Tesla Settled Suit Over Autopilot Crash With Truck Crossing Highway

Tesla Inc. settled a high-profile lawsuit over a driver’s death in 2019 when the Autopilot system in his Model 3 allegedly failed to avoid a collision with a tractor-trailer crossing a Florida highway.

The confidential settlement, disclosed in a July 7 court filing, came just before Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker went to trial in Miami this week over another 2019 fatal crash in Florida blamed on its driver-assistance system.

The lawsuit over Jeremy Banner’s Model 3 collision with the tractor-trailer was among the first to allege defects in the driver-assistance software and to test Musk’s claims that Teslas are the safest cars.

An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board cited “inattention due to over-reliance on automation” for Banner’s failure to react to the truck crossing a two-lane highway on his way to work. In a 2020 report, the agency also criticized Tesla’s technology for insufficiently monitoring and enforcing driver engagement. “The Autopilot system did not send a visual or audible warning to the driver to put his hands back on the steering wheel,” the report said.

A Tesla representative declined to comment on the settlement, the latest in a series of out-of-court accords reached by the company in cases headed toward trial. Last year, Tesla settled with the estate of Walter Huang, the Apple Inc. engineer who died on his morning commute in a Northern California highway crash while driving his Model X on Autopilot.

Trey Lytal, a lawyer for Banner’s widow, said he not could comment on the amount of the settlement. But he said the lawsuits against Tesla have “made a big difference.”

“There’s no question that the justice system, and especially jury trials, holds Tesla accountable for its actions,” he said.

Photo: (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images/Bloomberg)