Tesla settles lawsuit over man’s death in a crash involving its semi-autonomous driving software

SANTA CLARA, Calif. —
Tesla has reached a settlement in a lawsuit brought by the family of a Silicon Valley engineer who died in a crash while using the company’s semi-autonomous driving software.

The exact amount Tesla paid to settle the case was not disclosed in court documents filed on Monday, just a day before the trial related to the 2018 crash on a San Francisco Bay Area highway was set to begin. Tesla requested to keep the settlement amount private, stating that they agreed to settle in order to put an end to years of litigation.

Tesla Inc.’s stock, which has declined by 30% this year, dropped 1% before the market opened on Tuesday.

The family of Walter Huang filed a lawsuit for negligence and wrongful death in 2019, alleging that Tesla, and its CEO Elon Musk, exaggerated the capabilities of Tesla’s self-driving technology known as Autopilot. They claimed that the promotion of Autopilot led vehicle owners to believe they could rely on the technology without remaining vigilant while driving.

Evidence showed that Huang was playing a video game on his iPhone when he crashed into a concrete highway barrier on March 23, 2018.

After dropping off his son at preschool, Huang activated the Autopilot feature on his Model X for his commute to work at Apple. However, less than 20 minutes later, the vehicle veered out of its lane and accelerated before crashing into a barrier on a busy highway in Mountain View, California. The Model X was traveling at over 70 miles per hour at the time of the crash.

Huang, aged 38, died at the scene, leaving behind his wife and two children, aged 12 and 9.

This case is one of several across the U.S. questioning whether Musk’s claims about the effectiveness of Tesla’s autonomous technology create a false sense of confidence in the technology. The company also offers an optional feature called Full Self Driving. The U.S. Justice Department initiated an inquiry last year into how Tesla and Musk promote their autonomous technology, although details about the probe were limited in regulatory filings.

Tesla, headquartered in Austin, Texas, successfully defended itself in a Southern California trial last year that focused on whether misconceptions about Tesla’s Autopilot feature played a role in a 2019 crash involving one of the company’s vehicles.