Tesla’s head of artificial intelligence and autopilot Andrej Karpathy is leaving the company at a critical time – as it faces renewed probes over crashes and growing scrutiny.
‘It’s been a great pleasure to help Tesla towards its goals over the last 5 years and a difficult decision to part ways. In that time, Autopilot graduated from lane keeping to city streets and I look forward to seeing the exceptionally strong Autopilot team continue that momentum,’ he wrote on Twitter, noting that he has no plans for what’s next.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk replied to thank him for his work at the company.
The leadership change comes at a challenging time, as Tesla faces renewed scrutiny from US regulators over crashes involving drivers who used Autopilot and works to expand the latest version of Full Self Driving (FSD) to a larger number of customers.
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Tesla’s head of artificial intelligence and autopilot Andrej Karpathy, pictured above at a conference, is leaving the company at a critical time – as it faces renewed probes over crashes and growing scrutiny.
For example, investigators are probing the death of a woman who was struck by a Tesla driver, 39, who was reportedly high on drugs and driving on Autopilot when the car went airborne and hit her.
A man was charged with vehicular manslaughter, according to reports from NBC 7 San Diego.
The case is believed to have involved Frank Shoaf, who was high from huffing – inhaling household items – while driving on Othello Avenue around 8.30am. He admitted to police that he had run the red light, hit a dip, which caused him to go airborne two feet, before he hit Cassandra May, 40.
After Shoaf struck her, her body reportedly was lunched seven to eight feet in the air before landing 25 feet away. Her was transported to the hospital, where she later died.
US regulators are investigating the death of a woman who was struck by a Tesla driver, 39, who was reportedly high on drugs and driving on Autopilot when the car went airborne and hit her (pictured: A California Tesla crash, where the vehicle went airborne)
Tesla began offering a beta FSD in October 2020 and expanded it in December of the following year – and ever since, Musk has promised a wider rollout as the challenging technology is beset by delays and reports of Autopilot-involved crashes.
The NHTSA had previously opened 35 special crash investigations involving Tesla vehicles in which advanced driver assistance systems like Autopilot were suspected of being used since 2016.
Although the NHTSA did not name the specific crash, it is believed to have involved Frank Shoaf, (pictured) who struck and killed Cassandra May, 40, in June after he was high from huffing – inhaling household items
The NHTSA typically opens more than 100 special crash investigations annually into emerging technologies and other potential auto safety issues that have, for instance, previously helped to develop safety rules on air bags.
A total of 15 crash deaths have been reported in those Tesla investigations, including the most recent incident.
Separately, the NHTSA told Reuters it was aware of ‘and in discussions with Tesla’ regarding a Florida crash on Wednesday that killed a 66-year-old Tesla driver and a 67-year-old passenger.
A 2015 Tesla rear-ended a tractor-trailer in the Gainesville area at a rest area off Interstate 75, the Florida Highway Patrol said in a police report. Both people in the Tesla were pronounced dead at the scene.
In June, the NHTSA upgraded its defect probe into 830,000 Tesla (TSLA.O) vehicles with Autopilot, a required step before it could seek a recall.
The NHTSA opened a preliminary evaluation to assess the performance of the system in 765,000 vehicles after about a dozen crashes in which Tesla vehicles struck stopped emergency vehicles – and said last month it had identified six additional crashes.
The NHTSA Administrator Steven Cliff told Reuters last week he wanted to complete the Tesla Autopilot investigation ‘as quickly as we possibly can, but I also want to get it right. There’s a lot of information that we need to comb through.