Elon Musk claims fatal crash was not on ‘Full Self-Driving Beta’ after Tesla said the logs were lost
Elon Musk has claimed that a fatal crash reported by The Washington Post yesterday was not on ‘Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta’ after Tesla told the police that they couldn’t confirm it because the logs were lost.
Now, he goes as far as claiming that FSD Beta would have saved the Tesla employee.
Yesterday, we reported on a horrible accident involving a Tesla employee, Hans von Ohain, and his friend Erik Rossiter.
The duo was returning from a day of golfing outside Denver when von Ohain’s Tesla Model 3 crashed into a tree. Rossiter was able to exit the vehicle as it was catching on fire, but unfortunately, von Ohain was stuck in it as a tree was blocking the driver’s door. He died inside the vehicle.
The crash happened almost two years ago, but it was only reported now after The Washington Post obtained the police investigation that came following the crash. The publication talked to the officer leading the investigation, Rossiter, the only witness, and Von Ohain’s loved ones.
The cause of the crash was clear: von Ohain was intoxicated. An autopsy found that he died with a blood alcohol level of 0.26 — more than three times the legal limit. But the police also wanted to investigated the potential factor of advanced driver assist feature as Rossiter told the first responder right away that the driver was using an “auto drive feature on the Tesla.”
Rossiter said that Von Ohain was using “Full Self-Driving” on the way to golf and back. His family also said that he was an avid user of the feature.
In fact, Nora Bass, his wife, said that he used it almost every time and she herself didn’t use on the car because she was uncomfortable with it:
Von Ohain used Full Self-Driving nearly every time he got behind the wheel, Bass said, placing him among legions of Tesla boosters heeding Musk’s call to generate data and build the technology’s mastery. While Bass refused to use the feature herself — she said its unpredictability stressed her out — her husband was so confident in all it promised that he even used it with their baby in the car.
Everything points to Von Ohain having and using FSD Beta, but Tesla said it couldn’t confirm it through the logs.
The police didn’t have access to the logs because the car completely burned down and Tesla says that the car didn’t beam them over-the-air amid the crash:
Colorado police were unable to access data from the car because of the intensity of the fire, according to the investigation report, and Tesla said it could not confirm that a driver-assistance system had been in use because it “did not receive data over-the-air for this incident.” Madden said the remote location may have hindered communications.
Again, that was found through the police investigation which happened over the last almost two years since the crash.
Now that it becomes public, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has claimed that the car didn’t even have FSD Beta:
Interestingly, Tesla even reported the crash to NHTSA to confirm that “a driver-assistance feature had been in use at least 30 seconds before impact”:
However, Tesla did report the crash to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. According to NHTSA, Tesla received notification of the crash through an unspecified “complaint” and alerted federal authorities that a driver-assistance feature had been in use at least 30 seconds before impact.
They didn’t specify which feature and NHTSA couldn’t confirm it either.
Electrek’s Take
Again, as I wrote yesterday, there’s no doubt that the driver is responsible for this crash, and it was a bad decision to get behind the wheel after drinking.
However, I think it’s still important to point out the issue of people behind overconfident with Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD beta features. We have seen plenty of accidents happened, intoxication or not, that appear to stem from driver not paying enough attention because they believe too much in what is only a package of level 2 driver-assist features despite the package’s name.
Now, as for this particular case and whether or not FSD Beta or Autopilot were involved, I see a lot of red flag. The family has been clear. The only witness has been clear, and Tesla has had almost two years of collaborating with the police. It couldn’t tell the police whether FSD Beta was involved or not, and yet, Elon can now tell the public it wasn’t. Red flag.
Also, Tesla told the police that the logs were lost, but it could tell NHTSA that “a driver-assistance feature had been in use at least 30 seconds before impact.” Red flag.
Tesla is required to report crashes involving ADAS features.
Again, don’t drink and drive. That’s obvious. But also, don’t believe that Tesla’s FSD package is going to help you drive while paying less attention to the road or being impaired. It won’t. I might be able to concede that driving with FSD Beta is safer than without as long as you are being as or more vigilant than you would be not using the feature.
If you are not as vigilant because you see this as some kind of crutch, it is more dangerous than driving without it.
I know that when I talk about FSD Beta to people who don’t know much about it, one of the first things that often comes up is, “Oh cool, now the car can drive you home when you are drunk”. That’s a thought that Tesla needs to squash and it doesn’t help when Elon goes out there saying that FSD Beta would have “probably” avoided that accident.
