INCREASED ACCIDENTS OVER TESLA VEHICLE

[Anchor Lead]

American-made electric vehicle Tesla is growing popular in Korea. Playing up its strengths like eco-friendliness and futuristic autopilot function, more than 10,000 Tesla vehicles are on the Korean road already. But the increasing Tesla imports are matched with mounting accident reports and complaints about the vehicle.

[Pkg]

​Footage from a Tesla dashboard camera before a crash. The moving vehicle suddenly veered left and crashed into the central divider.

[Soundbite] (TESLA DRIVER) : "The autopilot suddenly went offline. I was driving on the inside lane when the steering wheel turned toward the guardrail on its own."

The center divider was badly damaged and the vehicle could have jumped the rail and fell off the bridge. Experts analyzed the recorded data to determine whether the accident was caused by a driver error or a vehicle flaw.

[Soundbite] PROF. PARK SEONG-JI(DEPT. OF FORENSIC SCIENCE, DAEJEON HEALTH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY) : "After about 0.2 to 0.3 seconds, the steering mechanism failed to work. It's something a human driver could not do."

[Soundbite] PROF. LEE HO-GEUN(DEPT. OF AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING, DAEDUK COLLEGE) : "There was some shaking in the wheels, the right one first and then the left one a little later. It happened about one second before the change in data. That may have caused the accident."

Based on the data, experts believe the driver was not at fault. But it is hard to identify the exact cause when they don't know much about the Tesla autopilot system. KBS news team got on a Tesla with its owner to test the automatic driving system. The steering wheel suddenly turned to cross the lanes regardless of the driver's intent.

[Soundbite] KIM SEON-GU(TESLA OWNER) : "The vehicle was trying to go over to this lane. I didn't steer the car, but it just veered on its own."

The car even tried to go where there was no road.

[Soundbite] KIM SEON-GU(TESLA OWNER) : "See how the car keeps saying it needs a lane change even when there's no road on the left? (It needs a lane change to that side?) Yes, but there's no lane there."

There are roughly 10,000 Teslas on the road in Korea. But it still hasn't been identified how many of them are experiencing such malfunction.

[Soundbite] SHIN JAE-KON(KOREA AUTOMOBILE TESTING & RESEARCH INSTITUTE) : "If such a flaw has been found, we should quickly start investigations."

In Korea, there are no safety standards in place for the lane change function in driverless vehicles. Nonetheless, Tesla is providing this function to car buyers. In accordance with the Korea-U.S. FTA, American carmakers that export fewer than 50,000 units a year to the nation, are exempted from the Korean safety standards.

[Soundbite] (MINISTRY OF LAND, INFRASTRUCTURE AND TRANSPORT OFFICIAL) : "Because of the Korea-U.S. FTA, Tesla is not in violation of any Korean law even though the automatic lane change function is not covered by the Korean safety standards."

KBS asked Tesla for an interview multiple times to hear their side of the story, but the EV giant replied it cannot give an answer, due to corporate policy.