Probe: Crashed Tesla autopilot was speeding

The Tesla electric car driving in semi-autonomous mode when it crashed and killed its driver was speeding just ahead of impact with a tractor-trailer, a preliminary probe showed Tuesday.

The National Transportation Safety Board said its preliminary findings showed the Tesla was travelling at 119 kilometres per hour ahead of impact, but noted that investigators have not yet completed an analysis of the crash data or assigned a cause for the fatal collision.

The car was driving in excess of the posted speed limit of 65 miles per hour before the crash.

“All aspects of the crash remain under investigation,” the NTSB said in a statement on its review of the May 7 fatality, which raised concerns about the safety of the rapidly growing field of autonomous driving technology.

The NTSB said the driver was using the advanced driver assistance features called Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer lane keeping assistance.

It was also equipped with automatic emergency braking that is designed to automatically apply the brakes to reduce the severity of or assist in avoiding frontal collisions.

Tesla earlier in June had acknowledged the crash and said its sensors failed to pick up the white side of the truck against a brightly lit sky.

With the truck crossing the divided highway, the impact sheared off the top of the car and killed the driver.