Tesla faces first autopilot crash trial with a $3M lawsuit
Californian state jury has begun deliberating on a crash trial involving Tesla’s Autopilot partially automated driving software. Plaintiff Justin Hsu is suing the company for more than $3 million in damages due to alleged defects.
A jury in California has begun deliberating on a crash trial involving Tesla’s Autopilot partially automated driving software. Justine Hsu is suing Tesla for more than $3 million in damages due to alleged defects, while Tesla denies liability, stating that Hsu used Autopilot on city streets, which is warned against in the user manual. The current trial has lasted over three weeks in Los Angeles Superior Court and has featured testimony from three Tesla engineers.
The verdict of this trial could offer an important sign of the risk facing Tesla Inc. as it tests and rolls out its Autopilot and more advanced ‘Full Self-Driving (FSD)’ system.
This trial comes at a critical time for the company as it braces for a spate of other trials related to the semi-automated driving system. Tesla calls its driver-assistant systems Autopilot or Full Self-Driving but stated that human drivers should be ‘prepared to take over at any moment’ as the features do not make the cars autonomous.
Tesla also faces investigations by the US Justice Department and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over its claims about self-driving capabilities and the safety of the technology.
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