In April, Tesla will be back in court over allegations that the company’s autopilot driver-assist software is defective and led to a fatal 2018 car accident that took the life of a former Apple employee in California. New evidence has come to light, showing that Tesla’s president and Elon Musk were aware that Tesla’s driver-assist software could lead to drivers paying less attention to the road while using the autopilot system, which could lead to car accidents precipitated by driver distraction. Let’s get into the details.
Background
For the past few years, Tesla has been embroiled in lawsuits over its autopilot driver assistant feature and allegations that the autopilot leads to driver distraction and fatal car accidents. One of the most renowned Tesla lawsuits centers around the death of Walter Huang, a former Apple software engineer, who died in March 2018 after his Model X veered off U.S. Highway 101 in Northern California and crashed into a concrete barrier.
In April 2019, Walter Huang’s wife filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Tesla, alleging that its autopilot software was defective and caused the fatal car crash. Lawyers for Huang’s estate argued in the complaint that “Tesla’s Autopilot feature was defective and caused Huang’s death. The navigation system of Huang’s Tesla misread the lane lines on the roadway, failed to detect the concrete median, and failed to [engage the auto’s braking system], [and] instead accelerated the car into the median.”
The trial will begin on April 8th in California Superior Court, County of Santa Clara, and will be presided over by Judge Sunil R. Kulkarni.
What’s in the Complaint?
The complaint contains six causes of action, including (1) negligence/wrongful death, (2) strict liability, (3) negligence (post-sale), (4) dangerous condition of public property, (5) failure to discharge mandatory duty, and (6) survival action.
The plaintiffs seek special and general damages, and one of the plaintiff’s lawyers stated, “We want to ensure the technology behind semi-autonomous cars is safe before they are released on the roads, and its risks are not withheld or misrepresented to the public.” The lawsuit includes the State of California Department of Transportation as one of the defendants, alleging that “Huang’s vehicle impacted a concrete highway median that was missing its crash attenuator guard, as Caltrans failed to replace the guard after an earlier crash there.”
What’s the New Evidence in this Latest Tesla Lawsuit?
Previously unreported transcripts obtained by Reuters show that a deposition for this California wrongful-death lawsuit cited an email exchange in which “they asked [a] Tesla witness whether the company knew drivers would not watch the road when using its driver-assistance system. In an email exchange between Tesla’s president Jon McNeill and Tesla’s automated-driving chief Sterling Anderson, cc’ing Elon Musk, the president wrote that Tesla’s driver-assistance software “performed perfectly,” with the “smoothness of a human driver.” McNeill wrote in the email, “I got so comfortable under Autopilot that I ended up blowing by exits because I was immersed in emails or calls (I know, I know, not a recommended use).”
Now, that exchange is being used by plaintiffs in the lawsuit as a new line of legal attack. They argue that the email signifies that Tesla executives knew drivers could become distracted while using the autopilot software, leading to dangerous driving conditions and car accidents. This lawsuit “follows two previous California trials over Autopilot that Tesla won by arguing the drivers involved had not heeded its instructions to maintain attention while using the system.”
Plaintiffs in this current lawsuit may be more successful in court than previous lawsuits because this time around, plaintiffs’ lawyers “have testimony from Tesla witnesses indicating that, before the accident, the automaker never studied how quickly and effectively drivers could take control if Autopilot accidentally steers towards an obstacle,” and “are raising questions about whether Tesla understood that drivers – like McNeill, its president – likely wouldn’t or couldn’t use the system as directed, and what steps the automaker took to protect them.
According to legal experts familiar with the lawsuit, “the case could pose the stiffest test to date of Tesla’s insistence that Autopilot is safe -if drivers do their part. If the plaintiffs are successful, it could lead to future wins by other victims of Tesla-autopilot-related car accidents who decide to sue the autonomous vehicle company. Head to Trellis to stay updated on this case, learn more about the presiding judge and parties, and read the official court documents.
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Sources:
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/03/12/the-technology-handoff-may-mean-legal-trouble-for-tesla
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-elon-musk-no-testify-fatal-autopilot-crash-case
https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/11/24097480/tesla-walter-huang-crash-lawsuit-court-autopilot
https://www.minamitamaki.com/huang
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