"Autopilot crashes car, kills family!"
to (with much less fanfare):
"Actually, it was a drunk dude driving manually and wrapped his car around a tree at 120mph in his own driveway"
You know, it's hard to know what sources other people consider to be "reputable" these days, so perhaps you could put on your big boy britches and google the subject to find a source you like rather than expecting us to know what you trust and don't trust? I mean, shit, if you bothered to look at the Verge article you'd have seen the link to the NTSB report. Here ya go...
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/09/ntsb-finds-no-evidence-tesla...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-crash-spring-texas-deaths...
https://fortune.com/2024/03/17/ntsb-fatal-crash-automated-dr...
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/02/autopilot-had-no-involv...
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-pro...
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/driver-was-behind-wheel...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/automobiles/tesla-texas-c...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/driver-was-behind-wheel-...
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/autopilot-engaged-texas-tesl...
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36387950/ntsb-investigati...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2021/05/10/ntsb-p...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39933859
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34731013
Would you like some more?
So, Google's results only seem interested on showing the articles about the NTSB's ultimate findings, not the ones that were originally reported immediately after the crash. I then assumed that some of the articles I had linked in that post would probably link back to their own previous articles about it, and figured I'd just start by going through that list from the top down.
Sure enough, the second one I linked, from CBS News, linked to their older article on it, entitled, "No one was driving Tesla before fiery crash that killed 2 passengers in Texas, authorities say".
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-crash-texas-no-one-dirvin...
Edit:
>The assertion had two parts and these stories only reflect the latter.
They don't, actually. Take this line from the Ars piece (though Ars isn't the only one that says something like this - most of them do! :D), for instance:
>The possible involvement of Autopilot was suggested in the wake of initial reports that one of the two occupants—specifically the driver—was found in the back seat of the car.
If you click the Ars link, you'll notice that the phrase "initial reports" also links to their own article written immediately after the event, titled, "Cops 'almost 99.9% sure' Tesla had no one at the wheel before deadly crash".
That's why if you're involved in a Tesla accident, even a fatal one, Tesla will have no hesitation holding a press conference, pulling vehicle telemetry, to make sure that (rightly or wrongly) blame goes to you as the driver and not Tesla.
They'll make statements like "Autopilot wasn't to blame here. The vehicle had warned the driver of his inattentiveness", and the Tesla fans will nod their heads, reassured.
What will later come out will be that Autopilot was active, and that while a driver attention (steering wheel) warning had occurred on the fateful trip, it had happened ONCE, and that that one time was EIGHTEEN MINUTES prior to the collision.
But there won't be a press conference to correct those details.