Editorial

I'm not sure who claims to have coined the often-repeated phrase, “Safety comes standard.” But that tagline came to mind as authorities in Texas and officials with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were, at the time of this writing, sorting out what happened in the crash of a Tesla Model S near Houston on April 17. The car's two occupants were killed - and it's believed neither of them happened to be behind the wheel at the time of impact.

Suspicion immediately centered on Tesla and its misleadingly named Autopilot driver-assist system. And it seems Tesla crashes - in which Autopilot was or may have been in operation - have increased in a frequency broadly correlating with the brand's expanding sales volumes.