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Tesla driver charged with vehicular manslaughter, NHTSA to release findings regarding Autopilot use
A Tesla driver involved in an accident in California over two years ago is now being formally charged with two counts of vehicular manslaughter. Investigations from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration following the accident stated Tesla Autopilot was in use, and the agency confirmed to us that it would release findings soon.
On December 29, 2019, a Tesla Model S left a freeway and ran a red light in a Los Angeles suburb, striking a Honda Civic and killing two people. The driver, Kevin George Aziz Riad, 27, was charged in October with two counts of Vehicular Manslaughter by Los Angeles County prosecutors. Riad has pleaded not guilty and is free on bail while the case is still pending.
The case is somewhat groundbreaking as it appears Riad will be the first person to be charged with a felony count in the U.S. while utilizing semi-autonomous driving technologies. It is not the first instance of criminal charges being filed when a semi-autonomous driving capability is concerned, but it is the first with a “widely used driver technology,” according to the Associated Press, who first reported the story. An Uber driver in Arizona was charged with Negligent Homicide in 2020 when testing a fully autonomous vehicle on public roads.
Filings and charge documents from the LA County prosecutors do not mention Autopilot. Investigators from the NHTSA were present at the crash and confirmed to Teslarati this morning that the vehicle was using Autopilot at the time of the accident. The NHTSA said:
“NHTSA reminds the public that no commercially available motor vehicle today can drive itself. Whether a L2 automated driving system is engaged or not, every available vehicle requires the human driver to be in control at all times, and all State laws hold the human driver responsible for the operation of their vehicles. Certain advanced driving assistance features can promote safety by helping drivers avoid crashes and mitigate the severity of crashes that occur, but as with all technologies and equipment on motor vehicles, drivers must use them correctly and responsibly.”
Additionally, the NHTSA will share the findings of the crash investigation soon, the agency told us.
While Tesla Autopilot is an advanced driver assistance system, or ADAS, it still requires the driver to remain attentive. Drivers must be prepared to take over at any time, which requires them to remain just as vigilant as if they were driving the vehicle themselves. Tesla’s FAQ regarding Autopilot on its website states:
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“Yes. Autopilot is a hands-on driver assistance system that is intended to be used only with a fully attentive driver. It does not turn a Tesla into a self-driving car nor does it make a car autonomous. Before enabling Autopilot, you must agree to ‘keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times” and to always “maintain control and responsibility for your car.’ Once engaged, Autopilot will also deliver an escalating series of visual and audio warnings, reminding you to place your hands on the wheel if insufficient torque is applied. If you repeatedly ignore these warnings, you will be locked out from using Autopilot during that trip. You can override any of Autopilot’s features at any time by steering, applying the brakes, or using the cruise control stalk to deactivate.”
Riad’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for February 23.
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SpaceX’s massive investment in AI will make it a big winner, Argus Research said after the company’s successful earnings call last week.
The firm also upgraded shares to a Buy from Hold and set a $160 price target.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) is currently recovering from its heavy AI infrastructure investments, as it spent nearly $16 billion in Q2 alone. The company did this primarily by monetizing high-demand GPU compute capacity at a much faster pace than traditional data center economics would suggest.
Company CFO Bret Johnsen said that SpaceX would be able to pay back anything on new deployments within a year.
There are plenty of ways the company can do this:
Leasing excess compute capacity through contracts
SpaceX has already built Colossus and Colossus II, largely for its own model training. However, much of that capacity is already rented out to third parties. It already has major deals with Anthropic, Google, and Reflection AI. These partnerships are adding billions per month to SpaceX’s spreadsheet.
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High utilization driven by industry-wide scarcity
The demand for advanced AI training and inference capacity continues to exceed what is available for use. SpaceX can fill new racks quickly after they come online, so the capital deployed converts into revenue with minimal idle time.
Additionally, management and outside observers have described the new compute capital as behaving more like a cost-of-goods-sold than traditional multi-year capex, especially because of this rapid monetization pattern.
Capacity has already scaled from ~0.4 GW a year to 1.4 GW annually by the end of Q2. There are targets of more than 2 GW by year-end.
High incremental margins on the rental business once capacity is online
GPU cloud providers often operate at strong gross margins. SpaceX can monetize capacity that was already partially built or can be added efficiently. This means that incremental EBITDA margins on the rental revenue are usually high. This accelerates cash recovery relative to the gross capital outlay.
Parallel monetization of its own AI software and applications
Beyond pure infrastructure rental, SpaceX also generates revenue from Grok through subscriptions and usage, from X through ads, data, and other related services, enterprise APIs, and the planned integration of the Cursor coding tools acquisition.
