The family of a man who was killed in a fiery crash involving a Tesla Model X vehicle plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the car company over allegations of a faulty Autopilot system, according to an announcement by a legal firm representing the family.

San Mateo resident Walter Huang, 38, suffered major injuries and later died after his 2017 Tesla collided with a median on Highway 101 in Mountain View on March 23. Vehicle logs recovered by Tesla showed that Huang had been using the vehicle's Autopilot function at the time of the crash, when the vehicle hit a cement barrier between Highway 101 and the Highway 85 carpool flyover, according to the company.

In an online post Wednesday, the law firm Minami Tamaki stated that the family intends to file the wrongful death suit against Tesla, and could potentially extend the suit to any subcontractors involved in the design and construction of the Autopilot system. An early review by the law firm indicated that the Autopilot system installed in the Model X may have misread painted lanes on the roadway, failed to detect the concrete median and failed to brake the car, according to the post.

"The firm believes Tesla's Autopilot feature is defective and likely caused Huang’s death, despite Tesla’s apparent attempt to blame the victim of this terrible tragedy," the law firm said in a statement.

The company lists grounds for the suit including liability, defective product design, and intentional and negligent misrepresentation.

In a blog post last month, Tesla officials said the company reviewed the crash and found that Huang had Autopilot engaged in the moments before the crash, and that he had ignored "several visual" and one audible warning to take the wheel again. The vehicle did not detect Huang's hands on the steering wheel during the six seconds prior to the collision, according to the blog post, and he had "about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider."

Tesla doubled down on the argument that Huang was largely at fault for the crash, noting that the "only way for this accident to have occurred is if Mr. Huang was not paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings to do so."

"The fundamental premise of both moral and legal liability is a broken promise, and there was none here," according to the statement issued to media outlets Wednesday. "Tesla is extremely clear that Autopilot requires the driver to be alert and have hands on the wheel. This reminder is made every single time Autopilot is engaged."

In the weeks following the crash, Tesla officials have emphasized the strong safety track record of the company's Autopilot technology, citing statistics showing that crashes are far less likely to occur when Autopilot is active. The company cites statistics gathered by a federal traffic safety agency showing that the first iteration of Autopilot, released a year ago, reduced crash rates by about 40 percent, and argues that the technology has only gotten better since then.

"The reason that other families are not on TV is because their loved ones are still alive," Tesla officials said in the statement.

Both Tesla and the aggrieved family have also pinned blame on Caltrans for allegedly failing to maintain a safety guard, known as an attenuator barrier, at the location of the crash that could have reduced the impact of the crash. Tesla officials claimed, shortly after the accident, that the barrier had "either been removed or crushed" in a prior accident and had not been replaced. The Minami Tamaki law firm also said the family "may" file a lawsuit against the California Department of Transportation for what it calls dangerous conditions of public property. </s> It's been less than two weeks since the stock of Tesla tumbled, when amid a flurry of scandal, production setbacks and Wall Street downgrades, the company admitted that its autopilot had been engaged during a fatal March 23 crash in which Apple engineer Walter Huang died when his Model X collided with a highway barrier in Mountain View, California, and caught fire.

At the time, Elon Musk enraged the NTSB, when his company broke a public embargo and claimed that the autopilot was not at fault, even though the government agency had not yet concluded what was the reason behind the crash. This in turn prompted a furious rebuke from the NTSB, which was angry that Tesla was clouding the conclusion by presupposing that the autopilot had no guilt:

And now, just hours after Huang's family hired a law firm in preparation for a major lawsuit against Tesla, Musk doubled down and once again placed the blame for the fatal Model X crash on the deceased driver, claiming in an emailed statement that the tragic accident happened on a clear day, with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, and that Huang didn’t have his hands on the steering wheel for six seconds before his vehicle collided with a highway barrier in Mountain View, California, and caught fire.

“The only way for this accident to have occurred is if Mr. Huang was not paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings to do so,” the statement said. “The fundamental premise of both moral and legal liability is a broken promise, and there was none here.”

Others, such as Huang's widow, disagree.

Speaking to ABC7, Sevonne Huang, the wife of the killed Apple engineer said "I just want this tragedy not to happen again to another family." She says her husband complained on several occasions about how the Autopilot behaved on the Tesla Model X near the very same barrier where he crashed and died.

"Unfortunately, it appears that Tesla has tried to blame the victim here," Huang family attorney Mark Fong told ABC7. "It took him out of the lane that he was driving in, then it failed to break, then it drove him into this fixed concrete barrier. We believe this would've never happened had this Autopilot never been turned on."

Musk's repeat defense of the autopilot, which we also learned that Huang had previously complained about, and which nearly caused a similar fatal crash at exactly the same location, will once again infuriate the National Transportation Safety Board, whose investigators are currently looking into the causes of the crash that killed Huang, as well as a collision in January involving a Tesla Model S using Autopilot that rear-ended a fire truck parked on a freeway near Los Angeles.

