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Tesla modules retrieved by NTSB could reveal clues on fatal Model X crash
NTSB investigators looking into the fatal Tesla Model X crash have retrieved the ill-fated SUV’s restraint control module and infotainment module from the wreckage of the vehicle.
Photographs of the ongoing NTSB investigation have been shared online by ABC7 News photographer Dean C. Smith. The series of pictures depicts a team of investigators from both the NTSB and the CHP’s Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team inspecting the wrecked Tesla. Smith was also able to photograph a module from the electric SUV being placed inside an evidence bag.
The NTSB later confirmed to the local news agency that the investigators were able to recover two components of the destroyed Model X — the vehicle’s restraint control module and its infotainment module. NTSB Spokesman Christopher O’Neil noted that the NTSB would be working with Tesla and the CHP in analyzing the data stored in the two devices.
“We’re going to work with CHP and Tesla to download the information from those modules and then see what data is available to us that might give insights into what was going on during the accident sequence,” O’Neil said.
Images of the continuing investigation from the NTSB and CHP could be viewed below.
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- The NTSB’s investigation into a fatal Tesla Model X crash continues. [Credit: Dean C. Smith/Twitter]
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- The NTSB’s investigation into a fatal Tesla Model X crash continues. [Credit: Dean C. Smith/Twitter]
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- The NTSB’s investigation into a fatal Tesla Model X crash continues. [Credit: Dean C. Smith/Twitter]
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- The NTSB’s investigation into a fatal Tesla Model X crash continues. [Credit: Dean C. Smith/Twitter]
Will Huang, the brother of the ill-fated electric SUV’s driver, has also shared some of his insights about the crash in a statement to ABC7. According to Will, his brother had brought the car to the Tesla service center before the accident due to what he believes were issues with the Model X’s Autopilot. Tesla has noted, however, that the owner of the Model X had taken the vehicle to the service center because of concerns about the SUV’s navigation, not its Autopilot, according to the local news agency.
“We’ve been doing a thorough search of our service records, and we cannot find anything suggesting that the customer ever complained to Tesla about the performance of Autopilot. There was a concern raised once about navigation not working correctly, but Autopilot’s performance is unrelated to navigation,” Tesla reportedly stated.
In a statement to the local news agency, Will Huang noted that a crash attenuator could have likely saved his brother’s life. Crash attenuators, better known as crash cushions, are designed to absorb the impact of a vehicle’s collision. As noted by Tesla in its blog post yesterday, however, a huge part of the crash cushion on the spot where the Model X met its end had been removed due to a previous collision.
“That (the crash attenuator) ultimately should’ve saved my brother’s life. We’ve seen videos of similar crash(es) with cushion, and the driver walked out of it unharmed,” Huang noted.
In a recent announcement on its Twitter account, CHP Redwood City revealed that the last collision recorded at the same location as the ill-fated Model X crash happened on March 12, 2018, 11 days before the Tesla’s accident.
Update on #Tesla collision: Per media request, the last collision recorded at that same location took place on Monday 3/12/2018 at 2230 hours. pic.twitter.com/ibizNYWOkk
— CHP Redwood City (@CHP_RedwoodCity) March 29, 2018
The Tesla Model X has a 5-star safety rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The electric SUV is equipped with 12 airbags — head and knee airbags in the front, 2 side curtain airbags, 4 seat-mounted side airbags, and 2 door-mounted airbags — which cocoon a driver and the vehicle’s passengers during an accident. As we reported last December, a Model X successfully protected its driver after getting into an accident with a car traveling at near-highway speeds. During that incident, all the Model X’s airbags deployed, and the driver was able to walk away from the collision unharmed.
Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.
Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.
On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.
The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.
De @Tesla community houdt hier al geruime tijd de vinger aan de pols over de toelating voor de FSD-technologie op onze Vlaamse en Belgische wegen.
Uit waardering voor jullie niet-aflatende interesse (en aanmoediging 😉), krijgen jullie hierbij de primeur: ik heb net de toelating… pic.twitter.com/Yrps4OHTj8— Annick De Ridder (@AnnickDeRidder) June 10, 2026
The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.
Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.
Getting Full Self-Driving in Spain and England will be such huge milestones for Tesla. I am so excited to see how FSD performs in Madrid, Barcelona, and London, specifically.
The ultimate test will always be Mumbai or New Delhi. Excited for India’s eventual approval! https://t.co/paw9Ch1qmL pic.twitter.com/9RdDERVSSJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently confronted worries about orbital data centers and launching satellites in mass quantities in space, as some voiced concerns about crowding.
Musk’s SpaceX plans to combat the issue of needing data centers by launching them into space instead of taking up valuable real estate on Earth. It has been a major point of SpaceX’s future, including its looming IPO, which could be the largest ever.
In a recent interview filmed at SpaceX’s Starlink terminal factory in Bastrop, Texas, Elon Musk directly addressed concerns that deploying large numbers of AI satellites for orbital data centers could crowd Earth’s orbit. His message was straightforward and reassuring: space is vast beyond human intuition.
