2023-10-31 21:29:43
Tesla has won the first lawsuit in the USA over a fatal accident involving its Autopilot driving assistance system. A majority jury in federal court in California concluded Tuesday that the vehicle had no manufacturing defect. The ruling is an important victory for the electric car maker, which faces several similar lawsuits in the United States. So far, however, there have never been any fatal accidents.
The case currently being discussed involved an accident with a Tesla Model 3. The car left the road on a highway in 2019 at 105 kilometers per hour, hit a palm tree and burst into flames. The driver, Micah Lee, was killed and two passengers were seriously injured.
The passengers sued Tesla for $400 million (378 million euros), accusing the carmaker of knowing when it sold the vehicle that the autopilot and other safety systems were faulty. When Lee bought the Tesla package with all self-driving capabilities for his Model 3 in 2019 for $6,000, the system was still in the beta phase and therefore not ready for general use.
Tesla is being investigated in 17 cases
Tesla argued that human error caused the accident. Lee drank alcohol before getting behind the wheel. It is also unclear whether the autopilot was switched on at the time of the accident.
Tim Kanning Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 105 Adrian Lobe Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 2 Archibald Preuschat Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 1
After four days of deliberations, nine of the twelve jurors voted for Tesla. There was initially no comment from Tesla and the plaintiffs. Federal authorities have been investigating the company in 17 additional cases since June 2021 to determine whether errors when driving the cars independently led to deaths. The authorities accuse Tesla of exaggerating its progress in the field of autonomous driving.
The ruling came as Tesla shares have lost almost a fifth of their value in less than two weeks as fears grow that demand for electric cars is beginning to weaken.
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