A Tesla electric vehicle reportedly steered itself onto train tracks that it apparently mistook for a road in northern California, according to police, in the latest mishap blamed on the company's Autopilot technology.
Police in suburban Woodland, outside the state capital of Sacramento, released a photo of the wayward car stopped on the tracks running along a nearby roadway.
"This morning, there was an incident where Autopilot mistook train tracks for a road, posing a serious danger," the Woodland Police Department said earlier this week on Facebook.
Further details weren't disclosed and authorities said the account of the incident came from the unidentified "involved party or parties."
"We have not verified their accuracy and the traffic investigation is pending," police said. "We provided this information as a safety reminder and to emphasize the importance of understanding your vehicle's features and their limitations."
The incident occurred after Tesla settled a lawsuit over the fiery death of an Apple engineer whose Model X compact SUV steered itself into a highway divider in Mountain View, California, in 2018.
Terms of the April deal with Walter Huang's widow weren't disclosed when the case was resolved the day before it was set to go to trial.
The following month, a Colorado woman sued Tesla over the 2022 death of her husband, Hans Von Ohain, who died when his Model 3 sedan veered off the road, hit a tree and burst into flames in 2022.
Von Ohain was intoxicated and using Autopilot at the time, according to the Associated Press.
In December, Tesla recalled nearly all 2 million of its vehicles in the U.S. to update their software so drivers get more warnings when they don't pay attention while using the Autosteer function.
But in May, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that it couldn't find any difference in the warning software, and that Tesla had reported more than 20 crashes involving Autopilot since the recall, according to AP.
