Inside the final seconds of a deadly Tesla Autopilot crash
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Inside the final seconds of a deadly Tesla Autopilot crash

The sun had yet to rise in Delray Beach, Fla., when Jeremy Banner flicked on Autopilot. His red Tesla Model 3 sped down the highway at nearly 70 mph, his hands no longer detected on the wheel.

Seconds later, the Tesla plowed into a semi-truck, shearing off its roof as it slid under the truck’s trailer. Banner was killed on impact.

Banner’s family sued after the gruesome 2019 collision, one of at least 10 active lawsuits involving Tesla’s Autopilot, several of which are expected to go to court over the next year. Together, the cases could determine whether the driver is solely responsible when things go wrong in a vehicle guided by Autopilot — or whether the software should also bear some of the blame.

The outcome could prove critical for Tesla, which has pushed increasingly capable driver-assistance technology onto the nation’s roadways far more rapidly than any other major carmaker. If Tesla prevails, the company could continue deploying the evolving technology with few legal consequences or regulatory guardrails. Multiple verdicts against the company, however, could threaten both Tesla’s reputation and its financial viability.

Jeremy Banner. (Family photo)

According to an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Banner, a 50-year-old father of four, should have been watching the road on that March morning. He agreed to Tesla’s terms and conditions of operating on Autopilot and was provided with an owner’s manual, which together warn of the technology’s limitations and state that the driver is ultimately responsible for the trajectory of the car.

But lawyers for Banner’s family say Tesla should shoulder some responsibility for the crash. Along with former transportation officials and other experts, they say the company’s marketing of Autopilot exaggerates its capabilities, creating a false sense of complacency that can lead to deadly crashes. That argument is echoed in several Autopilot-related cases, where plaintiffs say they believed Tesla’s claims that Autopilot was “safer than a human-operated vehicle.”

A Washington Post analysis of federal data found that vehicles guided by Autopilot have been involved in more than 700 crashes, at least 19 of them fatal, since its introduction in 2014, including the Banner crash. In Banner’s case, the technology failed repeatedly, his family’s lawyers argue, from when it didn’t brake to when it didn’t issue a warning about the semi-truck in the car’s path.

To reconstruct the crash, The Post relied on hundreds of court documents, dash cam photos and a video of the crash taken from a nearby farm, as well as satellite imagery, NTSB crash assessment documents and diagrams, and Tesla’s internal data log, which the NTSB included in its investigation report. The Post’s reconstruction found that braking just 1.6 seconds before impact could have avoided the collision.

Friday, March 1, 2019, starts like any workday for Banner, a software engineer who heads to work in his 2018 Tesla Model 3 around 5:50 a.m.

At 6:16 a.m., Banner sets cruise control to a maximum of 69 mph, though the speed limit on U.S. 441 is 55. He turns on Autopilot 2.4 seconds later.

A standard Autopilot notice flashes on the screen: “Please keep your hands on the wheel. Be prepared to take over at any time.”

According to Tesla’s user documentation, Autopilot wasn’t designed to work on a highway with cross-traffic such as U.S. 441. But drivers sometimes can activate it in areas and under conditions for which it is not designed.

Two seconds later, the Tesla’s data log registers no “driver-applied wheel torque,” meaning Banner’s hands cannot be detected on the wheel.

If Autopilot does not detect a driver’s hands, it flashes a warning. In this case, given Banner’s speed, the warning would have come after about 25 seconds, according to the NTSB investigation.

Banner does not have that long.

From a side road, a truck driver begins to cross U.S. 441, slowing but failing to fully stop at a stop sign.

The truck enters the Tesla’s lane of traffic.

Two seconds later — just before impact — the Tesla’s forward-facing camera captures this image of the truck.

The car does not warn Banner of the obstacle. “According to Tesla, the Autopilot vision system did not consistently detect and track the truck as an object or threat as it crossed the path of the car,” the NTSB crash report says.

The Tesla continues barreling toward the tractor-trailer at nearly 69 mph. Neither Banner nor Autopilot activates the brakes.

The Tesla slams into the truck, and its roof is ripped off as it passes under the trailer. Banner is killed instantly.



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