Next Autopilot trial to test Tesla's blame-the-driver defense

FILE PHOTO: Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk gets in a Tesla car as he leaves a hotel in Beijing, China May 31, 2023. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo

(Reuters) - Six weeks before the first fatal U.S. accident involving Tesla's Autopilot in 2016, the automaker's president Jon McNeill tried it out in a Model X and emailed feedback to automated-driving chief Sterling Anderson, cc’ing Elon Musk.

The system performed perfectly, McNeill wrote, with the smoothness of a human driver.