The Latest: Tesla crash a harbinger of industry fears
[...] the fatal crash of a Tesla Motors car could add to the public's apprehension of driverless cars even before they reach the road in big numbers.
A driver so enamored of his Tesla Model S sedan that he nicknamed the car "Tessy" and praised the safety benefits of its sophisticated "Autopilot" system has become the first U.S. fatality in a wreck involving a car in self-driving mode.
Forty-year-old Joshua D. Brown of Canton, Ohio, the owner of a technology company, was killed May 7 in Williston, Florida, when his car's cameras failed to distinguish the white side of a turning tractor-trailer from a brightly lit sky and didn't automatically activate its brakes, according to statements by the government and the automaker.