The two friends who died in a Tesla crash on Saturday night in Texas after the vehicle smashed into a tree and burst into flames with ‘no one in the driver’s seat’ have been named and pictured.
Everette Talbot, 69, was in the passenger seat of the Model S vehicle. His name was released by police on Wednesday. Dr. Will Varner, a 59-year-old anesthesiologist, is believed to be the owner of the car. He was found in the back seat.
Talbot ran a financial firm called Talbot Financial. On Wednesday, his adult daughter told DailyMail.com: ‘We are going through a living hell right now. As his daughter, I asked everyone to wait for the investigation to be completed.’
Varner’s home is just a few hundred yards from where the crash happened. Shortly after driving out of his driveway on Saturday at 11.25pm, the car veered off of the quiet cul-de-sac and plowed into trees then caught fire. It took firefighters four hours to put out the blaze because the battery on the electric vehicle kept reigniting. Cops say they even had to phone Tesla to ask them how to put the fire out.
When they eventually put the flames out, they found Varner in the backseat and Talbott in the passenger seat. It’s unclear what condition their remains were in after burning for four hours.
Now there are serious questions over how the car was able to move, let alone at speed, if no one was in the driver’s seat as police claim is the case.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the driver did not engage autopilot and Varner hadn’t purchased the more advanced self-driving system either.
Scroll down for video
Everette Talbot, 69, (left) was in the passenger seat of the Model S vehicle. His name was released by police on Wednesday. Talbot runs a financial firm called Talbot Financial. On Wednesday, his adult daughter told DailyMailcom: ‘We are going through a living hell right now, as his daughter, I asked everyone to wait for the investigation to be completed.’ The owner of the car was identified on Tuesday as anesthesiologist Dr. Will Varner, 59, (right) . He lives on the street happened, just a few hundred yards from the crash site.
This was what was left of the Tesla Model S after the fiery crash on Saturday in Spring, Texas
The men drove from Varner’s home, at the end of the cul-de-sac, and only made it a few hundred feet before crashing into trees
Musk claimed that the two men were not driving on autopilot and that their data logs proved it but police say he has not shared any information with them
‘Data logs recovered so far show Autopilot was not enabled & this car did not purchase FSD. Moreover, standard Autopilot would require lane lines to turn on, which this street did not have,’ Musk tweeted.
To engage Tesla’s autopilot, the car must think someone is at the wheel by detecting the weight of their hands on the steering wheel. If it doesn’t, it’ll stop but it can take up to 30 seconds for it to do so.
The second question is whether or not the men were able to engage autopilot when there are no markings on the private road they were on. Autopilot must detect road markings before it can be enabled, according to Tesla.
Thirdly, how – if autopilot was engaged – did the car reach a speed fast enough to crash at the pace police say the men did?
Autopilot, according to Tesla, will never go above the speed limit and on the road in question, that limit is 35mph.
Investigators have not said how fast the car was going but they have said it was at considerable speed. Tesla’s shares dipped by 3.4 percent on Monday after the crash.
Police say that Musk’s tweet claiming to have recovered data from the car was the first they’ve heard of it.
‘If he is tweeting that out, if he has already pulled the data, he hasn’t told us that.
‘We will eagerly wait for that data,’ Mark Herman, Harris County Constable Precinct 4 said.
He says witnesses have told him that the pair were driving on autopilot.
‘We have witness statements from people that said they left to test drive the vehicle without a driver and to show the friend how it can drive itself,’ he said.
It’s not clear how Musk’s claims stack up against those of the local police, whose investigators said they were ‘99.9 percent sure’ there was no one behind the wheel of the car.
Three other people have died in Tesla autopilot-related incidents.
Tesla lovers are baffled by the crash because to engage autopilot, the $80,000 car must be able to identify clear road markings (which this street does not have). The men were also driving at night, at 11.25pm.
Tesla insists that to engage autopilot, a person must have their hands on the steering wheel at all times, ready to take over if the automated systems fail.
This is Varner’s $2million home where the men had been before they took the Model S ‘for a spin’ at 11.25pm
If no weight is detected on the steering wheel, the car sends the driver an alert reminding them of the rule, but it doesn’t necessarily bring it to a stop – at least not right away.
In some videos posted by car enthusiasts, it takes two minutes for it to even detect that no one has their hands on the wheel.
In one from 2019, it took the two minutes to detect no one was behind the wheel. The car then sends the driver an on-screen prompt, then it starts beeping loudly before finally slowing down.
In the 2019 video, it took 40 seconds from the first prompt for the car to stop completely. It’s unclear how fast the men in the crash were driving but detectives say it was at considerable speed.
Both the NTSB (National Transport Safety Board) and the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) are investigating the crash.
The NHTSA said in a statement: ‘We are actively engaged with local law enforcement and Tesla to learn more about the details of the crash and will take appropriate steps when we have more information.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Twitter it had dispatched two investigators to the scene, who ‘will focus on the vehicle’s operation and the post-crash fire.
‘NTSB investigators will arrive in the area later this afternoon.’ Tesla has not commented.
On its website, it is vague about what exactly happens if no one is at the wheel when autopilot is engaged.
‘Before enabling Autopilot, the driver first needs to agree to “keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times” and to always “maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle.”
‘Subsequently, every time the driver engages Autopilot, they are shown a visual reminder to “keep your hands on the wheel,”‘ it says.
Tesla will stop driving on autopilot if it cannot detect a person’s hands on the wheel. To get around it, people have been doing this – putting an item on the wheel or lodging it there – to trick it
Others have balanced water bottles on the steering wheels or attached them in drink holders to trick the car (left) or attached weighted bangles to it (right)
Other drivers balanced water bottles on the steering wheel to make the car think they were still engaged with it
This is what the driver is told via the screen in the car if, after 30 seconds or so, no hands are detected on the wheel. The car makes a loud beeping noise then it starts to slow down and comes to a stop but it can take half-a-minute to do so
Saturday’s crash happened hours after Elon Musk tweeted that the autopilot function was becoming ‘ten times safer’.
On YouTube, car enthusiasts have been sharing videos for years about how to trick the steering systems with oranges, weighted bangles or just by simply giving the wheel a nudge.
Elon Musk said on Saturday, just hours before the crash, that the cars were becoming more safe
Some have wedged water bottles in the steering wheel to trick it too. After the crash, Tesla’s stock plummeted by 3.32 percent on Monday.
Hours before Saturday’s crash, Musk tweeted: ‘Tesla with Autopilot engaged now approaching 10 times lower chance of accident than average vehicle.’
Varner was identified by the hospital group he worked for.
‘Dr. Varner was a tremendous human being who personally impacted many throughout our Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center family over the years.
‘Our thoughts and prayers go out to his entire family, and also to those who had the privilege of working and serving alongside him in various capacities.
‘He will be dearly missed by so many, they said in a statement.