Oncast Tech · Tech Tonight

Tesla FSD kills pedestrian on I-80

· Fact-checked before it aired. Unconfirmed claims from this segment are not shown.

Around 2:35 a.m. Thursday, CHP officers responded to a fatal collision on westbound I-80 at the I-780 interchange in Vallejo, where a 71-year-old pedestrian was struck by a Tesla traveling roughly 70 mph. The 26-year-old driver said the car was in Full Self-Driving mode; dashcam video showed the vehicle braking and steering left before the right front portion struck the pedestrian, who was then hit by at least one more vehicle. The pedestrian died.

The crash is drawing attention amid heightened scrutiny of Tesla's FSD software. NHTSA recently opened a probe covering roughly 2.4 million Teslas after prior FSD-related collisions, and the agency has authority to seek a recall if the system poses an unreasonable safety risk. This case adds to safety questions about autonomous mode on high-speed roads.

A 71-year-old man was killed early Thursday when a Tesla operating in Full Self-Driving mode struck him as he crossed Interstate 80 in Vallejo, California. The driver stayed on scene and provided dashcam footage; the CHP says the pedestrian was hit by at least one other vehicle afterward.

Tesla and Nvidia are investing a combined 3.7 trillion won (~$2.8 billion) in Samsung Electro-Mechanics' FC-BGA substrate capacity in Sejong, South Korea, under long-term supply contracts; the report is attributed to Korea's Maeil Business Newspaper.

No Tesla Roadster has jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and flown back up; the post describes a staged or fictional event, not a real incident. This is market commentary and speculation; any specific claims would need separate verification.

Fact-check

VERIFIED TRUE

A 71-year-old man was killed early Thursday when a Tesla operating in Full Self-Driving mode struck him as he crossed Interstate 80 in Vallejo, California. The driver stayed on scene and provided dashcam footage; the CHP says the pedestrian was hit by at least one other vehicle afterward.

Self-driving Tesla hits and kills 71-year-old pedestrian on California freeway https://t.co/VGKQMjQVB2

Original post · San-D98 (@GEOGSandi)

Los Angeles Times / ABC7 San Francisco NAMES: CHP = California Highway Patrol

VERIFIED TRUE

Tesla and Nvidia are investing a combined 3.7 trillion won (~$2.8 billion) in Samsung Electro-Mechanics' FC-BGA substrate capacity in Sejong, South Korea, under long-term supply contracts; the report is attributed to Korea's Maeil Business Newspaper.

2.8B. Tesla and Nvidia are funding Samsung Electro-Mechanics dedicated FC-BGA substrate lines for AI chips. Tesla commits 1.1 trillion won and Nvidia 2.6 trillion won for Sejong production under multi-year supply contracts. The packaging bottleneck is moving from HBM stacks https

Original post · JSCC | Nasdaq (@JSCC2020Lee)

Reuters (via investing.com) / CNA NAMES: FC-BGA = Flip Chip-Ball Grid Array, the high-density substrate layer beneath advanced AI chips

VERIFIED FALSE

No Tesla Roadster has jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and flown back up; the post describes a staged or fictional event, not a real incident. This is market commentary and speculation; any specific claims would need separate verification.

A TESLA ROADSTER HAS JUST JUMPED OFF THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE. THEN IT FLEW BACK UP. The bridge's platform is 67 meters above the water. No car has ever returned from that fall. The Roadster falls, activates its thrusters right above the waves, and ascends back up to the road. http

Original post · Maviya Ai (@Maviya6v)

No credible source exists POST 2113405652022317098: NOCLAIM N/A NAMES: BTC = Bitcoin

