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I have encountered the following sentence on the Internet:

Model S hit truck while driving with autopilot on.

Model S is the name of a car produced by Tesla Inc. I think that the subject of the subordinate clause is Model S and that it is better to use a verb "travel" or "move" instead of "drive". Is this usage of "drive" is natural for native speakers?

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  • I'm not a native speaker, but drive sounds awful here. Travel is a very good option. Going is another option possible, however I wouldn't use it.
    – SovereignSun
    Apr 22, 2017 at 8:14
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    It is a sentence with both a subject and predicate and the form of a main clause, but it's not really an example of Standard English. Instead, it's written with an elliptical style known as headlinese. In headlinese, certain words are typically left out, especially articles and forms of be.
    – user230
    Apr 22, 2017 at 9:23

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The verb drive is also an intransitive verb meaning to move along or advance quickly. For example:

Your Ford car drives really well.

We could hear the truck driving along the highway (The Free Dictionary).

So the sentence "Model S hit a/the truck while driving with autopilot on" is grammatical

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