Police say a Tesla ran a red light in downtown Salt Lake City recently resulting in a fiery crash that critically injured three individuals. Authorities have not determined if Elon Musk’s “Autopilot” was involved in the crash.
Deseret News reports that on Sunday, Salt Lake City police stated that three individuals have been critically injured after a Tesla vehicle ran a red light and collided with another car in downtown Salt Lake City. After the crash, the Tesla’s batteries exploded, causing a fire.
Salt Lake Police Lt. Brett Olsen told the Deseret News that the vehicle was “traveling at a high rate of speed” in a westward direction and drove through a red light when the crash occurred in downtown Salt Lake City. Two men in the Tesla and one woman from the vehicle the Tesla hit were taken local hospitals in critical condition.
Following the crash, the Tesla’s batteries began to explode, resulting in first responders calling in a hazardous material team to take care of the batteries. The front of the Tesla appears to be burned out in photos taken at the scene of the crash.
The crash is still currently under investigation but police do not suspect that driver impairment was a factor in the accident. It was recently reported that the NHTSA will begin investigating a crash involving a Tesla in Los Angeles which resulted in the deaths of two people. NHTSA spokesman Sean Rushton refused to clarify whether or not the Tesla Model S involved in the crash was on Autopilot when it crashed on December 29 in Gardena.
In that incident, the Tesla vehicle reportedly left the freeway at a high speed and ran a red light, colliding with a Honda Civic in an intersection. A man and woman in the Honda Civic were killed in the collision. A man and woman in the Tesla were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries and no arrests were made at the scene.
The NHTSA said in a statement that it has assigned a special crash investigation team to inspect the Tesla vehicle and the crash scene which has investigated 13 crashes of Elon Musk’s cars that the NHTSA believed were operating on the Autopilot system at the time of the crashes. The results of investigations in ten other cases are still pending.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com