A Tesla plowed through a closed-off crash scene on eastbound Interstate 80 in Fairfield, California, late Tuesday, Oct. 13, and hit a California Highway Patrol car with two officers inside. The 22-year-old driver from Sacramento told investigators he had been asleep with Tesla's Full Self-Driving engaged, CHP said.
CHP released dashcam video of the impact on Thursday, Oct. 15. Both officers were seriously injured and are recovering. The Tesla driver had minor injuries, CBS Sacramento reported.
What happened
Officers were working an earlier crash west of Air Base Parkway that killed a 19-year-old San Pablo man about an hour before. Four lanes were closed with flares and cones.
CHP said the Tesla drove into the closure at freeway speed and struck a Dodge Charger patrol car. Dashcams on the patrol car and another vehicle at the scene caught the impact.
What CHP and Tesla's rules say
CHP stressed that despite its name, FSD is a driver-assistance feature that requires the driver to stay alert and in control. "Technology does not relieve drivers of their responsibility to safely operate their vehicles," CHP said.
CHP has not released the Tesla model or software version. For now, the driver's account is the only evidence FSD was on, Electrek noted; Tesla's vehicle logs would show it. Tesla had not commented publicly as of Friday morning.
Why it matters for Tesla
Crashes into lit-up emergency scenes are the exact scenario NHTSA began investigating in August 2021. That probe ended with Tesla's December 2023 over-the-air recall of more than 2 million vehicles to add driver-attention alerts, Electrek reported.
FSD (Supervised) uses the cabin camera to check that the driver is watching the road. How a sleeping driver went unflagged is not yet known.
For another Tesla driver-assist crash under federal scrutiny, see our report on Tesla's NHTSA filing on the Vineland, N.J., crash.