Sources

What the hosts said

CA Tesla on Full Self-Driving hit and killed a 71-year-old man on a California freeway early this morning.
MIn Vallejo. The CHP says the driver was in FSD mode when the car struck the pedestrian on I-80.
CThe driver said the car was doing about seventy miles an hour. He stayed, he gave them the dashcam video.
MAnd the footage shows the car braking, steering left, but the right front still hit him. Then at least one other vehicle ran over the body.
CThat's the detail that gets me. The Tesla didn't do this alone.
MBut it did the first part, Chris. And that's exactly what NHTSA has been looking at for months now.
CThey've got an open preliminary evaluation covering about two-point-four million Teslas for FSD crashes.
MThis is the kind of case that moves an evaluation toward a recall. A pedestrian on a highway at two-thirty in the morning, high speed, system engaged.
CI keep going back and forth on this. A human driver at seventy miles an hour in the dark might not have seen him either.
MBut the driver wasn't driving. That's the promise they sold: the system sees more than a human, reacts faster.
CIt did react, I'll give it that. But reacting isn't the same as avoiding the hit.
MIt reacted too late to save a man's life. That's the standard. Not 'it tried.'
COkay, but half the point of the probe is finding out whether FSD is actually WORSE than a human, or just different. We don't have that data yet.
MThe CHP account is clear: FSD was engaged, the car struck a pedestrian, he's dead. The system failed.
CIf the third car didn't come through, maybe he survives. That's not in Tesla's report.
MI'm not letting Tesla off on a technicality. They call it Full Self-Driving. A name that invites people to check out.
CBut the name is a marketing problem. The question NHTSA has to answer is whether supervised FSD is actually dangerous.
MAsk the man's family if they care about the distinction.
CThat's not fair. I'm not saying it isn't a tragedy. I'm saying the regulatory question isn't the same as the moral one.
MThey never are. But regulators get to act on both. And I think a recall conversation just got a lot closer.
CThis will put pressure on Tesla's next FSD update cycle. If NHTSA demands a recall, the entire autonomy roadmap shifts.
MAnd for good reason. You don't get to beta-test on public highways when people are dying.
CIt's not a beta anymore. Supervised FSD is the production system. That's why this crash matters more than the old autopilot ones.
MAll the more reason to demand it work. We'll see what NHTSA does.
CMeanwhile, completely different corner of the Tesla world: a fake story is going around that a Roadster jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.
MJumped off and flew back up? With thrusters?
CThat's the claim. No car has ever returned from a sixty-seven-meter fall, except this one, which apparently does.
MI checked. There's no credible source for any of it. This is staged or fictional.
CIt's a weird time to be posting fan fiction about Tesla. A real man died this morning.
MAnd one more real thing: Tesla and Nvidia are putting in a combined three-point-seven trillion won with Samsung Electro-Mechanics.
CThat's about two-point-eight billion dollars for FC-BGA substrate lines in Sejong, South Korea.
MThe packaging layer under AI chips. The bottleneck is moving from HBM stacks to substrates.
CTesla's part is one-point-one trillion won. Nvidia's is two-point-six. They're locking in supply years ahead.
MWhich tells you how tight the substrate market is. If Tesla's building its own AI silicon, it needs that packaging.
CLong-term contracts with Samsung. This is the kind of deal that shows the AI buildout is still on, capex fears aside.
MA trader on X says Tesla and SpaceX still haven't touched their Bitcoin during this slide. Thirty-thousand coins.
CEither they see value from the inside, or it's just a side bet they don't need to liquidate.
MHere's mine: that choice only really makes sense for a company that doesn't need the cash, and that's their call to make.
CHacker News has a weird one: someone got iOS sixteen-point-five firmware running on Android devices through QEMU.
MIt's a research harness, not a usable ROM. It runs for a few seconds, then the kernel hands over its log and quits.
CThe author says it works on a POCO X5 Pro and some Xiaomi devices. Impressive as a proof of concept.
MOne commenter joked that Claude must have demanded safeguards before helping with the project. That tracks.
CAnd a farewell post for the Arc browser is getting traction. The Browser Company has been winding it down for a while now.
MIt was a beautiful piece of software that never found a big enough audience. A classic tech story.
CGNU Taler is getting ready to actually operate in Germany. Private payments, no tracking.
MThat's the one I'm watching. Europe is serious about digital privacy, and Taler is the closest thing to cash online.
CIt's a big moment for the project. Years of academic work, now real merchants and real euros.
MIf it works in Germany, other Eurozone countries will follow. Then we'll see how Visa and Mastercard react.

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