Tesla’s team of “hardcore lawyers” have decided to settle a lawsuit involving an Autopilot death as a substitute of going to a trial that looked like it was about to get interesting.
Last month, we reported on the case as it was preparing to go to trial. It involved the death of Walter Huang, an Apple engineer who crashed his Tesla Model X while driving on Autopilot.
The case was controversial since the automotive was clearly on Autopilot and made a mistake by driving into the median, but the motive force was also at fault because he was not being attentive as data shows he was using his phone despite the fact that Tesla asks drivers to listen in any respect times when using Autopilot.
Tesla was dropped at court over similar cases, but it won all of them by claiming drivers misused Autopilot by not being attentive.
We noted that this case was more interesting since the lawyers for the Huang family smartly learned from those previous cases and took a special approach. They as a substitute focused on two things. They alleged that Tesla knew that Autopilot had an issue with going into the median and, subsequently, was defective, and in addition they alleged that Tesla was accountable for the misuse of the Autopilot system by constructing overconfidence in it, especially through statements made by the CEO Elon Musk.
The lawyers made interesting findings through discovery and Tesla engineer testimonies that highlighted that Tesla didn’t look much into driver monitoring to make sure driver attention, no less than on the time of the crash. It also showed that Tesla was very aware of the potential for driver abuse.
As reported, it was about to grow to be a really interesting trial.
However, we learned today through court documents that Tesla and Huang’s family have settled the case. The terms of the settlement haven’t been disclosed.
Electrek’s Take
I actually have to assume that the settlement features a nice chunk of money for the family and no admission of wrongdoing on Tesla’s part.
However, we kind of take it as an admission of wrongdoing from Tesla because Elon is on record saying that Tesla would “never settle an unjust case against” them:
We won’t ever give up/settle an unjust case against us, even when we are going to probably lose.
But in reality, I believe Tesla didn’t want all of the bad publicity and all the knowledge that might have come out of the trial.
Again, I believe it’s as much as the drivers to remain attentive in any respect times when using Tesla’s Autopilot or FSD, but I also think that Tesla has some responsibility in constructing overconfidence within the systems.
Credit : electrek.co
