The lawsuit against Tesla has reached a settlement with the family of a Silicon Valleywho died in an accident caused by trusting the company.
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The amount Tesla paid to settle the lawsuit was not disclosed in court documents filed Monday, just a day before the trial over the 2018 crash on a San Franciscoinvolving Autopilot. In a court filing requesting that the amount be kept confidential, Tesla said it agreed to settle the case to “end the long-running litigation.”
In 2019, Walter Huang 's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit seeking to hold Tesla — and through it, CEO Elon Musk — liable for repeatedly overstating the capabilities of the company's self-driving technology. They alleged that the technology, referred to as Autopilot , was promoted in a way that led vehicle owners to believe they didn't need to be vigilant while driving.
Evidence showed that Huang was playing a video game on iPhone when he collided with a bar on the highway on March 23, 2018.
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After dropping his son off at daycare, Huang activated Autopilot in his Model X for his daily commute to work at Apple . But less than 20 minutes later, the lawsuit alleges, his Tesla's Autopilot system pulled the vehicle out of its lane and began accelerating before eventually crashing into a guardrail at a dangerous intersection on a busy freeway in Mountain View , California . The Model X was traveling more than 70 miles per hour .
Huang, 38, died in the accident, leaving behind his wife and two children, now aged 12 and 9.
The incident was just one of about a dozen that have occurred in various parts of the U.S., raising questions about whether Musk’s exaggerations about the effectiveness of Tesla’s Autopilot are creating a false impression about the technology. The company also has an optional feature it calls “Full Self Driving.” In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation last year into how Tesla and Musk are promoting its autonomous technology, according to regulatory filings that did not provide many details about the nature of the investigation.
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Last year, Tesla, which is based in Austin, Texas, won a Southern California court case that focused on whether misconceptions about Tesla's Autopilot feature contributed to a 2019 accident involving one of the company's cars.
Source: abcnews
