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Hands-free: Demonstration of the Autopilot system in a Tesla Model S in New York (picture from 2016)
Photo: Christopher Goodney / Bloomberg / Getty Images
Walter Huang, a 38-year-old Apple engineer, had a fatal accident in his Tesla in March 2018 - while his electric car had activated the autopilot. His family has argued for years that company boss Elon Musk shared responsibility for the accident because Huang believed his statements about the reliability of the autopilot.
In 2016, Musk posted a video of Tesla on Twitter as proof that "Tesla drives itself on city streets and highways." At the beginning of the video, which shows a journey to Rolling Stones music between a house in Menlo Park and Tesla's former headquarters in Palo Alto, California, the words appear: "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. She doesn't do anything. The car drives itself.«
In a California court, a senior engineer finally admitted: The video was staged. In fact, Tesla employees had to intervene several times in the test drives of the Model X to take control.
Tesla has now offered the family of the driver involved in the accident a settlement payment one day before the trial begins. It is not clear from court documents released Monday how much the company plans to pay. The company requested that the amount be kept secret.
Walter Huang drove into a concrete bollard between the lanes on a highway in Silicon Valley at a speed of more than 100 kilometers per hour. The impact was further aggravated by the lack of a protective metal structure on the bollard. It had been damaged in another accident a few weeks earlier and had not yet been replaced.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board concluded in 2020 that the accident was likely caused by Huang being distracted, but also by deficiencies in the autopilot system. Tesla's "ineffective monitoring of driver intervention" contributed to the accident.
Open game on smartphone
Tesla had previously always denied responsibility on the grounds that Huang was distracted. Tesla's data records are said to prove that he did not have his hands on the wheel at the time of the accident. After the accident, it was discovered that a game was open on his smartphone.
Tesla has been marketing the assistance system under the name Autopilot since 2015 and a newer version even as FSD (for “Full Self Driving”). However, the company officially emphasizes that drivers must keep their hands on the steering wheel and maintain control of the vehicle at all times. The assistance system now switches off if it does not register regular feedback from the driver.
In this specific case, some experts said they could not say with absolute certainty based on available data what exactly happened on the phone before the accident.
In two previous cases regarding the autopilot system in the USA, Tesla had prevailed with its arguments. However, the current case has been particularly deeply investigated.
vet/dpa