The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced on June 22 that it has opened a special collision investigation into a Tesla accident in Katy, Texas. A Model 3 veered off the road and crashed into a home, killing Martha Avila, 76. According to CNBC, Harris County authorities said the driver, Michael Butler, is cooperating with the investigation and stated that he was using Tesla’s semi-autonomous driver assistance system at the time of the crash. Since 2016, NHTSA has opened special collision investigations into over 36 incidents involving Tesla’s advanced driver assistance or semi-autonomous driving systems; Autopilot became standard on new vehicles that same year. In February, Tesla renamed „Autopilot“ under legal pressure from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, after a California court and the regulator had previously deemed the name misleading.
This accident is not an isolated case. In May, another Tesla rear-ended a vehicle and then crashed into a home in Claremont, California, injuring six people. Witnesses said the driver indicated he was using Autopilot at the time. The independent website TeslaDeaths.com, which tracks data from news reports, police records, and federal data, shows that between 2013 and 2025, at least 65 fatal accidents listed Autopilot or the supervised version of FSD as a contributing factor. This investigation was launched as Elon Musk is trying to maintain investor confidence in Tesla’s robotaxi plans; on the day the accident news was announced, Tesla’s stock still closed up 1.14%.