These application layers ride on the same compute infrastructure and provide additional high-margin streams that could offset build-out costs. AI-segment revenue overall rose sharply to about $2.6 billion in Q2, according to Motley Fool. This was driven primarily by the infrastructure contracts, but the software side is also partially responsible.
Efficient, large-scale deployment and vertical integration advantages
SpaceX has emphasized the rapid construction of power and cooling infrastructure and favorable cost-per-megawatt economics relative to industry benchmarks in some disclosures.
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Combined with its ability to scale capacity aggressively and the fact that many contracts start generating revenue within months of capacity coming online, the effective payback compresses dramatically compared with more conventional multi-year data-center projects.
SpaceX’s dominant near-term recovery path will turn the AI clusters into a hyperscale-style compute rental business for other leading AI companies while still using a portion for internal models.
Tesla headlights have caused a recall of over 20,000 of the company’s two most popular vehicles, the Model 3 and Model Y, due to the low-beam bulb exceeding the maximum allowed intensity according to federal standards.
Tesla initiated the recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) this morning, stating that the low-beam output “exceeds the maximum allowed intensity in the outer upper-right and outer upper-left areas of the 10U and 90U zone, as prescribed in FMVSS No. 108.”
Tesla sourced the impacted headlights from Marelli Automotive Lighting, a Mexico-based company. The recall impacts 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles and 2017-2023 Model 3 vehicles. It is estimated that every VIN in this recall is impacted by the defect.
🚨 Tesla is recalling 20,349 2020-23 Model Y vehicles and 2017-23 Model 3 vehicles due to an excessively bright headlamp low beam.
Currently, there is no remedy plan in place, as it is still being developed. pic.twitter.com/y34cIO2U0B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 11, 2026
Typically, Tesla would remedy recalls of this nature through an Over-the-Air software update, which has been a major focus of criticism by the company and its supporters because the NHTSA still refers to it as a “recall,” even though it requires no action by the vehicle owner. The fix is shipped over the internet and downloaded to the car.
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However, there appears to be a potentially different solution for this problem. Tesla has not developed a remedy for this issue, so it could potentially be on the way. The big issue appears to be the fact that these recalled lamps are out of production, and this is an old body style for both vehicles. The headlights and front-end designs are completely different.
Tesla switched to another supplier when the affected headlight design was discontinued. It plans to begin notifying owners of their remedy options by September 15.
Tesla filed a petition protesting the recall to fix the vehicles’ headlight issue, but the NHTSA denied it. Now, Tesla will come up with a solution to fix it.
Elon Musk
Another Tesla SpaceX merger prediction by ARK Invest has Elon Musk talking
Elon Musk again denies a Tesla China split as new SpaceX merger speculation resurfaces quickly.
Elon Musk restated that Tesla has no plans to separate its China business from the rest of the company, responding to a new round of merger speculation from ARK Invest.
On the firm’s “Brainstorm” podcast, Cathie Wood’s team, including chief futurist Brett Winton and research director Nick Grous, argued a Tesla and SpaceX combination remains likely, with an announcement possible before the end of the year even if the deal itself would not close that quickly. Winton called Tesla’s Shanghai operations a “small ish wrinkle” for a merger rather than a real obstacle, since SpaceX’s national security work with the U.S. government sits uneasily next to Tesla’s manufacturing base in China.
Musk pushed back on the framing directly. “China is awesome. I strongly encourage people to visit,” he wrote on X. He also repeated language he first used in late July, when the Wall Street Journal reported that Tesla executives had been told to prepare for a possible spinoff, sale, or closure of the China business ahead of a SpaceX tie up. Musk called that report “absurdly fake news” at the time, adding that a separation had “never even come up in a discussion ever,” a line he echoed again this week.
The repeated denial has not settled the underlying question, because Shanghai’s role in Tesla’s business is exactly what makes a merger complicated. Gigafactory Shanghai still ships more than half of Tesla’s global deliveries and functions as the company’s main export hub for Europe and Asia. Teslarati previously reported on Musk’s initial denial, and the merger conversation itself has been building since SpaceX’s IPO gave it public shares to use as acquisition currency.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives has pegged the odds of a Tesla SpaceX merger at 80 to 90 percent by early 2027, and ARK’s prediction of a year end announcement adds another data point to that timeline, even as Musk keeps rejecting the specific mechanics reporters have described. Neither position rules out the other. Musk can deny a China spinoff was ever discussed while analysts still expect some form of combination to move forward, since ARK and Ives are both describing convergence at the corporate level, not necessarily the internal restructuring the Journal described in July.
For now, Tesla’s China business remains intact, and Musk’s comments this week make clear he has no interest in publicly walking that position back, no matter how often the merger question resurfaces.
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SpaceX AI investment gamble will make it a big winner, firm says
Tesla headlights cause recall of over 20,000 Model 3 and Model Y
