Shocking dashcam footage shows horror Tesla crash that killed driver while car ‘was on autopilot’

THIS footage captured the horrifying moment a driver died when his Tesla smashed into a road sweeper on autopilot.

The incident occurred in January when driver Gao Yaning smashed into the back of the vehicle in the northeastern Chinese province of Hebei.

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It had been thought before the first fatality to occur in the semi-automated Tesla Model S had taken place in Florida in May.

Another Tesla was involved in an accident in China last month after a motorist mistakenly believed the autopilot setting was a self driving mode.

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The video shows the £60,000 motor shooting along a road at speed without incident until it rockets up the rear end of a road sweeper.

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There is no indication in the footage that the driver makes any attempt to slow down before  the collision.

Tesla is investigating the cause of the crash but says it has "no way of knowing" if Autopilot mode was engaged at the time.

However Chinese cops have said they found no evidence the car's brakes had been used prior to the hit.

On Wednesday China's state TV channel CCTV reported that 23-year-old Gao's family had filed a lawsuit with a Beijing court in July against the electric car firm.

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In it's statement Tesla said it had "tried repeatedly to work with" the family to work out the cause of the crash, but the family "has not provided us with any additional information that would allow us to do so."

Company founder Elon Musk said the firm was in the process of making improvements to its auto pilot system aimed at dramatically reducing the number of crashes blighting the model S.

Autopilot can keep a constant speed, keep the car in lane and apply the brakes automatically.

Musk has said that he wants to make improvements to Autopilot since last year, but he was told it couldn't be done for various technical reasons

He said: "We really pushed hard on questioning all of those assumptions over the past few months.

"It was just a very hard problem. Nobody else could solve this."

Musk's other venture Space X also hit the headlines recently after one of his rockets exploded on the launch pad.

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