Tesla Settles Fatal ‘Autopilot’ Crash Lawsuit, Details Being Kept Under Wraps

A Tesla logo is seen at a dealership in Perth, Western Australia, on March 16, 2024. Susan Mortimer/The Epoch Times

Automotive giant Tesla has opted to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of Apple engineer Walter Huang, who was killed in a 2018 crash while using Tesla’s “Autopilot” software in his car.

The case was set to go to trial this week but the company has opted to settle out of court instead. The plaintiffs argued Tesla’s Autopilot was defective and directly resulted in the death of Mr. Huang.

The April 8 court document filed in the Superior Court of the State of California doesn’t reveal the details of the settlement and how much, if any, financial compensation was part of the deal.

Tesla claimed Mr. Huang became distracted while driving his 2017 Tesla Model X, which struck a highway barrier in Mountain View, California. In the ensuing chaos, two other vehicles, a 2010 Mazda 3 and a 2017 Audi A4, were also struck. The Tesla’s high-voltage battery was breached in the collision, and a postcrash fire ensued. The Mazda driver sustained minor injuries, and the Audi driver was uninjured.

A subsequent investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that driver distraction was likely a contributing factor in the crash.

“The Tesla driver was likely distracted for at least 5 seconds, as shown by his lack of evasive action as he traveled through the neutral area of the gore and the vehicle accelerated toward the crash attenuator,” the report said.

However, the report also found that the “Autopilot system did not provide an effective means of monitoring the driver’s level of engagement with the driving task.”

Other factors investigators said could have contributed to the fatality were limitations of collision avoidance systems and possible highway infrastructure issues.

Musk Going All In on ‘Autopilot’

Tesla has been testing and rolling out its “Autopilot” and more advanced “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) system for the last few years. CEO Elon Musk has publicly stated several times he thinks the Autopilot software is a vital part of the company’s future success. He’s also offered to license the driver assistance system to other car companies.

However, the software has seen several lawsuits brought against Tesla over the years. Mr. Huang’s case is the first known instance of the automotive giant settling a case around its semi-autonomous driving software.

Tesla has in the past won several legal victories over allegations that its Autopilot driver assistant feature led to a death. In 2023, a U.S. jury found that the software was not defective or the cause of a 2019 crash where three people in a Tesla Model 3 car died.

The company won an earlier trial in Los Angeles by arguing it informs drivers that the tech still requires human monitoring, despite the “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” names.

In a May 2022 post to social media platform X, Mr. Musk claimed the company would “never seek victory in a just case against us, even if we will probably win.”

But Tesla would also “never surrender/settle an unjust case against us, even if we will probably lose.”