Joshua D. Brown, a tech company owner, who was killed on May 7 when his Tesla Model S sedan hit a tractor trailer, was watching a Harry Potter movie when he became the first person to die in a crash involving a vehicle in self-driving mode. As reported by the Associated Press, his car’s cameras failed to distinguish the white side of the truck, which was turning, from a brightly lit sky and didn’t activate its brakes as a result.
Just a month earlier, Brown had praised the Autopilot feature for helping him avoid a crash on a highway in Florida.
BREAKING: After truck driver suspected Tesla driver in fatal crash was watching a video, police say DVD player found pic.twitter.com/qoZjd6jt62
— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) July 1, 2016