The owner of Tesla in the US died in a fire accident while driving a car early Technology News

A preliminary report from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Commission provided the most accurate account of the accident, but did not answer a key question: When did the driver of the car move behind the wheel in the back seat?

Last month, Tesla Inc. crashed into a tree. The owner of the Model S, who died along with a passenger, was behind the wheel when the car crashed before he left his home.

A home surveillance camera caught the owner entering the driver’s seat before the car slowly pulled away and accelerated, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Commission said in a first report Monday.

Houston neighborhood police initially said there appeared to be no one behind the wheel. The driver’s body was found in the back seat and another person was in the passenger seat after a fire.

Although the NTSB did not say exactly where the driver was still using the car, the preliminary report suggests that at least this was possible, prompting Tesla’s claims that the autopilot, its driver assistance technology, was not involved before the accident.

Investigators appeared to have activated the car’s automatic steering system. The NTSB test of a similar vehicle showed that other automated driving functions could be activated, but not the so-called Autosteer.

William Varner, 59, and Everette Talbot, 69, were killed when Model S hit a tree and set it on fire in The Woodlands, a wealthy Houston neighborhood. The terrible accident caused a great deal of attention.

Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, said in a call for the company’s latest earnings that the steering wheel was “deformed” because of the likelihood that someone would be in the driver’s seat when the accident occurred.

The NTSB’s preliminary report provided the most accurate report of the accident, but did not answer a key question: When did the driver of the car move behind the wheel in the back seat?

The NTSB said the home security camera caught the accident. “Before the car exits about 550 meters and exits a curve from the road, drive over the curb and head to a drainage fountain, an elevated hole and a tree,” the NTSB says in the report.

The impact damaged the front of the vehicle’s high-voltage lithium-ion battery, which is where the fire started for the first time, the NTSB said. Lithium-based batteries are highly flammable and difficult to extinguish, and the safety committee has been investigating the risks of battery fires for more than a decade.

An electronic system that activates the car’s airbags was badly damaged. Your device can provide information about speed, acceleration, seat belt status, and other data. NTSB has taken the device to a Washington lab in an attempt to extract the data.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Moravy did not respond to emails.

The NTSB said it would continue to study the dynamics of accidents, including “the results of post-mortem toxicology tests, the use of seat belts, the exit of occupants and fires in electric vehicles.”