TSLA Tesla Inc

Tesla Motors Inc. said Wednesday that a fatal crash in January involving one of its vehicles in China was so extensive that it hasn't been able to determine whether the car's Autopilot system was engaged.

China Central Television, the state broadcaster known as CCTV, on Wednesday reported that 23-year-old Gao Yaning died in a crash in the northeastern province of Hebei while driving a Tesla Model S on Jan. 20.

His father, Gao Jubin, filed a lawsuit in July against a Chinese dealer who sold the Tesla, CCTV reported, alleging that his son used the Autopilot feature at the time of the crash. The suit cites video footage, taken from inside the car, showing that the car maintained its speed when it hit a road sweeper.

"We were saddened to learn of the death of our customer's son," the Palo Alto, Calif., auto maker said Wednesday in a statement. "We have tried repeatedly to work with our customer to investigate the cause of the crash, but he has not provided us with any additional information that would allow us to do so."

Tesla's Autopilot system uses cameras, radar and sensors to steer its vehicles and adjust their speed. The company says drivers must remain ready to take control of the car.

Telsa has faced scrutiny for the software since late June when Tesla disclosed that a Model S had crashed in Florida, killing the driver.

Tesla said then that the May 7 incident was "the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated."

The Florida crash sparked an investigation of Tesla's Autopilot system by U.S. car-safety regulators that remains ongoing.

The CCTV report on Wednesday raises the question whether the China crash was the first fatal accident involving Autopilot. A lawyer who represents the father of the son involved in the crash said his client isn't after a financial remedy.

"We want to…let the public know that the 'automatic driving' technology has some flaws and people shouldn't try it lightly," said Wang Beibei, the lawyer, on CCTV.

"We take any incident with our vehicles very seriously and immediately reached out to our customer when we learned of the crash," Tesla said in Wednesday's statement. "Because of the damage caused by the collision, the car was physically incapable of transmitting log data to our servers and we therefore have no way of knowing whether or not Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash."

On Sunday, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk announced plans to update the Autopilot software in Tesla vehicles within the next two weeks with changes that he said would have likely prevented the Florida crash. Autopilot will depend more on radar signals as part of the changes.

Write to Carolyn Cui at carolyn.cui@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 14, 2016 16:45 ET (20:45 GMT)

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