By TOM KRISHER
AP Auto Writer
DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government’s auto safety watchdog is sending investigators to another Tesla crash, this time one that killed two people along Interstate 75 in Florida.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration confirmed Friday that it sent a Special Crash Investigations team to probe the Wednesday crash into the back of a semi-trailer at a rest area near Gainesville.
The agency would not say if the Tesla was operating on one of the company’s partially automated driving systems.
The Gainesville Sun reported that the Tesla was traveling on Interstate 75 and for an unknown reason, exited into a rest area. It then hit a parked Walmart Freightliner tractor-trailer.
The newspaper said the driver and passenger, both from Lompoc, California, were pronounced dead at the scene.
NHTSA is investigating 37 crashes involving automated driving systems since 2016. Of those, 30 involved Teslas, including 11 fatal crashes that have killed a total of 15 people.
The agency also said in documents that it’s investigating a fatal pedestrian crash in California involving a Tesla Model 3 that happened this month. It also sent a team to probe a Cruise automated vehicle crash in California that caused a minor injury in June.
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