A California state court has awarded Tesla a major victory in the first lawsuit related to an accident linked to the automaker’s partially automated driving software, Autopilot. The plaintiff, Justine Hsu, alleged that her Tesla Model S swerved into a curb while in Autopilot mode and that the airbag deployed violently, causing her to suffer jaw fractures, lost teeth, and nerve damage to her face. Hsu alleged that there were defects in the design of the self-driving car and the airbag and sought more than $3 million in damages. Tesla denied liability for the accident and noted that Hsu used the Autopilot system on city streets, despite Tesla’s user manual warning against doing so.
The jury did not award Hsu any of the damages he claimed and found that the airbag did not fail to operate safely and that Tesla did not intentionally conceal the facts from him. Although the outcome of the California trial is not legally binding in other cases, it is considered paradigm-setting. Tesla is preparing for a series of lawsuits to begin this year related to its semi-automated driving system, Autopilot.
Tesla calls its driver assistance systems Autopilot and Full Self-Driving, but claims that these features do not make the cars fully autonomous and that human drivers must be “prepared to take over at any time.” Elon Musk’s company has been involved in several cases related to the Autopilot system and is also under investigation by the US Department of Justice and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for its claims about the technology’s self-driving capabilities and safety, respectively. The main issue in the autopilot cases is who is liable for an accident while a car is in “autopilot” mode: a human driver, the machine, or both? Hsu’s lawsuit alleged that the Tesla vehicle hit the curb so suddenly that she did not have time to dodge it, even though she had her hands on the wheel and was alert.