SAN FRANCISCO -- Tesla Inc. was sued by the family of a man who died as the result of a crash allegedly caused when the Autopilot navigation system of his 2017 Model X malfunctioned.
The family of Walter Huang, 38, said in a complaint filed April 26 in California state court that the vehicle, which was sold as a “state-of-the-art” automobile, lacked safety features, such as an automatic emergency braking system. Such features are available on much less expensive vehicles from other carmakers, as well as on more recent Model Xs, Huang’s family said.
The family also alleges that Tesla knew, or should have known, “that the Tesla Model X was likely to cause injury to its occupants by leaving travel lanes and striking fixed objects when used in a reasonably foreseeable manner.” The carmaker should have issued a recall or provided a warning “in light of the risk of harm,” the family said in the complaint.
Huang died because “Tesla is beta testing its Autopilot software on live drivers,” B. Mark Fong, a lawyer for the family, said in a statement. “The Huang family wants to help prevent this tragedy from happening to other drivers using Tesla vehicles or any semi-autonomous vehicles.”
Huang crashed on the morning of March 23, 2018, while driving on U.S. Highway 101 in Mountain View, Calif., when the Tesla Autopilot allegedly turned the vehicle left, straight into the concrete median. He’s survived by his wife, two children, and his parents.
The State of California Department of Transportation is also named as a defendant for failing to repair or restore a crash attenuator that had been damaged in a collision a week before Huang’s crash.
The case is Huang v. Tesla Inc., 19CV346663, California Superior Court, Santa Clara County.
