Three members of a family were forced to jump out of a Tesla in autopilot mode before the vehicle was hit by a train.
According to Jared Renshaw, fire commissioner of Berks County in southeastern Pennsylvania (USA), the car was in “autonomous” mode when it decided to drive toward the train tracks.
A few minutes after the family abandoned the car, a high-speed train passed on the tracks opposite to where the Tesla was “parked” and hit the car. Fortunately, the family was unharmed.
As shown in photos posted on social media by the company that towed the car, it was just a few inches from the train that hit it, though it was practically unscathed and only had a broken side mirror.
According to WFMZ, removing the car from the location was the most complicated part. The Tesla had to be lifted by a crane due to concerns that pushing it onto a platform could damage its highly flammable lithium-ion battery, which could lead to a catastrophic fire.
Despite its name, the Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode has made Tesla the automaker most prone to car accidents in the U.S. for two consecutive years. Last year, a similar incident involving a train occurred in Ohio.
The driver reported that his Tesla in FSD mode nearly collided directly with trains on two different occasions. In one of them, which happened in May 2024, he captured on video the exact moment he had to take control of the steering before his Tesla crashed head-on with a moving train.
Photo and video: Facebook / X @kumericarecords. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
A Tesla owner, Craig Doty II, recently shared a video of his vehicle failing to stop for a passing train while in Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode. The footage shows the vehicle approaching the train without slowing down, prompting Doty to take control and swerve through the railway… pic.twitter.com/uYhTRYlhMT
— Kumerica Records 🇬🇧 (@kumericarecords) May 21, 2024
