Tesla driver says he was asleep on FSD before CHP crash

Two California Highway Patrol officers were seriously injured when a Tesla drove into their patrol car at a crash scene on Interstate 80 in Fairfield. The 22-year-old driver told investigators he had been asleep with Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" engaged, Electrek reports. CHP released dashcam video of the impact on Thursday.

What happened

• When and where: just before midnight on Tuesday, 13 October, on eastbound I-80 west of Air Base Parkway.
• Why officers were there: about an hour earlier, a 19-year-old from San Pablo lost control of his Honda Civic and was hit by a Chevrolet Tahoe. He died.
• The closure: four lanes were already shut behind flares and cones when the Tesla arrived at freeway speed, according to CHP.
• The impact: the car went through the closure and hit a Dodge Charger patrol car with both officers sitting inside. Cameras on the Charger and another vehicle recorded it.

The Tesla driver, from Sacramento, had minor injuries. Both crashes are still under investigation. CHP has not released the Tesla's model or software version, and for now the driver's statement is the only evidence that FSD was active. Tesla's vehicle logs should settle that.

In its statement, CHP said FSD is a driver-assistance feature that needs an alert driver in control: "Technology does not relieve drivers of their responsibility to safely operate their vehicles."

A familiar pattern

Teslas hitting emergency scenes are not new. In August 2021, the US safety regulator NHTSA opened an investigation after a series of Teslas on Autopilot crashed into stopped police cars and fire trucks. That probe led to a December 2023 recall of more than 2 million vehicles, fixed with an over-the-air update that added more driver-attention alerts. In June 2024, a Tesla on FSD hit a parked police car in Fullerton; that driver admitted to being on his phone.

FSD (Supervised) uses the cabin camera to check that the driver is watching the road and should warn, then disengage, if they aren't. Electrek says it's not yet known whether the driver had only just fallen asleep or the monitoring missed it. It also notes that Tesla agreed this month to stop using the "Full Self-Driving" name in Europe after German regulators called it misleading.

For more Tesla news, see the FSD v14.3.12 Halloween update and what we learned from the Roadster reveal. For a different approach to driverless cars, read about Waymo's plans for Toronto.