The National Transportation Safety Board announced Thursday the removal of Tesla as a party to the NTSB's investigation of the March 23 fatal crash of a 2017 Tesla Model X near Mountain View, California.

"Tesla withdrew from the party agreement with the NTSB because it requires that we not release information about Autopilot to the public, a requirement which we believe fundamentally affects public safety negatively", the statement reads.

The spokesperson said that last week, the NTSB told Tesla that if the company made additional statements about the investigation prior to its completion "we would no longer be a party to the investigation agreement".

Bloomberg's source says the NTSB will issue a press release some time on Thursday addressing Tesla's departure.

The coverage from Reuters continues: "Tesla later said the vehicle had activated Autopilot, raising new questions about the semi-autonomous system that handles some driving tasks".

The family's lawyer believes that the company is doubling down on putting the blame on Huang in order to distract from their concerns about his vehicle's Autopilot. Tesla initially claimed that it chose to leave the investigation because the NTSB wasn't allowing the company to release information about the investigation to the public.

"The overreliance issue is probably the most serious issue with all these systems, so that goes with Tesla that was shown there", said Gersch.

Teslas said it "will be making an official complaint to Congress" about the NTSB.

"It's mostly, like, people cancel because, you know, they just needed a vehicle and we didn't have a auto for them", he said.

Tesla notes that according to its readings from the vehicle, Huang did not follow the procedure for using Autopilot. Tesla said it had made improvements in the system since the crash.

Groups including Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety and Consumer Reports have criticized Tesla for years for naming its driver-assistance system Autopilot, with the latter calling on the company to choose a different moniker back in July 2016. But that agreement also stipulates that the company can't comment publicly on the investigation without permission from the NTSB.

Huang's family previously told KGO-TV that he had repeatedly complained that the car's semiautonomous system kept veering toward the same barrier. The firm said its preliminary review of the crash suggested Autopilot was defective. Moreover, of all the cars that NHTSA has ever tested, Model S and Model X scored as the two cars with the lowest probability of injury.

The crash involving Walter Huang is now being investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). VIDEO: Widow of deadly Tesla crash victim speaks out Here is the full statement from Tesla: "We are very sorry for the family's loss".

But this time it is not so simple, since Tesla will likely evaluate suppliers with more care than usual, given the recent supply problems of parts that have caused delays in the production of the Model 3. Tesla says there is one auto death in the USA for every 86 million miles driven, but for Tesla vehicles, it's one death for every 320 million miles.

Knudson said the NTSB will still be able to get information from Tesla for its investigation and could make urgent safety recommendations if needed.