Angela Chao phoned a friend as the Model X SUV sank into a pond at a ranch and told her: "I love you."

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”.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
    195·
    8 months ago

    A funny part of this whole thing that isn’t discussed… Why isn’t the “intelligent robot car” equipped with anything to stop you from doing any of the shit that led to this? Fucking snake oil bullshit.

    • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
      51·
      8 months ago

      You really don’t want an automated system to have complete, unbreakable control over a scenario. You always want the option for a human to manually take control, because automation isn’t foolproof, especially in edge cases.

      However, they probably should have a breathalyzer that prevents you from taking manual control if you’re so impaired that the automated system is probably safer than your drunken judgement.

      • Snapz@lemmy.world
        61·
        8 months ago

        You’re missing the point, I didn’t say full autonomous control. There are thousands of intermediate steps that could be involved - from escalating light/audio warnings, to auto lowering of the Windows or popping doors slightly to relieve pressure when significant water is sensed within car’s internals for a sustained period of time to maybe even a temp limit of a vehicle speed/control while it’s moving under a certain speed towards a sensed danger and not on a road/highway.

        The bigger point is that musk snake oil cars are sold with the vapor of “smart” and this did nothing smart to help save this woman’s life, in fact it sealed her into her avoidable death due to poor design and profound lack of several basic and easy to implement potential “smart” features that could have attempted to warn or intervene.