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Questions surround accident involving Tesla Model X owned by Park West Gallery owner

Posted at 7:46 PM, Jul 06, 2016
and last updated 2016-07-06 19:46:05-04

It's a high-end vehicle with the latest technologies, but now there are questions regarding the Tesla Model X.

They come after a man from Michigan crashed his car on the Pennsylvania turnpike.

There's still a lot we don't know about the accident, but carmaker Tesla and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also want more information regarding what actually took place.

Albert Scaglione is a prominent figure locally and in the art collectible world, the founder and CEO of Park West Gallery in Southfield. He's the subject of this accident report from the State Police for a rollover crash that happened last Friday on the Pennsylvania Turnpike near the Bedford exit.

Scaglione was said to be driving his 2016 Tesla Model X, a vehicle introduced with great fanfare in September of last year by Tesla founder Elon Musk.

Scaglione reportedly told police he had the driver assistance "Autopilot" feature activated when the car crashed and rolled over. However, there is no indication of that in the accident report.

Tesla is also disputing it. In a statement to 7 Action News, the company said it received an automated alert that airbags on the vehicle had been deployed.

However, the spokesperson also said:

We have attempted to reach the customer three times by phone without success. Based on the information we have now, we have no reason to believe that Autopilot had anything to do with this accident.

The federal agency in charge of auto safety announcing this afternoon it is also looking into the crash with this one line statement:

NHTSA is collecting information from the Pennsylvania State Police, Tesla and the driver of a Tesla Model X involved in a crash on July 1 to determine whether automated functions were in use at the time of the crash.

Scaglione's son-in-law was in the car with him at the time. Our efforts to reach both of them have been unsuccessful.

There was no comment when we went to Park West Gallery today.

Just last week, NHTSA started investigating the design and performance of Tesla's Autopilot system after a fatal crash in 2015.

The police report here shows that Scaglione was transported to a hospital near the crash site with injuries of unknown severity.

We have no additional information on his condition or when he might be ready to clear up some of the confusion that is surfacing regarding this accident.