German police have opened an investigation into a road accident involving an autonomous vehicle that left one dead and nine injured on Monday near Stuttgart in southwestern Germany.
The electric vehicle, a prototype, was traveling on the B28 road near Römerstein, southeast of Stuttgart, when it ended up for an unknown reason on the opposite lane where it hit an oncoming car, itself the cause of a head-on collision with a third automobile. The test vehicle then crashed into another car, whose driver was killed in the collision.
The investigation will have to determine if the autonomous vehicle, which transported five people including the 43-year-old driver, was controlled by a computer or by the driver at the time of the accident.
Four helicopters and 10 ambulances were mobilized during this accident which also required the deployment of 80 firefighters and 15 emergency vehicles.