Tesla ordered to pay $329M over fatal crash involving autopilot

A Florida jury has found Tesla partially responsible for a deadly 2019 crash involving its Enhanced Autopilot system and ordered the company to pay $129 million in compensation and $200 million in punitive damages, CNBC reports. Tesla has said it will appeal the decision.

The incident occurred when a Model S driver, distracted by a dropped phone, struck a parked car and nearby pedestrians at 96 km/h. One woman was killed and another seriously injured. The driver claimed he was relying on the system to stop the car automatically.

Jurors pointed to several key arguments in their decision:

• This was not an isolated incident.
• Autopilot was designed for highway use only, yet Tesla knowingly allowed it to be used on local roads.
• Tesla cultivated unrealistic expectations around the system. Elon Musk had publicly claimed that "Autopilot drives better than a human," despite requiring constant driver supervision. As early as 2018, Musk acknowledged that drivers "just get too used to it" and overestimate its capabilities.
• Tesla continues to market the feature as "Autopilot," even though it is technically a driver assistance system.
• Neither the driver nor the system applied the brakes before hitting the pedestrian, indicating a failure to detect the danger in time.

The jury ultimately assigned two-thirds of the fault to the driver and one-third to Tesla. A separate lawsuit was also filed against the driver.

In response, Tesla stated: "To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash. This was never about Autopilot; it was a fiction concocted by plaintiffs’ lawyers blaming the car when the driver — from day one — admitted and accepted responsibility."