KATY, Texas — A driver said his Tesla was on autopilot when it crashed into a home in Katy, Texas, killing a woman.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office said Michael Butler was operating his Model 3 “with an automated driving assistance system” around 8 p.m. local time on June 19, The New York Times reported.
Law enforcement said Butler “failed to drive in a single lane, left the roadway and struck the residence” and that the vehicle “entered through the brick residence at a high rate of speed,” hitting Martha Avila, who was standing in the front room of the house, according to the Times.
She was flown to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Butler, according to the sheriff’s office, showed no signs of intoxication and was cooperative with investigators.
NBC News said he was injured and taken to an area hospital for treatment.
The New York Times reached out to Tesla for comment on the crash and the vehicle’s software.
But Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted to social media that the crash “makes no sense.”
“FSD drives slowly through neighborhood streets and this was a high speed crash!” he wrote. FSD stands for Full Self-Driving (Supervised), or its partially automated driving system. Tesla warns drivers that when using the system, drivers are required “to pay attention to the road and be ready to take over at all times,” CNBC reported.
Tesla Vice President of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy said on X, “In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area,” he wrote. “They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into the crash, CNBC reported.
© 2026 Cox Media Group
