Tesla is facing a landmark verdict in a federal court trial over a fatal 2019 crash involving its Autopilot system. Lawyers for the victims are asking a jury to award a staggering $345 million in damages, a decision that could set a huge precedent for the automaker.
The case centers on a tragic crash from 2019 and the critical question of who is to blame: the driver or the car’s technology? A Tesla owner named George McGee was using the company’s “Enhanced Autopilot” when he dropped his phone. He testified that he believed the car would automatically brake for any obstacles, so he didn’t stop. He sped through an intersection and slammed into a parked car, killing 22-year-old Naibel Benavides and severely injuring her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo.
Lawyers for the victims argue that Tesla sold a dangerously defective system and that CEO Elon Musk’s public promises about its capabilities encouraged drivers to trust it too much. They claim Tesla should have known about the system’s flaws and limited its use to roads where it could perform safely.
Tesla’s lawyers fired back, placing the blame squarely on the driver. They argued in court that the company communicated Autopilot’s limitations and that McGee’s careless driving was the sole cause of the crash.
This is a rare public battle for Tesla, which usually settles these cases or moves them to private arbitration. However, the judge in the case allowed the trial to proceed, writing that a jury could reasonably find that Tesla “acted in reckless disregard of human life for the sake of developing their product and maximizing profit.”
