Tesla is on trial in Miami today in a case that accuses Elon Musk’s company of a liability in a fatal crash involving Autopilot. The driver-assist system has come under scrutiny in the past for a number of fatal incidents, but Tesla has only rarely faced a jury trial over the question of whether Autopilot was at fault for someone’s death, The Verge reported.
The trial comes at a particularly risky moment for Tesla, which is currently forging ahead with its plan to introduce robotaxis to more cities. The company is also experiencing a monthlong backlash for Musk’s hard-right turn and his work with Donald Trump’s administration.
Autopilot, which can control steering and braking functions, as well as perform automatic lane changes while on certain highways, has come under increased scrutiny from federal regulators. And it has been at the center of several lawsuits, some of which Tesla has settled and others of which have been dismissed.
The case in question involves an inattentive driver of a Tesla Model S and a couple who were out stargazing late at night. Naibel Benavides, 20, was killed in 2019 when George McGee’s Model S rammed into a stationary SUV parked next to a T-intersection. McGee was using Autopilot, but had dropped his phone and was inattentive at the time of the crash.
Mashable reported: Tesla will soon face a jury over a fatal crash involving its autopilot system. The trial, set to begin today in Miami, could be the first legal judgement regarding the increasingly normalized transportation tech.
The Elon Musk-owned company has weathered several lawsuits levied against its autopilot driver-assist system in recent years, all of which have previously been dismissed or settled. The latest suit was brought forward by the family of Naibel Benavides, the victim of an April 2019 crash involving a Tesla Model S sedan with an allegedly defective autopilot, and her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, who was severely injured in the same South Florida wreck.
Benavides, a 22-year-old college student, and Angulo were standing outside an SUV when they were struck by the Tesla, which was driven by George Brian McGee.
Tesla contends that the autopilot feature was not fully activated at the time of the crash, which resulted when McGee dropped his cellphone and reached down to find it, smashing into the parked SUV and surrounding pedestrians, according to the case documents reviewed by the New York Times.
CBS reported: Tesla heads to federal court in Miami on Monday to defend its Autopilot system in a wrongful death case involving the death of a 22-year-old college student.
The fatal crash took place in April 2019, when a Model S Tesla equipped with the autopilot technology struck a parked vehicle in Key Largo, Florida, killing one woman and gravely injuring a man.
The lawsuit, originally filed in April 23, 2021, in the 11th Judicial Court of Florida in Miami-Dade County, market the first wrongful death was against Tesla to make it to trial. The plaintiffs, Dillon Angulo, and the family of Naibel Benavides Leo, who was killed in the accident, are requesting punitive damages and compensation for medical costs and other expenses.