A Tesla vehicle went off the road and hit a tree in the Houston area on Saturday, causing the car to burst into flames and leaving two men dead. Firefighters spent hours trying to put out the flames as the vehicle’s lithium ion batteries kept reigniting the blaze.
Police in Harris County said the position of the bodies in the wreck appeared to indicate that no one was in the driver’s seat of the Model S at the time of the accident as one man was sitting in the passenger seat and the other in the back seat.
Authorities are investigating whether the car’s advanced Autopilot driver assistance system was activated at the time.