A Tesla car crashed into a tree and burst into flames in Houston, Texas, killing two people.
Officials said the car, which has a driver-assist system called Autopilot, appeared to have been driving itself at the time of the crash, according to media reports.
"Our preliminary investigation is determining – but it is not complete yet – that there was no one at the wheel of that vehicle ... we are almost 99.9 per cent sure," Harris County Precinct 4 constable Mark Herman told the Wall Street Journal.
One of the victims was in the front passenger seat and the other was in the back seat of the Tesla 2019 Model S when it veered off a bend at high speed, according to the newspaper.
It took emergency responders and firefighters about four hours and about 120,000 litres of water to put out the fire, said Mr Herman.
The high-voltage batteries used in Tesla cars made things difficult for rescue workers.
The batteries are known to reignite several times after firefighters extinguish a fire involving electric vehicles, according to the US government's National Transportation Safety Board.
“If a high-voltage battery is damaged, energy remains inside any undamaged cells, with no path to discharge it ... responders have no way of measuring how much remains ... and no way of draining, other than time-consuming methods as allowing a battery fire to burn itself out,” said the NTSB.
Tesla did not immediately respond to The National’s request for comment. After the crash, the electric car maker’s founder and chief executive Elon Musk tweeted about the safety of Tesla’s driver-assist system.
“Tesla with Autopilot engaged now approaching 10 times lower chance of accident than average vehicle,” he said on Sunday.
All new Tesla cars come with the standard driver-assist feature but the company clearly said that it does not plan to make its vehicle fully autonomous.
“While these features are designed to become more capable over time, the currently enabled features do not make the vehicle autonomous.”
Autopilot is supposed to be engaged where there is a “fully attentive driver” who has his “hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment”, the California-based company said.
In the first quarter of this year, Tesla registered one accident for every 6.74 million kilometres driven with Autopilot engaged.
The company recorded one accident for every 3.29 million km when Autopilot was not engaged but other active safety measures were switched on.
Last month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it opened 27 investigations into crashes involving Tesla vehicles.
The US road safety agency sent its team to investigate two crashes in Michigan and Detroit. The Michigan accident happened on March 17 when a Tesla in Autopilot mode crashed into a parked police car.
The Detroit accident was on March 11 and involved a Tesla that crashed into a lorry, leaving a passenger in serious condition.
In December 2019, a speeding Tesla Model S slammed into a Honda Civic at an intersection in Los Angeles, killing two people.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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