Tesla driver charged with manslaughter for Texas crash that killed a woman in her home - Engadget
- [News]($1) - [EVs and Transportation]($1) # Tesla driver charged with manslaughter for Texas crash that killed a woman in her home The incident is also being investigated by the National ...
Tesla driver charged with manslaughter for Texas crash that killed a woman in her home
The incident is also being investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
By Jackson Chen
July 4, 2026 11:47 am EST
Sjoerd Van Der Wal/Getty Images
The driver of a Tesla Model 3 that crashed into a Texas home and killed an elderly woman has been charged with manslaughter, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Harris County Sheriff's Office.
The incident happened last month when Michael Butler, who was driving a Tesla Model 3 using its Full Self-Driving mode, was involved in a high-speed collision in Katy, Texas that ended with the death of Martha Avila, according to the complaint. The sheriff's office complaint offered more details on the crash, claiming that Butler stepped on the accelerator and overrode his Tesla's self-driving mode while he was doing DoorDash deliveries. A few days after the incident, Ashok Elluswamy, vice president of AI at Tesla, posted on X that "the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100 percent" and "reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash."
According to the sheriff's office, officials on the case got written consent from the the driver to search and seize the involved Tesla and his cellphone. The complaint said that there were multiple Google searches about Full Self-Driving found on Butler's phone, including "tesla fsd not aggressive enough 2026 model," "FSD is not aggressive enough for city driving" and "tesla fsd too timid."
According to court records, Butler is being held in the Harris County jail with a $150,000 bond. However, Butler isn't just facing a criminal charge, as the family of Avila recently filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing Tesla of defective design and the driver of negligence. As for Tesla, it also faces a new special investigation from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has previously launched probes into the EV maker and its Full Self-Driving technology.
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