Tesla settles lawsuit over Apple engineer's fatal Autopilot crash

Eve in a lawsuit over the death of 38-year-old Apple engineer Walter Huang, who died in 2018 when his Model X hit a highway barrier, Tesla settled the suit on Monday, Bloomberg mentionted.

The electric car company avoided what could have been a lengthy jury trial over its controversial self-driving system and the role it may have played in the crash. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed in court filings.

One research from the National Transportation Safety Board said the driver was “likely distracted by a gaming app on his cell phone before the crash,” while also citing the “limitations” of Tesla's Autopilot system. The report also found that Autopilot was “active” for nearly 19 minutes before the fatal crash, when the vehicle accelerated to nearly 71 mph and struck the barrier.

In December 2023, two million Tesla vehicles were recalled after a two-year investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The agency found that self-driving car models — including the Y, S, 3 and X models produced between October 5, 2012 and December 7, 2023 — contain a high-risk software flaw that may have contributed to an increase in crashes and crusher.

While the company did not agree with the findings of the NHTSA investigation, Tesla accepted the decision to recall in hopes of resolving the investigation. In February of that year, 360,000 Tesla vehicles with the Full Self-Driving Beta software were also recalled.

In a company suspension Posted on March 30, 2018, Tesla said Huang had received “multiple visual and one audible warning earlier in the drive” and that his hands were not detected on the steering wheel for six seconds before the crash. Tesla's website says that while Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and full self-driving are “designed to become more capable over time, the functions currently enabled do not make the vehicle autonomous.”

Huang's family also sued the state of California, per Bloombergalleging that the California Department of Transportation failed to repair the dam that had been damaged by a previous crash and arguing that if it had been repaired, it could have absorbed the impact of the Model X crash and saved Walter's life.