A 76-year-old Texas woman was killed inside her own home after a Tesla Model 3 operating on Autopilot mode veered off the road and crashed through the side of her residence in Katy, Harris County.
Martha Avila, 76, never saw it coming. She was inside her home in Katy, Texas, on Friday night when a Tesla Model 3 barrelled through the wall and struck her. She was airlifted to hospital. She didn’t make it.
According to a press release from the Harris County Sheriff’s Department, as reported by Fox News, driver Michael Butler was travelling eastbound on a residential street when he failed to maintain his lane, left the road and crashed through the side of Avila’s home at high speed — all captured on Ring doorbell footage. Butler told authorities he was using Autopilot mode at the time. He was hospitalised but showed no signs of intoxication and is cooperating with investigators.
Tesla’s own website is unambiguous on driver responsibility. “Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability are intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment,” it states. “The currently enabled features do not make the vehicle autonomous.”
That disclaimer, however, offers cold comfort. This isn’t an isolated incident. In 2023, Tesla recalled over two million vehicles following a two-year NHTSA investigation into multiple Autopilot-related crashes.
A grandmother is dead. A community is shaken. And the Autopilot debate just got a lot harder to ignore.
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