In keeping with Musk's inimical style, the Tesla email also repeated said it is “extremely clear” that Autopilot requires drivers to be alert and have hands on the steering wheel. The system reminds the driver this every time it’s engaged, according to the company.

While Minami Tamaki LLP, the law firm that announced its hiring by Huang’s family earlier Wednesday, declined to comment on Tesla’s statement, others did not feel the need to hold back.

"Tesla’s response is reflective of its ongoing strategy of doubling down on the explicit warnings it has given to drivers on how to use and not use the system,” said Mike Ramsey, an analyst at Gartner Inc. “It’s not the first time Tesla has taken this stance.”

Another way of putting that is that the stakes for Tesla are great, and Musk knows that if the NTSB concludes that the electric carmaker was at fault, any modest demand momentum it may have, could be gone overnight.

After partially faulting Autopilot for a May 2016 fatal crash, NTSB investigators last year called on carmakers to do more to ensure drivers stay engaged as next-generation cars start to steer themselves. Tesla has lagged behind automakers including General Motors Co. and Subaru Corp. in embracing driver-facing camera systems that can monitor head and eye movement and disengage partially autonomous systems when the driver isn’t paying attention.

This who fiasco also begs the question: why is it called "Autopilot" in the first place, if it disengages the moment the driver's attention is diverted.

Meanwhile, a bit of a turf war has erupted between the NTSB and NHTSA. As Bloomberg reports, while the NTSB has no regulatory powers but makes safety-related recommendations to both the government and transportation companies, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does have the power to order recalls and fine manufacturers; it also investigated the 2016 Tesla crash and closed its probe in January 2017, saying it didn’t find a defect.

One can guess which particular agency Musk has been lobbying.

Meanwhile, with a major lawsuit looming, Tesla continues to defend a system which - at least as of this moment - appears woefully inadequate. According to data Tesla gave investigators, Autopilot prevents the rate of crashes per million miles driven by about 40%, a figure it continues to cite in defending the system.

And yet, the company has declined to say how long drivers can now use Autopilot between visual or audible warnings to have a hand on the wheel, how many alerts can be ignored before the system disengages, what version of software was in Huang’s Model X, or when it was built.

“We empathize with Mr. Huang’s family, who are understandably facing loss and grief, but the false impression that Autopilot is unsafe will cause harm to others on the road,” Tesla said in Wednesday’s statement. “NHTSA found that even the early version of Tesla Autopilot resulted in 40 percent fewer crashes and it has improved substantially since then. The reason that other families are not on TV is because their loved ones are still alive.”

No matter how the lawsuit ends, or how many more lives are lost as Musk beta tests his favorite invention, the far bigger delusion continues. As John Thompson, head of Vilas Capital Management, put it best: "As a reality check, Tesla is worth twice as much as Ford, yet Ford made six million cars last year at a $7.6 billion profit, while Tesla made 100,000 cars at a $2 billion loss." </s> The safety of Tesla Autopilot came back into focus after it was confirmed that the driver assist system was on during the fatal accident that killed a Model X owner in Mountain View last month.

Now the family of the deceased say that they are prepared to sue Tesla after a media interview.

As we previously reported, the Model X was driving on Autopilot when it entered the median of a ramp on the highway as if it was a lane and hit a barrier about a hundred and fifty meters after going into the median.

The impact was quite severe because there was no crash attenuator since it was already destroyed from a previous crash. The driver was rushed to the hospital, but he, unfortunately, died of his injuries.

Sevonne Huang, the wife of the driver, Walter Huang, gave an interview to ABC7 yesterday.

During the interview, she said that her husband had previously complained about the Autopilot’s behaviour at hat exact location:

Sevonne Huang: “And he want to show me, but a lot of time it doesn’t happen.” Dan Noyes: “He told you that the car would drive to that same barrier?” Sevonne: “Yes.” Noyes: “The same barrier that he finally hit?” Sevonne: “Yeah, that’s why I saw the news. I knew that’s him.”

The family hired attorney Mark Fong and say that they are prepared to sue Tesla.

Fong commented:

“Unfortunately, it appears that Tesla has tried to blame the victim here. It took him out of the lane that he was driving in, then it failed to break, then it drove him into this fixed concrete barrier. We believe this would’ve never happened had this Autopilot never been turned on.”

