Reuters – Tesla settles two lawsuits on 2019 California crashes related to Autopilot software
Editors note: Simply put, Tesla has finally realized that the safety of the Autopilot system cannot be defended in court.
See original article by Abhirup Roy and Mike Scarcella at Reuters
- Settlements follow separate $243 million verdict against Tesla in August
- Trials for both cases were scheduled to start next month
- Terms of the two settlements were not disclosed
Sept 16 (Reuters) – Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab has reached confidential deals to resolve two lawsuits over deaths in two separate California crashes in 2019 involving the company’s Autopilot advanced-driver-assistance software, according to court documents.
The settlements come weeks after a Florida jury ordered Tesla to pay $243 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the victims of another fatal 2019 crash of a Model S that was equipped with Autopilot.
Tesla hired a trio of prominent new lawyers and asked a judge to find the verdict legally unjustified and throw out the case, or to order a new trial.
The electric-vehicle maker, which has settled several other cases involving its vehicles and self-driving technology, had rejected a $60 million settlement proposal for the Florida lawsuit, a filing showed last month.
The Florida verdict and the two settlements in California are significant as much of Tesla’s $1.4 trillion valuation hangs on CEO Elon Musk’s promise to rapidly expand its robotaxis and the full self-driving (FSD) software that underpins them. FSD is an advanced version of Autopilot.
One lawsuit, the settlement notice for which was filed on Tuesday, relates to the death of a 15-year-old boy who was traveling in Alameda County, California, with his father in a vehicle when it was rear-ended by a Tesla Model 3, which had Autopilot engaged, causing the victim’s vehicle to roll over and crash into the center barrier. The boy succumbed to his injuries from the collision.
The other case relates to the death in December 2019 of two people who were traveling through an intersection in Gardena, California, in a Honda Civic when a Tesla Model S, equipped with Autopilot, failed to stop at a red light at high speed and crashed into the victims’ vehicle.
Tesla did not respond to requests for comments. Representatives for the plaintiffs’ lawyers did not comment on the Alameda case and did not respond to a request for comment on the Gardena case.
The settlement in the Gardena case is only with Tesla while the trial is set to continue against the driver of the Model S vehicle and some of the other defendants, according to the notice filed last week and seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
Neither notice disclosed the terms of the accords. They said that the dismissals of the lawsuits were conditioned on “satisfactory completion of specified terms.”
Trials for both the cases were scheduled to start next month – one in Alameda County Superior Court and the other in Los Angeles County Superior Court. A judge in the Alameda Superior Court vacated the scheduled trial on Tuesday, while Tesla and the plaintiffs agreed to withdraw their petitions in the Los Angeles trial, according to the court orders.
See original article by Abhirup Roy and Mike Scarcella at Reuters
