Tesla Autopilot Appears to Predict Accident in New Video

The beeping in the video is the forward collision warning, Tesla said.

ByABC News
December 28, 2016, 7:13 PM

— -- New dashcam video appears to show Tesla Autopilot's radar technology predicting an accident right before it happened.

In the video, first reported by Electrek, beeping from inside the Tesla Model X appears to foreshadow an accident on a highway in the Netherlands. A split second after the beeping begins, the video shows the car in front of the Tesla clipping the back right corner of the SUV in front of it, causing the SUV to flip over. A woman inside the car can be heard gasping as she watches the accident unfold.

In the video, the SUV rolls over multiple times before it finally rests on its side, while the car that hit it pulls over on the opposite side of the highway.

According to the timestamp on the dashcam video, it was filmed on Tuesday afternoon.

The car isn't psychic, but was rather warning of a possible forward collision, according to Tesla. The company confirmed to ABC News that the beeping heard in the background of the video is the forward collision warning, which was "triggered by radar sensing the vehicle two cars ahead was slowing down."

In September, Tesla announced that its new radar technology could “bounce the radar signal under a vehicle in front ... and still brake even when trailing a car that is opaque to both vision and radar.”

The driver of the Model X seen in the video told Electrek that everyone involved in the accident "turned out to be OK."

ABC News' Ben Stein and Fergal Gallagher contributed to this report.

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