Tesla has settled two lawsuits over 2019 California crash deaths involving the company’s autopilot software, court documents show.
The confidential deals come weeks after a Florida jury ordered Tesla pay $US243 million ($364 million) in compensatory and punitive damages to the victims of another fatal 2019 crash of a Model S that was equipped with autopilot.
Tesla hired a trio of prominent new lawyers and asked a judge to find the verdict legally unjustified and throw out the case, or to order a new trial.
The electric vehicle maker, which has settled several other cases involving its vehicles and self-driving technology, had rejected a $US60 million (almost $90 million) settlement proposal for the Florida lawsuit, a filing showed last month.
The settlements came weeks after Tesla was ordered to pay millions to the victims of another fatal 2019 crash.
The Florida verdict and the two settlements in California are significant, as much of Tesla’s $US1.4 trillion ($2.1 trillion) valuation hangs on chief executive Elon Musk’s promise to rapidly expand its robotaxis and the full self-driving (FSD) software that underpins them.
FSD is an advanced version of autopilot.
Lawsuits relate to two 2019 crashes
One lawsuit relates to the death of a 15-year-old boy who was travelling in Alameda County, California, with his father in a vehicle when it was rear-ended by a Tesla Model 3, which had autopilot engaged, causing the victim’s vehicle to roll over and crash into the centre barrier.
The boy succumbed to his injuries from the collision.
The other case relates to the death in December 2019 of two people who were travelling through an intersection in Gardena, California, in a Honda Civic when a Tesla Model S, equipped with autopilot, failed to stop at a red light at high speed and crashed into the victims’ vehicle.
The crashes involved Tesla’s autopilot software. (ABC News: Daniel Mercer)
Tesla did not respond to requests for comments.
Representatives for the plaintiffs’ lawyers did not comment on the Alameda case and did not respond to a request for comment on the Gardena case.
Trials for both the cases were scheduled to start next month — one in Alameda County Superior Court and the other in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
A judge in the Alameda Superior Court vacated the scheduled trial on Tuesday, local time, while Tesla and the plaintiffs agreed to withdraw their petitions in the Los Angeles trial, according to the court orders.
Reuters