DETROIT– The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating a March crash near Philadelphia that killed two people and involved a Ford electric vehicle that may have been running on a partially automated driving system.
A Mustang Mach E SUV struck two stopped passenger cars on Interstate 95 at 3:19 a.m. on March 3, the agency said. Both drivers of the stopped cars were killed, and one may have been outside their vehicle.
In a post Wednesday on the social platform X, the agency said it will coordinate the investigation with the Pennsylvania State Police. The Mach E struck a parked Toyota Prius and rammed it into a Hyundai Elantra, the agency said.
Ford said in a statement that the NTSB was notified of the crash in Philadelphia and the company notified the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“We are investigating the events of March 3 and are fully cooperating with both agencies to understand the facts,” the company said Wednesday.
The crash is the second this year involving a Mach E and the NTSB has sent a team to investigate. The first accident occurred on February 24 along Interstate 10 in San Antonio, Texas.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is also investigating that crash, in which the Mach E struck a Honda CR-V that was in the center lane without lights around 9:50 p.m. The driver of the CR-V was killed.
The NTSB said preliminary information indicates the Mach E in the Texas crash was equipped with Ford’s partially automated driving system
The agency said at the time that it was investigating the crash because of continued interest in advanced driver assistance systems and how vehicle drivers are interacting with the new technology.
Ford’s Blue Cruise system allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel while controlling steering, braking and acceleration on highways. The company says the system is not fully autonomous and that it monitors drivers to make sure they are paying attention to the road. It operates on 97% of highways in the U.S. and Canada, Ford says.
There are no fully autonomous vehicles for sale to the public in the US
Both NHTSA and the NTSB have investigated several previous crashes involving partially automated driving systems, most involving Tesla’s Autopilot. In previous investigations, the NTSB investigated how the partially automated system functioned.