Tesla sued in illegal death case claiming that Autopilot caused crash – TechCrunch
The family of Walter Huang, an Apple engineer who died after his Tesla Model X with Autopilot engaged, went down a highway, suing Tesla. The state of the California Department of Transportation is also named in the lawsuit.
The unfair right of death, filed in California Superior Court, Santa Clara County, claims that errors of the Tesla Autopilot driver assistance system caused crashes that killed Huang on March 23, 2018. Huang, who was 38, died when his 2017 Tesla Model X hit a highway barrier on highway 101 in Mountain View, California.
The case file claims that Tesla's Autopilot driver assistance system failed lane lines, failed to detect concrete media, failed to slow down, and instead accelerated into the median.
A Tesla spokesman refused to comment on the case.
"Mrs. Huang lost her husband and two children lost their father because Tesla is beta testing the autopilot software on live drives," said B. Mark Fong, a partner of the law firm Minami Tamaki, in a statement.
Other claims against Tesla include product liability, defective product design, lack of notice, breach of warranty, intentional and negligent delay and false advertising. California DOT is also named in the lawsuit because the concrete highway median that Huang's vehicle hit, lacked the collision damper, according to the application. failed to replace guard after a previous crash there, the plaintiff claims.
The lawsuit intends to "ensure the technology behind semi-autonomous cars is safe before being released on the roads and its risk is not withheld or misrepresented to the public, " Doris Cheng, a partner at Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger, who also represents the family. [1[ads1]9659002] In the days after the crash, Tesla released two blog posts and ended up with the National Transport Security Board, which had sent investigators to the crash scene.
March 30, blog post confirmed Autopilot had been engaged at the time of the crash. Tesla said the driver had received more visuals and an audible warning earlier in the station, and the driver's hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds before the collision.
These comments led to a response from NTSB indicating that it was "dissatisfied with the release of investigative information from Tesla." NTSB requires companies that are parties to an agency's accident investigation not release details of the incident to the public without approval.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk will soon convene via Twitter to express his own disappointment and criticism of NTSB.
Three weeks after the crash, Tesla issued a statement blaming Huang and denying moral or legal liability for the accident.
"According to the family, Mr. Huang was well aware that Autopilot was not perfect, and he specifically said it was not reliable at the exact location, but still engaged Autopilot on that site ion. Crash happened on a clear day with more Hundred meters of visibility ahead, which means the only way this accident happened is that Mr. Huang was not aware of the road, despite the fact that the car gave several warnings to do so. "
Relationship between NTSB and Tesla would disintegrate further after the statement. Tesla said it withdrew from the party agreement with NTSB. Within one day, NTSB claimed it had removed Tesla as a party in the crash investigation.
A preliminary report from NTSB gave no conclusions on what caused the crash. But it found that the vehicle accelerated from 62 km / h to 70.8 mph in the last three seconds before the impact and moved to the left as it approached the paved gore area that shared the main travel path of the 101 and the Highway 85 exit ramp.
The report also found that for 18 minutes and 55 seconds before the shock, Tesla gave two visual alerts and a sound warning that the driver would put his hands on the wheel. The warnings were made more than 15 minutes before the crash.
Huang's hands were discovered on the wheel just 34 seconds in the last minute before the shock. No pre-crash braking or elusive steering motion was detected, the report said. The thing is Sz Hua Huang et al., Tesla Inc., State of California No. 19CV346663.
