U.S. senator asks Tesla to brief committee on Autopilot crash

A Tesla logo hangs on a building outside of a Tesla dealership in New York, U.S., April 29, 2016.

Reuters/Lucas Jackson/File Photo

The chairman of the U.S. Senate committee that oversees auto safety issues wrote Tesla Motors Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk on Thursday, asking the automaker to brief the committee on a fatal May 7 crash involving its Autopilot software.

Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican who heads the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, asked the automaker to brief the committee by July 29 on the incident and “Tesla’s actions in response and the company’s cooperation with” U.S. auto safety regulators, according to the letter seen by Reuters. Tesla didn’t have an immediate comment on the letter.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson)