Shipping tycoon Angela Chao was drunk when she inadvertently reversed her Tesla into a pond and drowned last month at a Texas ranch, police say.
Blanco County Sheriff’s Office found her blood alcohol level was nearly three times the state’s legal limit.
The 50-year-old died after dinner on 10 February with a group of friends at the estate near Johnson City.
Her brother-in-law, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, cited the tragedy in his resignation speech.
On Wednesday, Blanco County Sheriff’s Office released the findings of its investigation concluding Ms Chao’s death was an “unfortunate accident”.
She did everything wrong that she could have done. I’m going to assume even sober she never read the manual and learned where the manual door releases are.
I am kind of surprised that in 2024 vehicles don’t have drop detect sensors but our Roombas do. For 99% of driving of you detect a dropoff, some sort of active brake should be applied…
You hit a pot hole on the highway and now you’re stopping in the middle of it.
That’s why they don’t exist on vehicles, there’s lots of cases where they drop and still need to keep moving, while only a couple where it should stop, and in those cases it’s usually too late and won’t help.
Well no, obviously there’s a maximum speed. Just like parking sensors have different distance warnings when driving versus parking.
And on a Tesla with so much vision, it should really know the topography.
At speed is when you would need the active breaking…
And great now my car stopped in the parking lot from every speed bump…,
Can you provide a usecase where active breaking from a drop would actually help?