Tesla Settles Lawsuit Over Autopilot Crash Death Of Apple Engineer

(RTTNews) - Luxury electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc. has reached a settlement with the family of a former Apple engineer, who died in a crash while his vehicle was in Autopilot automated-driving mode, reports said. However, terms of the settlement are not known.

Walter Huang's family filed the suit after he was killed in March 2018 when his Tesla Model X struck a concrete highway median in Silicon Valley. The settlement was reached just prior to the initiation of the lawsuit trial that was set for Monday.

Tesla's Autopilot is an advanced driver assistance system with features intended to make driving safer and less stressful.

Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk have always been of the view that its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving technologies are much ahead of competing vehicles.

Meanwhile, Huang's family accused that Tesla oversold its Autopilot technology's capabilities, and that it is not as safe to use as advertised.

Following the incident, the National Transportation Safety Board, in its investigation, found that Autopilot was engaged for nearly 19 minutes before the fatal crash.

While giving an update about the accident back in 2018, Tesla had stated that the driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver's hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision. The company also noted then that the crash was so severe as the crash attenuator, a highway safety barrier which is designed to reduce the impact into a concrete lane divider, had been crushed in a prior accident without being replaced.

Tesla has faced many lawsuits in the past years over vehicle crashes connected to its Autopilot technology.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA, the Autopilot system can give drivers a false sense of security, and that it can be easily misused in certain dangerous situations.

Following NHTSA's report in December 2023 after a two-year probe into crashes involving Tesla vehicles with driver-assistance technology, the company recalled around 2 million Tesla cars to fix safety issues in its Autopilot advanced driver-assistance system.

The recall reportedly included almost all Tesla vehicles sold in the U.S. since the Autopilot feature was launched in 2015.

In January, Tesla also called back over 1.6 million cars in China to fix issues with Autopilot features and door locks.

At present, Autopilot features come standard with all new Tesla vehicles. Meanwhile, Tesla has maintained that none of these features make its vehicles fully autonomous or replace the driver.

In its site, Tesla notes that Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability are intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment. The currently enabled features do not make the vehicle autonomous, it says.

On the Nasdaq, Tesla shares are currently trading at $176.01, up 1.8%.