By Michael Elkins
An April 6th accident involving a truck fitted with TuSimple (NASDAQ:TSP) autonomous driving technology has garnered attention from safety regulators following a June report that contradicts the company’s claim that the accident was caused by human error.
An internal TuSimple report, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, said the semi-tractor truck abruptly veered left because a person in the cab hadn’t properly rebooted the autonomous driving system before engaging it, causing it to execute an outdated command. The internal account reported that the left-turn command was 2 1/2 minutes old and should have been erased from the system but wasn’t.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University said it was the autonomous-driving system that turned the wheel and that blaming the entire accident on human error is misleading.
“This information shows that the testing they are doing on public roads is highly unsafe,” said Phil Koopman, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon who has contributed to international safety standards for autonomous vehicles, referring to the company’s disclosures.
TuSimple said that after the accident, it modified its autonomous-driving system so that a human can’t engage it unless the computer system is fully functional. A move that was described by a former employee as “long overdue.”
The TuSimple spokesman, in response, said the April accident was the only one in which a company truck was responsible for an accident.
TSP is down 8.75% in mid-day trading.