Tesla Crash in Texas Sparks Debate Over Self-Driving Claims

A Texas man has been arrested on a manslaughter charge after his Tesla crashed into a home last month while he claimed it was in self-driving mode, killing a woman inside the residence, authorities said.

The driver, Michael Butler, was arrested on Wednesday and booked at the Harris County Jail, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

Butler is scheduled to appear in court for arraignment on July 6, according to online jail records. He remained in custody on Thursday on a $150,000 bond, according to jail records.

The fatal crash allegedly involving Butler unfolded on June 19 in the Houston suburb of Katy, Texas, according to the sheriff's office.

Butler was traveling in his Tesla Model 3 around 8 p.m. local time and claimed the vehicle was operating "with an automated driving assistance system," the Harris County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

Butler allegedly failed to drive in a single lane, left the roadway and crashed through the front of a two-story brick residence, according to the sheriff's office.

Butler's car allegedly drove into the front room of the home, pinning 76-year-old Martha Avila, the sheriff's office said.

Avila was airlifted to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, the sheriff's office said.

Investigators said Butler, who was injured, showed no signs of intoxication and was cooperating with investigators.

It was unclear on Thursday if Butler had hired an attorney.

Avila's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit last month in Harris County District Court seeking at least $1 million in damages and alleging Tesla and Butler were negligent.

"They're not eager to either blame the driver or blame Tesla. They want to figure out what happened to their mom and prevent it from happening to other people in their community," the Avila family's attorney, Chris Adkins of the Houston law firm Zehl & Associates, told ABC News on Thursday.

Adkins said his firm is just beginning the fact-finding phase of its investigation and plans to seek information Tesla appears to be getting from a system its cars are equipped with called a collision snapshot that sends data to its servers during significant crashes.

"Once we get all the facts into evidence, if there is someone that we need to hold accountable, we'll hold those parties accountable for sure," Adkins said.

In an earlier interview with ABC News, another family attorney, Ryan Zehl, said Avila, a grandmother, "was tragically, preventively and needlessly killed in her own residence."

Investigators said Butler, who was injured, showed no signs of intoxication and was cooperating with investigators.

Tesla disputed that Butler's car was in self-driving mode at the time of the crash, and alleged he overrode the feature.

Following the crash, Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla, posted a response on social media, saying Butler's account of the crash "makes no sense."

"FSD [full self-driving] drives slowly through neighborhood streets and this was a high-speed crash!" Musk said in his post.

In a separate online post, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's head of artificial intelligence, responded to Musk, alleging that the self-driving mode on Butler's vehicle was manually overridden.

"Yup. In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area," Elluswamy claimed in his post. "They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash."

The crash is being investigated by local authorities, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the National Transportation Safety Board.

ABC News' Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.