“Space is really big,” Musk said. “It’s not like space is gonna get crowded. Space is enormous. If you actually look at it relative to the Earth, the satellites are so tiny you can’t even see them.” He emphasized that even zooming in makes a satellite appear large, but from a planetary perspective, they are minuscule specks.
Elon on concerns that AI satellites will crowd space:
“Space is really big. It’s not like space is gonna get crowded. Space is enormous. If you actually look at it relative to the earth, the satellites are so tiny you can’t even see them.” https://t.co/Mvr7NpL25Q pic.twitter.com/5Fi629Rii7
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 8, 2026
Musk pointed to SpaceX’s real-world experience operating roughly 10,000 Starlink satellites as evidence that large constellations can be managed safely. “We’ve got a pretty good idea of how to operate just really large constellations and do it safely,” he noted. SpaceX remains the only operator with meaningful experience at this scale, giving the company unique insight into tight orbital packing without compromising safety
The discussion highlighted SpaceX’s plans for “AI1” satellites—essentially orbiting racks of AI compute powered by massive solar arrays and cooled via radiative panels in space’s vacuum.
These satellites leverage proven Starlink V3 technology, making them simpler to design than communications satellites. A first-generation unit targets around 150 kW peak power, with a 70-meter wingspan for solar panels and radiators. Laser links will connect them to each other and the Starlink network, delivering low-latency access (on the order of a few milliseconds from low-Earth orbit).
FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan
Musk framed orbital data centers as a practical solution to Earth’s constraints on AI growth. Ground-based facilities face power shortages, water demands for cooling, and grid limitations. In space, constant sunlight (no day-night cycle), vacuum radiative cooling, and abundant solar energy offer clear advantages.
Production will ramp up at an expanded “Gigasat” factory in Bastrop, with solar manufacturing already underway and full AI satellite output expected at reasonable volume by the end of 2027. Starship’s rapid, high-volume launch capability, aiming for multiple flights per hour, will make massive deployment feasible.
Critics sometimes raise risks like space debris or Kessler syndrome, but Musk’s response underscores scale: even a million satellites would represent an imperceptible fraction of available orbital volume when viewed against Earth’s size. SpaceX’s automated collision avoidance and deorbiting designs for Starlink further mitigate concerns.
This vision ties into broader ambitions. Musk sees orbital AI compute as a step toward harnessing more of the Sun’s energy, advancing humanity on the Kardashev scale from a Type 0 civilization toward Type 1 and eventually Type 2. By moving power-hungry data centers off-planet, SpaceX aims to unlock orders-of-magnitude more compute while preserving Earth’s resources.
Musk’s comments should ease public anxiety. With proven operational expertise, incremental engineering, and the immensity of space itself, orbital data centers represent not overcrowding, but smart expansion into the final frontier.
Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is currently listed as a Level 2 suite in terms of its passenger cars. As its Robotaxi platform continues to move quickly, it has been recognized as a Level 4 ride-sharing program by the State of Texas, as Tesla recently self-certified itself.
However, a Wall Street analyst is arguing that Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has effectively achieved Level 4 autonomy in most conditions in all of its vehicles, drawing on personal experience and data released by the company.
Alex Potter of Piper Sandler said in a note to investors on Wednesday that “Tesla has solved the self-driving puzzle,” pointing to decisions to offer insurance discounts for FSD-enabled policies as a signal of confidence, which is backed up by stellar safety records compared to human driving.
Investing.com initially reported on Potter’s new note.
Additionally, Potter looks at the recent start of Cybercab production at Giga Texas as a potential indication that Tesla is ready to offer some level of unsupervised driving at least in the near future. The Cybercab has no steering wheel or pedals, completely eliminating the ability for human input.
He also sees Tesla’s allocation of “several hundred million USD (if not $1B+)” as confidence internally, seeing as it would be tough to set aside that amount of capital toward a project that the company does not see as relatively near-term.
Forward thinking, especially as Cybercab has no human controls, it would make sense that Tesla is at least close to self-driving. How close is another question.
Tesla has routinely teased that unsupervised FSD is close, but there are still a lot of things it feels as if the company has to roll out some more capability, including unsupervised parking features, known as “Banish,” better operation with regional self-driving performance, and other improvements.
That is not to say that Tesla FSD is super impressive already. It has already completed coast-to-coast drives across the United States and Canada, it routinely takes the stress out of driving for most people, and it has proven through Tesla Safety Reports that it is safer and involved in accidents less frequently than humans.
🚨 These are the first-ever FSD safety statistics out of the Netherlands, showing it was over 3.5x safer than human driving on Dutch roads.
The most recent numbers out of Tesla for North America show:
-Over 5.5 million miles between accidents for Teslas using FSD
-660k miles… https://t.co/XKlRzgSGEh pic.twitter.com/HX6kzh0ZKc— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Even Potter believes it is capable, as he used it to go from Missoula, Montana, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, back in April.
“There’s no substitute for personal experience,” he wrote.
Tesla stuns with another FSD approval in Europe, its second in two days
SpaceX’s Elon Musk relieves worries about orbital data centers
