Tesla Found Partly Liable in Autopilot Trial, Jury Awards $200M in Damages

A jury in federal court in Miami has found Tesla partly to blame for a fatal 2019 crash that involved the use of the company’s Autopilot driver assistance system. The jury assessed punitive damages only against Tesla. The punitive fines coupled with a compensatory damages puts the total payments to around $242.5 million.

Neither the driver of the car nor the Autopilot system braked in time to avoid going through an intersection, where the car struck an SUV and killed a pedestrian. The jury assigned the driver two-thirds of the blame, and attributed one-third to Tesla.

Verdict and Reaction

The verdict comes at the end of a three-week trial over the crash, which killed 20-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and severely injured her boyfriend Dillon Angulo. The verdict is one of the first major legal decisions about driver assistance technology that has gone against Tesla.

Tesla, in a statement, said it plans to appeal the verdict “given the substantial errors of law and irregularities at trial.” The company wrote, “Today’s verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla’s and the entire industry’s efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology.”