The Third Tesla Autopilot Crash Has Just Been Reported

A third crash in less than a fortnight is being blamed on Tesla’s Autopilot system.

The latest smash, which occurred in the USA like the others, involved the driver of a Model X who claims the system let the car leave the road and smash into a wooden guard rail, reportedly doing heavy damage to the right hand side of the car.

However, the driver has admitted that he was using the system on a road without markings, which Tesla itself says the Autopilot system isn’t designed to deal with. It’s possible that the system turned itself off and that the driver simply wasn’t paying enough attention to take charge before it all went wrong.

A series of low-res photographs were uploaded to the Tesla Motors Club forum, showing heavy damage including a wheel apparently ripped away from the car.

This incident in Montana comes in the wake of the death of a Model S driver who was killed in Florida when neither he nor his car saw a truck that was turning across their path. A second Autopilot accident involved a roll-over crash in Pennsylvania, thankfully without injury.

Tesla still insists that Autopilot is in its Beta testing stage and won’t be ready to be finalised until the system collectively covers at least a billion miles.

The company is yet to release a statement following the latest accident.