the driver’s hands on the wheel and began a rapidly escalating set of visual and audible alerts to ensure the driver took proper control. When the driver failed to respond to 15 seconds of visual warnings and audible tones, Autosteer began a graceful abort procedure in which the music is muted, the vehicle begins to slow and the driver is instructed both visually and audibly to place their hands on the wheel. Approximately 11 seconds prior to the collision, the driver responded and regained control by holding the steering wheel, applying leftward torque to turn it, and pressing the accelerator pedal to 42%. Over 10 seconds and approximately 300m later and while under manual steering control, the driver drifted out of the lane, collided with a barrier, overcorrected, crossed both lanes of the highway, struck a median barrier, and rolled the vehicle.