Tesla disclosed that it could not provide the electronic data key sought in a wrongful death lawsuit, a development that raises fresh questions about access to crucial crash information as the company faces mounting scrutiny over its Autopilot system.
As the case progressed, the victim’s family and a survivor had been piecing together evidence after a Tesla on autopilot slammed into a Florida couple in 2019. In a dramatic turn, a hacker brought in by the plaintiffs managed to decode a chip salvaged from the vehicle uncovering information Tesla said it could not provide.
Following the revelation, Tesla acknowledged in court that the data had been stored on its own servers. The information was later introduced before a jury, which in July found the automaker partly responsible for the 2019 crash and ordered it to pay $243 million in damages, according to The Washington Post.
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Tesla’s legal team has pushed back against the ruling, contending that the jury’s decision conflicts with Florida law and due process protections. They also argued that remarks made by CEO Elon Musk may have misled about the true level of autonomy in the company’s vehicles.
Tesla is now seeking relief from the ruling, asking the court to either overturn the verdict or grant a new trial. The crash claimed the life of Naibel Benavides and left her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, injured, with the jury assigning partial blame to Tesla. The company, however, maintains that the driver, who accelerated manually before the collision, should be held solely accountable.
The company turned down a $60 million settlement proposal in a lawsuit stemming from a deadly 2019 crash involving a Model S operating on autopilot. The plaintiffs’ attorneys are pursuing legal fees from Tesla, arguing that under Florida law they are entitled to cover costs accrued since May 30, when the settlement offer was first made.
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Attorney Brett Schreiber in a statement to the BBC, “Tesla designed Autopilot only for controlled-access highways yet deliberately chose not to restrict drivers from using it elsewhere, alongside Elon Musk telling the world Autopilot drove better than humans.”
In 2019, 22-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon was tragically killed when she was struck by a Tesla Model S at a T-intersection in the Florida Keys. Her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, suffered life-altering injuries in the same incident, and both became central figures in the ensuing lawsuit against Tesla.
Court proceedings revealed that the driver, identified as Mr. McGee, had momentarily lost control while dropping his phone as he approached the intersection. This distraction caused his vehicle to continue unchecked into an SUV parked on the opposite side, where Benavides Leon and Angulo were standing.
Crucially, neither McGee nor Tesla’s autopilot system engaged the brakes in time to prevent the collision, highlighting the debate over the responsibilities of drivers and autonomous driving technology in such accidents.