On the evening of May 16, 2022, Hans Christopher von Ohain, a 33-year-old Tesla employee, died when the 2021 Tesla Model 3 he was driving left Upper Bear Creek Road near Evergreen, Clear Creek County, Colorado, struck a tree and caught fire. Passenger Erik Rossiter escaped with injuries. Police and fire personnel attended the scene, and a later Colorado State Patrol investigation documented the sequence as far as surviving evidence allowed. The crash is one incident with one fatality, despite the presence of a seriously injured passenger.
Alleged automated driving involvement
Rossiter told investigators and journalists that von Ohain had used Tesla's advanced driver-assistance capabilities during the trip and that the vehicle repeatedly had difficulty navigating curves. He described steering interventions during an earlier portion of the journey and the eventual departure from the road. The family alleged that an Autopilot system unexpectedly steered the car toward the roadside. The Washington Post's February 2024 investigation suggested that Tesla Full Self-Driving features may have been in use, while the civil complaint used Autopilot terminology. The available record does not justify treating those names as exact technical equivalents.
Forensic limitations and driver circumstances
The Colorado State Patrol's extensive crash investigation reported that the burned condition of the car made it impossible to recover the telemetry needed to determine conclusively whether the assistance system was engaged during the fatal sequence. That is a crucial distinction between passenger testimony and confirmed system-state evidence. The state investigation also reported that von Ohain was intoxicated. These findings provide alternative and potentially contributing circumstances. Neither the family's claim nor the passenger's account can replace the missing event record, and the precise behavior of the software remains unresolved.
Wrongful-death complaint
Von Ohain's widow, Nora Bass, filed a civil action against Tesla in Clear Creek County, Colorado, on May 3, 2024 on behalf of the estate and the couple's child. The action, Bass v. Tesla, was later removed to the U.S. District Court for Colorado under case 1:24-cv-01760. The complaint alleges defective product design, failure to warn and misleading advertising of driver-assistance capabilities. The filing describes claimed failure of Autopilot to permit recovery after the car started leaving the roadway. These are plaintiffs' allegations, not findings established at trial.
Company position and public scrutiny
In June 2024, Tesla responded in court disputing liability for the fatal crash. Associated Press, CBS Colorado, Denver7 and The Washington Post reported aspects of the case, including the surviving passenger's account and the inability of investigators to recover complete car data. The controversy concerns whether a supervised assistance system was engaged, whether it malfunctioned, how it was advertised and how driver impairment interacted with other risk factors. No verified public judgment establishing that automated driving was a material cause was found in the sources reviewed.
Evidence assessment and location
This is a documented death with identified family litigation and substantial firsthand reporting. It is not a case with officially verified AI causation: the final system state remained undetermined. AIDeaths consequently marks the alleged product contribution as disputed and provides only approximate Evergreen geographic coordinates, not the exact road departure site or a private residence.