Map: These 16 Tesla crashes are part of a federal investigation into Autopilot

Sixteen Tesla crashes are the focus of a federal investigation into incidents in which a car using Autopilot ran into a stationary emergency vehicle on a highway.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a preliminary evaluation in August 2021 and upgraded it to an engineering analysis in June 2022.

All the Teslas in the cases under study were confirmed to have been using Autopilot or Traffic Aware Cruise Control. Most of the crashes were at night, and flashing lights, flares or cones had been deployed near the stopped vehicles.

The crashes caused one death — a Tesla passenger — and 15 injuries.

The August 2021 summary from the agency’s Office of Defects Investigation included these findings:

• Collision warnings were activated in the majority of incidents immediately before impact, and Automatic Emergency Braking intervened in about half of them.

• On average, Autopilot aborted vehicle control less than 1 second before the first impact.

• Where incident video was available, it indicated the emergency scene would have been visible to the driver an average of 8 seconds before impact.

• Data for 11 of the collisions indicated that all of the drivers had their hands on the steering wheel and none took evasive action 2 to 5 seconds before impact.

The map above shows the approximate locations of the 16 crashes. Minimal information was released on five of them.

The cases under investigation:

1/ Culver City, California, Jan. 22, 2018: A Tesla Model S hit a fire truck parked at an accident scene on Interstate 405. The fire truck, at the left side of the lanes, had CHP vehicles with flashing lights parked behind it and to the right. No injuries were reported.

2/ Norwalk, Connecticut, Dec. 7, 2019:  As a pair of state troopers attended to a disabled car on Interstate 95, a Tesla Model 3 struck their parked cruiser and then the disabled vehicle. The cruiser had its emergency lights on, and there were flares on the roadway.  No injuries were reported. The Tesla driver reportedly said he had put the car on Autopilot so he could check on his dog in the backseat.

3/ Cloverdale, Indiana, Dec. 29, 2019: A Tesla Model 3 driven by a 25-year-old Arizona man hit a fire truck parked at the scene of an earlier crash on Interstate 70. The Tesla driver suffered serious injuries, and his wife was killed. The truck was badly damaged, but no firefighters were inside it at the time.

4/ West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, Jan. 22, 2020: A Tesla driver ran into the SUV of a Massachusetts state trooper who was conducting a traffic stop on Route 24. The SUV was pushed into the car, which had pulled over at the left side of the traffic lanes. No injuries were reported.

5/ Cochise County, Arizona, July 30, 2020: A 23-year-old man in a Tesla ran into an unoccupied Highway Patrol SUV parked at an accident scene on Interstate 10 near Benson, shoving the vehicle into the back of an ambulance. The Tesla driver, from Irvine, Calif., was injured. Driving under the influence was suspected.

6/ Spring Hope, North Carolina, Aug. 26, 2020: A man in a Tesla hit two patrol cars parked at the side of U.S. Highway 64, where officers had closed a lane because of a previous accident. A state trooper pushed a sheriff’s deputy out of the way as the Tesla drove toward them, and nobody was injured. The driver said he was watching a movie on his phone.

7/ Houston, November 2020: A Tesla struck a police vehicle.

8/ Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, January 2021: A Tesla struck the crash attenuator on the back of a maintenance truck.

9/ Montgomery County, Texas, Feb 27, 2021: Police north of Houston were conducting a traffic stop when one of their vehicles was hit by a Tesla. Several officers and a dog were treated for minor injuries, and another person at the scene suffered severe injuries. The Tesla driver was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.

10/ Lansing, Michigan, March 17, 2021: A 22-year-old man in a Tesla ran into the parked cruiser of a state trooper who was assisting after a car hit a deer on Interstate 96 in Eaton County. No injuries were reported.

11/ Belmont, California, April 2021: A Tesla struck a police vehicle.

12/ Miami, May 19, 2021: A Tesla ran into a Florida Department of Transportation truck at the scene of a previous crash on Interstate 95. The Tesla driver and two transportation department workers were injured.

13/ San Diego, July 10, 2021: A 29-year-old woman drove her Tesla onto a stretch of Highway 56 that had been closed for the investigation of an earlier, fatal accident. Her car ran into a parked and unoccupied Highway Patrol cruiser. A passenger in the Tesla was injured, and the Tesla’s driver was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.

14/ Orlando, Aug. 28, 2021: A  27-year-old man was driving his Model 3 on Interstate 4 near Orlando at around 5 a.m. when it struck a Florida Highway Patrol vehicle that was stopped on the side of the road while the trooper helped with a disabled automobile. The Tesla driver and the driver of the disabled vehicle suffered minor injuries. The trooper was unhurt.

15/ Petaluma, California, September 2021: No details listed.

16/ Desert Center, California, January 2022: No details listed.

Other cases:

• The preliminary NHTSA evaluation included a crash in Laguna Beach, California, on May 20, 2018, in which a Tesla ran into a parked and unoccupied police SUV. The police car suffered major damage; the Tesla driver had minor cuts. The incident was removed from the analysis because the police car was parked off the road and did not have its lights on.

• The traffic safety agency announced in March 2023 that it was investigating a fatal crash the previous month in which a Tesla struck a fire truck at the scene of a prior accident on Interstate 680 in Walnut Creek, California. That crash has not been formally added to the engineering analysis study.