A judge in a lawsuit about a terrible accident involving Tesla’s Autopilot said that there is “reasonable evidence” that the company’s leaders knew that its driving technology could be used in a way that could kill people. Reuters says the lawsuit will go to court, where the family members of the victim will make their case to a judge and jurors. The lawsuit is based on an accident that took place in Florida in 2019 outside of Miami. Stephen Banner was on Autopilot in his Tesla Model 3 when a semi-truck drove across the street. The Washington Post says Banner’s Tesla, which was set to go 69 mph, did not notice that Banner’s hands were on the steering wheel or that there was a fixed trailer in its way. Banner was killed when the car hit the trailer and tore off the roof for it. Banner’s wife filed a case in Palm Beach County Circuit Court last week, and Judge Reid Scott said it could go to trial. In a 2016 video, the company said that “the car is driving itself.” Still, Judge Scott is said to have brought it up without giving “any indication that the video is aspirational or that this technology doesn’t currently exist in the market.” In the end, Tesla employees admitted that the demonstration was fake. The judge said that Tesla “engaged in a marketing strategy that painted the products as autonomous,” even though the company admitted in court documents that not even its “Full Self-Driving” software is fully autonomous. In 2018, during an episode of 60 Minutes, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, took his hands off the steering wheel while Autopilot was on. This was against customer rules. A judge named Scott said that this kind of advertising “had a significant effect on the belief about the capabilities of the products.” “It would be reasonable to conclude that Defendant Tesla, through its CEO and engineers, was acutely aware of the problem with the ‘Autopilot’ failing to detect cross traffic,” according the court said, per Reuters. Sources say the court compared the case to Joshua Brown’s sad 2016 accident, in which a Tesla went under a semi-trailer because the driver didn’t see it. The decision means that the case can go to trial, where the victim’s wife can tell the jury that Tesla’s warnings were not enough because of its misleading advertising.
