> - On highways: Autosteer and Traffic Aware Cruise Control have speed limits of 90 mph.
> - Off highways: Autosteer is no longer restricted to 35 mph. Autosteer has a speed limit of 5 mph faster than the detected speed limit, unless you’ve specified a lower speed limit offset.
> - If Model S does not detect a limit, then the maximum speed the vehicle can drive is 45 mph.
https://insideevs.com/news/332446/tesla-autopilot-update-bum...
We know it wasn't a divided highway. Even if they were on a 2 lane highway the speed limit would have been limited to 60MPH. They wrapped the car around a tree, destroyed the integrity of the battery, and both passengers were disabled enough they couldn't escape the car.
The car doesn't peg the accelerator under autopilot so even getting to 60MPH in "A couple hundred yards" seems unlikely unless there was someone applying the gas pedal.
I suppose the alternative explanation is there was a malfunction which caused uncontrolled acceleration and ejected the driver into the back seat?
One could speculate that maybe the guy 'driving' from the passenger seat tried to plant his boot on the brake and got the accelerator instead?
If you are on the highway, it is different. But this car was in a residential area.
If you are pushing on the gas pedal, the car can only steer and has no control over speed.
This weird sort of hybrid riding where the car is controlling the steering and the driver is controlling the speed puts the car in an untenable situation. It is a driver with no brakes and no control over the gas pedal.
Maybe Tesla should disable this mode entirely. Tesla (very reasonably) limits speeds to 5MPH over the speed limit when you are in autosteer mode, so lots of people like the ability to bypass the speed. Personally, I very much like being able to push the speed when it's reasonably safe to do so. If you are operating the system as designed, it's no less safe than cruise control.