A jury in the US state of Florida has the carmaker Tesla After a fatal accident, condemned to pay $ 243 million. The lawsuit referred to an accident from April 2019, in which a man with his Tesla Model S drove over a cross with about 100 kilometers per hour and crashed into a parked Chevrolet. It was both inmates next to the car on the hard shoulder. One of the two people was killed, the other seriously injured. Tesla announced an appeal.
The jury ruled on Friday that Tesla was liable for the accident. They spoke to the family of the deceased and the injured $ 129 million, of which Tesla had to pay 33 percent. In addition, there would be $ 200 million offices that Tesla had to pay. The jury was liable for 67 percent. However, he was not accused and does not have to pay for his share.
A lawyer of the plaintiffs, Brett Schreiber, said that Tesla had only developed his autopilot for certain areas such as expressways, but deliberately decided not to prevent drivers from using him elsewhere. The defendant had said that while driving, he had reached down to lift a cell phone that had fallen onto the bottom of his car. He was not alerted when he had run over a stop sign and a traffic light before rammed the victim’s car.
The plaintiffs had requested $ 345 million. Her lawyers said the process was the first one that deals with the illegal death of a third party as a result of autopilot.
Tesla was already confronted with many similar complaints because of the self-driving skills of his vehicles, but they were enclosed or rejected without legal proceedings.
Tesla announced that the judgment was wrong. Security in the automotive industry is throwing back and endangers the efforts of Tesla and the entire industry to develop and introduce life -saving technologies. Experts nevertheless said the judgment could have further complaints and make future comparisons more expensive. “It’s a big deal,” said Alex Lemann, a legal professor at Marquette University. “This is the first time that Tesla was convicted in one of the many, many, many deaths that occurred as a result of his autopilot technology.”
The judgment could also be the efforts of Tesla boss Elon Musk hinder investors to convince that Tesla can become so -called autonomous driving for private vehicles and for robotaxis.