Tesla
Tesla has reached a settlement with the family of a motorist who crashed in a Tesla Model The car manufacturer thus avoids a long-running lawsuit.
On March 23, 2018, Walter Huang was driving a Tesla Model X with Autopilot function. He didn’t have his hands on the steering wheel. Tesla’s Autopilot is not a self-driving function, but it is a very advanced driving support. The car itself keeps its distance, changes lanes and brakes in time.
However, Huang’s car did not properly recognize the road markings and mistook a concrete road divider for a highway, causing the car to accelerate to 114 kilometers per hour and then crash into the divider. Huang was killed. His relatives filed a case against Tesla, because they believed that the autopilot function of Huang’s car was defective, and therefore the cause of the fatal accident.
However, a report from the US transportation regulator in June 2018 found that Huang was not on the wheel at the time of the accident, despite warnings from the on-board computer. It is not clear how much money is involved in the settlement.
