Tesla scored another victory Tuesday after a jury sided with the company over charges that its advanced driver assistance system, Autopilot, caused a fatal crash.
The lawsuit, being heard in California’s Riverside County Superior Court, was brought by two surviving passengers in a 2019 crash, alleging that Tesla knew its products were defective. The two survivors sought $400 million in damages for the driver’s loss of life, physical injuries, and emotional distress.
Tesla maintains that the crash that killed driver Mika Lee was the result of human error, and has taken a similar position in other Autopilot lawsuits.
Tesla has won other lawsuits, including a jury trial in California earlier this year that determined the automaker’s Autopilot system was not responsible for a 2019 crash. In that case, a jury awarded no damages to Los Angeles resident Justin Hsu, who sued Tesla in 2020 alleging negligence, fraud and breach of contract. The case, which concluded Tuesday, was the first to result in a fatality after a jury trial.
Tesla still faces a number of other lawsuits in California. That includes a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Apple engineer Walter Huang, who was killed when his Tesla Model X, equipped with Autopilot, crashed into a highway median. The California Department of Transportation is also named in the lawsuit. The wrongful death lawsuit filed in California Superior Court in Santa Clara County alleges that the crash that killed Juan on March 23, 2018 was caused by an error in Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system. Huang, 38, died while driving a 2017 Tesla Model X. The vehicle crashed into a freeway barrier on Highway 101 in Mountain View, California. A jury trial in the case is scheduled to begin next year.
Tesla also faces scrutiny from federal and state regulators, all related to Autopilot and its upgraded version known as full self-driving.
Tesla cars come standard with a driver assistance system called Autopilot. Owners can purchase an enhanced autopilot for his $6,000 upgrade. It includes several other features, such as an active guidance system that navigates the car from highway on-ramps to exit ramps, including interchanges and lane changes.
For an additional $12,000, owners can purchase “Full Self-Driving” (FSD). This is a feature that CEO Elon Musk has been promising for years, one day delivering full self-driving capabilities.
Tesla cars are not self-driving. Instead, FSD includes a number of self-driving features that require the driver to be in control at all times. This includes all of the enhanced Autopilot, which is supposed to handle steering on city roads and recognize and react to traffic lights and stop signs.
Source: techcrunch.com
