Texas police to demand Tesla crash data as Musk denies Autopilot use

The remains of a Tesla vehicle are seen after it crashed in The Woodlands

Texas police will serve search warrants on Tesla Inc on Tuesday to secure data from a fatal vehicle crash, a senior officer told Reuters on Monday, after CEO Elon Musk said company checks showed the car's Autopilot driver assistance system was not engaged. Mark Herman, Harris County Constable Precinct 4, said evidence including witness statements clearly indicated there was nobody in the driver's seat of the Model S when it crashed into a tree, killing two people, on Saturday night. Herman said a tweet by Musk on Monday afternoon, saying that data logs retrieved by the company so far ruled out the use of the Autopilot system, was the first officials had heard from the company. ‘If he is tweeting that out, if he has already pulled the data, he hasn’t told us that,’ Herman told Reuters. ‘We will eagerly wait for that data.’