CONCERNING FAILURE

Grandmother, 76, Killed When Tesla on Autopilot Crashes Into House

The driver said he was using his car’s automated system when the car careened off the road.

A grandmother was killed when a Tesla in self-driving mode veered off a Texas road and slammed into her home as she stood in her front room. Martha Avila, 76, was inside her house in Katy, Texas, about 30 miles west of Houston, when the car came barreling through her brick wall on Friday night. The driver, Michael Butler, was behind the wheel of a Tesla Model 3 and using “an automated driving assistance system” at around 8 p.m. local time, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement reported by The New York Times. Butler “failed to drive in a single lane, left the roadway and struck the residence,” the sheriff’s office said. The car “entered through the brick residence at a high rate of speed” and hit Avila, who was rushed to a hospital by medical helicopter and was later pronounced dead. Butler showed no signs of intoxication and cooperated with investigators. “We’re still evaluating what caused that car to fail to control its speed just before this crash,” Sgt. Alex Turman of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office told ABC13 Houston. In 2023, Tesla recalled more than 2 million vehicles after federal regulators said the company had not done enough to ensure drivers stayed attentive while using the autopilot function. A GoFundMe set up in Avila’s name had raised more than $23,000 at the time of publication.