Earlier this week, a California state court jury ruled in favor of Tesla in a lawsuit that blamed the company’s Autopilot software for a 2019 Model S crash. The incident left the driver of the vehicle with a fractured jaw, missing teeth, and nerve damage. Justine Hsu, who sued Tesla in 2020, alleged that defects in the Autopilot software and Tesla’s airbag design caused the crash and sought more than $3 million in damages.
Tesla denied liability for the accident, arguing that Hsu had engaged Autopilot on a city street, a practice the company warns against in the software’s user manual. The jury ultimately awarded Hsu no damages and said that Tesla did not intentionally fail to disclose facts about Autopilot.
This lawsuit is among the first involving the driver assistance mode, and while the result won’t be legally binding in other cases, it is expected to inform how lawyers tackle future incidents involving the technology. However, the outcome of the case is unlikely to ease the scrutiny that Tesla already faces related to its claims around Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving” software. The company is under investigation by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for Autopilot collisions involving parked emergency vehicles, and earlier this year, the US Department of Justice requested documents related to the two features.
