The automaker Tesla was considered “not responsible” for an accident involving a company car that resulted in the death of a man in the United States in 2019.
The company was on trial because the victim’s family claimed that the Model 3 crash was the result of an Autopilot failurethe autonomous driving system for the company’s vehicles headed by Elon Musk.
The California court jury, however, won the case for the automaker after a long deliberation and rejected the family’s request for a compensation of US$400 millionplus damages applied for misconduct by the company.
In current legislation on autonomous cars, drivers must be able to get behind the wheel at any time.Source: Tesla/Reproduction
This is the first result of a trial involving the death of a driver who was driving a Tesla car — that is, its verdict can be used in the many cases that are still in court, with accusations that the brand was responsible for accidents that occurred in recent years. years due to alleged technical flaws in the platform.
The case took place in 2019 and involves the death of 37-year-old Micah Lee. The boy crashed into a tree while driving on a Los Angeles highway at 105 km/h, in a collision that caused the vehicle to catch fire.
In addition to Micah’s death, the accident resulted in serious injuries to two other passengers, including an 8-year-old boy.
What Tesla says
Tesla defended itself by claiming that the victim “consumed alcoholic beverages before driving” and that there is no evidence that Autopilot was on when the crash occurred, which would characterize only human error.
In another accident recorded in China in early 2023, the autopilot was identified as being turned off during a collision that resulted in deaths.
In other similar cases, the automaker defends itself by saying that, although the platform allows the vehicle to be driven by an automatic system, “the technology requires human monitoring”.
