Tesla investigates another fatal crash, unclear whether autopilot involved

Car hit a tree at high speed and part of the battery pack caught on fire.

Jonathan M. Gitlin

Questions regarding the safety of Tesla's electric vehicles—and their ability to drive semi-autonomously—are being raised once again, following reports of a fatal crash on Wednesday morning in the town of Baarn, in the Netherlands. However there's no evidence as yet that Autopilot was involved when a Model S left the road at high speed and hit a tree.

The impact was sufficient to damage the Model S' battery pack enough that part of it ended up alight on the road surface. There are some reports in Dutch media that rescue attempts by the emergency services were hampered by this blaze, although it may just have been due to the nature of the wreck.

Tesla sent a representative to the crash site. The carmaker has said it will launch an investigation and that "[o]nce the outcome is known, Tesla will share with the audience," something it has done for other high-profile crashes. Wednesday's crash isn't the first to make news in the Netherlands, and in July the Dutch vehicle approval authority was reportedly looking into differences between European and US implementations of Autopilot.

That may have no relation to this crash—Tesla spotters online believe the EV was a 2013 model, which lacks some of the necessary hardware.

But even if wrecks involving Tesla EVs are considered newsworthy events, that should not be taken to mean the cars are inherently unsafe. No passenger vehicle is designed to safely hit a stationary object like a tree at high speed, and the sad outcome here would almost certainly be identical in any other car.