By Kenneth White

The National Transportation Safety Board announced Thursday that it has revoked Tesla’s status as a party to its investigation of a fatal Model X crash in Mountain View, California last month.

The NTSB took this action due to Tesla violating the party agreement: releasing investigative information before it was properly vetted by the NTSB.

This announcement comes as Tesla has released it’s strongest statement yet placing blame for the incident on the driver, Walter Huang. Huang’s family has hired an attorney and is suing Tesla.

Other car manufacturers are designing driver-assist technology that may provide new inspiration for Tesla in its attempt to rebuild a reputation of intelligent and safe vehicles, such as eye tracking of the driver along with detecting steering wheel torque to deliver clear information about driver engagement. Tesla’s Model 3 has a driver-facing camera built into the mount for the rear view mirror.