Tesla driver's death using car's 'Autopilot' probed by NHTSA

WASHINGTON (AP) — A driver so enamored of his Tesla Model S sedan that he nicknamed the car "Tessy" and praised the safety benefits of its sophisticated "Autopilot" system has become the first U.S. fatality in a wreck involving a car in self-driving mode.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced the driver's death Thursday, and said it is investigating the design and performance of the Autopilot system.

Joshua D. Brown of Canton, Ohio, the 40-year-old owner of a technology company, was killed May 7 in Williston, Florida, when his car's cameras failed to distinguish the white side of a turning tractor-trailer from a brightly lit sky and didn't automatically activate its brakes, according to statements by the government and the automaker.

Brown was an enthusiastic booster of his 2015 Tesla Model S and in April praised its sophisticated Autopilot system for avoiding a crash when a commercial truck swerved into his lane on an interstate.

Tesla didn't identify Brown but described him in a statement as "a friend to Tesla and the broader EV (electric vehicle) community, a person who spent his life focused on innovation and the promise of technology and who believed strongly in Tesla's mission."

Preliminary reports indicate the crash occurred when Baressi's rig turned left in front of Brown's Tesla at an intersection of a divided highway southwest of Gainesville, Florida, where there was no traffic light, NHTSA said.

By the time firefighters arrived, the wreckage of the Tesla — with its roof sheared off completely — had come to rest in a nearby yard hundreds of feet from the crash site, assistant chief Danny Wallace of the Williston Fire Department told the AP.