They do have a steering wheel sensor. And yes, it can be defeated.
Per the article this happened on a cul de sac in a residential neighborhood. My question is how on earth they managed to get the vehicle to a fatal speed in that environment (seriously: Google the address, there's almost no runway available). It seems likely they were playing with launch mode and not autopilot, or perhaps manually messing with the accelerator from the passenger seat.
This definitely doesn't smell like an "autopilot" failure, though we'll have to wait for details.
(In fact as others are pointing out based on the location of the damage: it actually seems not unlikely that there was a human driver who fled the scene.)
Well Teslas are known for their incredible acceleration, and then if the occupants weren’t wearing seatbelts, even a relatively low speed crash can cause severe injury.
Tesla autopilot doesn't exploit that, though. The question is how they launched the car, and how they managed to launch it into a tree. You just can't do that with autopilot to my eyes.
How fast would they need to be going for this to be fatal? I could definitely see autopilot missing this turn and crashing into the tree, and it’s possible they were trapped inside rather than killed on impact.
The whole front corner wrapped around the tree. That's a highway-style crash, so figure 50+ mph I'm guessing? I have a hard time imagining the front passenger survived the impact given the way the cockpit collapsed, but maybe the back passenger was trapped.
Per the article this happened on a cul de sac in a residential neighborhood. My question is how on earth they managed to get the vehicle to a fatal speed in that environment (seriously: Google the address, there's almost no runway available). It seems likely they were playing with launch mode and not autopilot, or perhaps manually messing with the accelerator from the passenger seat.
This definitely doesn't smell like an "autopilot" failure, though we'll have to wait for details.
(In fact as others are pointing out based on the location of the damage: it actually seems not unlikely that there was a human driver who fled the scene.)