Tesla settles Autopilot wrongful death suit, avoiding court trial
Tesla has filed to keep the settlement terms sealed.
Enlarge / A photograph from the NTSB report into the crash. (credit: NTSB)
Yesterday, trial was due to begin in the case of Huang v. Tesla, a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of a man killed in his Tesla Model X in 2018. But the case will now not be heard by a judge—Tesla has settled with the family for an undisclosed sum.
Walter Huang was driving to work in his Model X on March 23, 2018, when his car drove headlong into a concrete divider at an exit on US Highway 101. Tesla's partially automated driving system, Autopilot, was active at the time, and Huang trusted it enough to play video games on his phone, despite having noticed that the car got confused at that particular intersection more than once.
The National Transportation Safety Board investigated Huang's death and published its findings in 2020. The NTSB found plenty of parties to blame. Tesla's misleading marketing of Autopilot, such as video interviews where the Tesla CEO operated the system without keeping his hands or eyes on the road, and a staged self-driving demonstration contributed to Huang's mistaken trust in Autopilot.