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Tesla’s Supercharger network — already the most reliable fast-charging network in the world — just became a little easier to use. Google Maps now displays live availability data for Tesla Superchargers, showing how many stalls are currently available at each location.
The new integration means users can now see real-time charger status directly inside Google Maps, similar to what Tesla owners have long seen inside their vehicles or in the Tesla app.
When searching for a Supercharger, Maps now lists the total number of stalls and how many are available at that moment. It’s the same information Tesla provides through its own navigation system, but now visible to anyone using Google Maps — Tesla owner or not.
Latest step in opening up Tesla’s Supercharger network
This might look like a small change, but it’s another sign that Tesla is steadily opening up parts of its once-exclusive charging ecosystem.
The company has already begun integrating non-Tesla EVs into its Supercharger network across North America – first through the short-lived Magic Dock and then through the NACS rollout.
While this update is not particularly useful for Tesla owners, who already have this data in the in-vehicle navigation or the app, making real-time charger data available on Google Maps makes perfect sense for non-Tesla EV owners.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla has always led when it comes to charging reliability at Supercharger stations – hence why opening up the network to non-Tesla EV owners in North America over the last 2 years has been such a big deal.
But next to having non-functioning chargers, there’s nothing worse than showing up at a charging station and it is fully used.
Now, if EV owners are planning their trips through Google Maps, they will be able to avoid that more easily.
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The International Energy Agency (IEA) says renewables and AI are reshaping the world’s energy future, and that transformation is happening faster than anyone expected. In its new “World Energy Outlook 2025,” the IEA warns that energy security risks now stretch far beyond oil and gas. Critical minerals essential to clean tech, defense, and AI have become the new fault lines in global supply chains. The IEA also states that energy has become a central focus of geopolitical power struggles, making it one of the defining economic and security challenges of our time.
A more complex, electrified future
The IEA’s annual “World Energy Outlook” explores three possible scenarios for the future, emphasizing that none are predictions. Instead, they’re roadmaps that show what could happen depending on the choices governments and industries make on policy, technology, and investment.
Across every scenario, one theme stands out: electricity demand is surging faster than for any other form of energy. Electricity currently accounts for only about 20% of global energy use, yet it powers more than 40% of the global economy. Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said the trend is accelerating: “Last year, we said the world was moving quickly into the Age of Electricity – and it’s clear today that it has already arrived.”
Driving that growth are data centers, AI, and electrification across transportation, heating, and manufacturing. Global data center investment alone is expected to hit $580 billion in 2025 – even higher than the $540 billion the world will spend on oil supply.
Shifting global energy dynamics
Emerging economies, led by India and Southeast Asia, are now shaping energy markets that were once dominated by China. These regions are experiencing a rapid increase in demand for power, mobility, and industrial energy use. By 2035, 80% of global energy consumption growth is expected to come from countries with high solar potential.
At the same time, the IEA warns that grid expansion and storage aren’t keeping up with this growth. While investments in power generation have jumped nearly 70% since 2015, spending on transmission and distribution has risen at less than half that pace. The agency calls for urgent grid upgrades and stronger government coordination to prevent future electricity bottlenecks.
Renewables and nuclear on the rise
Solar leads the charge across all IEA scenarios, with renewables growing at a faster rate than any other energy source. Nuclear energy is also making a comeback: after two decades of stagnation, global nuclear capacity is projected to increase by at least a third by 2035, thanks to both large-scale projects and small modular reactor designs.
Dave Jones, chief analyst at global energy think tank Ember, said, “The world is moving in the right direction, and continued acceleration can drive a more rapid transformation of the energy system. Renewables and electrification will dominate the future – and fossil-importing nations will gain the most by embracing them.”
Energy access and climate urgency
The IEA highlights two critical areas where the world is falling short: universal access to energy and climate goals. Roughly 730 million people still live without electricity, and nearly 2 billion rely on polluting cooking methods. Even in the agency’s most ambitious pathways, global temperatures surpass 1.5C of warming before potentially returning below that level later in the century.
Meanwhile, the effects of climate change are already disrupting energy systems. In 2023 alone, over 200 million households worldwide were affected by energy infrastructure failures, with transmission lines accounting for about 85% of incidents. The IEA says governments must prioritize resilience not only against extreme weather but also against cyberattacks and supply chain shocks.
Birol summed it up: “When we look at the history of the energy world in recent decades, there is no other time when energy security tensions have applied to so many fuels and technologies at once. With energy security front and center for many governments, their responses need to consider the synergies and trade-offs that can arise with other policy goals – on affordability, access, competitiveness, and climate change.”
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