Tesla responded to the interview in a statement:

“We are very sorry for the family’s loss. According to the family, Mr. Huang was well aware that Autopilot was not perfect and, specifically, he told them it was not reliable in that exact location, yet he nonetheless engaged Autopilot at that location. The crash happened on a clear day with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, which means that the only way for this accident to have occurred is if Mr. Huang was not paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings to do so. The fundamental premise of both moral and legal liability is a broken promise, and there was none here. Tesla is extremely clear that Autopilot requires the driver to be alert and have hands on the wheel. This reminder is made every single time Autopilot is engaged. If the system detects that hands are not on, it provides visual and auditory alerts. This happened several times on Mr. Huang’s drive that day. We empathize with Mr. Huang’s family, who are understandably facing loss and grief, but the false impression that Autopilot is unsafe will cause harm to others on the road. NHTSA found that even the early version of Tesla Autopilot resulted in 40% fewer crashes and it has improved substantially since then. The reason that other families are not on TV is because their loved ones are still alive.”

Electrek’s Take

I can’t blame the family for having this reaction or any kind of reaction after such a tragic loss, but when it comes to the lawsuit, it looks like they are destroying their own case.

As Tesla said in the statement and as it was confirmed by other Tesla owners recreating the circumstances of the crash, an attentive driver would have plenty of time to go back to the correct lane after the car enters the median, which means that Huang was most likely not paying attention.

On top of it, his wife says that he was aware that Autopilot had difficulties handling this specific situation and yet he decided to activate it anyway and apparently not pay close attention.

In my opinion, as long as Tesla is being clear about drivers needing to stay attentive and keep their hands on the steering wheel, there’s not much of a case here that Tesla is responsible for the accident.

But with this said, as Tesla Autopilot improves it seems that some drivers are growing more confident with the driver assist system and are putting too much trust in it.

I think it’s important to remind everyone that as long as Tesla doesn’t claim it’s anything more than a level 2 driving system and it’s not thoroughly tested to be anything more than that, they should always stay vigilant and be ready to take control.

Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast. </s> A Tesla Model X owner had the vehicle’s Autopilot system engaged when the all-electric SUV crashed on a California highway, Tesla confirmed on Friday while alleging the driver who died in the crash missed key warnings to take control of the car.

Prior to the March 23 collision, Tesla said the Model X owner had Autopilot engaged with adaptive cruise control follow-distance set to a minimum. The driver, Walter Huang, had received “several visual and one audible hands-on warning” earlier in the drive. Huang’s hands weren’t detected on the wheel six seconds prior to the collision, Tesla said. Huang died in the crash.



“The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken,” Tesla wrote in a blog post late Friday. 



Tesla said it believes the crash was severe because the “crash attenuator,” a highway safety barrier which is designed to reduce the impact into a concrete lane divider, had been crushed in a prior accident without being replaced.

“We have never seen this level of damage to a Model X in any other crash,” the company said. 



The confirmation that Tesla’s Autopilot system was engaged at the time of the crash comes amid a troubling time for the nascent self-driving car industry. This month, an Uber-owned self-driving car fatally struck a pedestrian, raising significant questions about the safety of automated driving technology. Following the fiery crash involving the Model X driver, the National Transportation Safety Board launched an investigation that’s expected to take months to complete.

The Model X crash is the third known fatality to occur when Autopilot was engaged. In January 2016, 23-year-old Gao Yaning died while driving a Model S on a highway in China, and his family’s attorney recently told Jalopnik that Tesla’s own data confirmed Autopilot was engaged at the time. A half-year later, Joshua Brown died in Florida after his Model S crashed into a truck. The NTSB said an over-reliance on Autopilot was partly to blame in that crash.

Tesla has been quick to post updates on the Model X crash in recent days, saying late Friday that it has been “working as quickly as possible to establish the facts of last week’s accident.”

“Our hearts are with the family and friends who have been affected by this tragedy,” the company said.

The NTSB initially said it wasn’t clear if Autopilot was engaged at the time it sent investigators to the scene earlier this week.

But the confirmation that Autopilot was on should only add more questions for an industry currently trying to untangle how to approach self-driving cars in wake of this month’s fatal Uber crash, the first known to involve a pedestrian and an autonomous car.

Update, March 31, 9:50 a.m.: This post has been updated to include more information about previous fatal crashes that occurred when Autopilot was engaged. </s> Federal investigators have opened what is now their fourth active investigation involving a Tesla vehicle after two teenagers were killed in a fiery crash of a Model S in Florida on Tuesday.

The National Transportation Safety Board announced Wednesday it was sending a team of four to investigate the crash on State Route A1 in Fort Lauderdale, which killed two 18-year-olds and injured a third 18-year-old.

Barrett Riley, who was driving the 2014 Tesla Model S, and Edgar Monserratt Martinez, who was in the front passenger seat, died at the scene when the vehicle drove off a roadway and crashed into a concrete wall, according to the police report. The car immediately caught fire and was fully engulfed in flames, police said.

Alexander Berry, who was in the back seat, was ejected from the vehicle and taken to the hospital, said police, who theorize that excessive speed may have been a factor in the crash.

The NTSB said it is focusing on the emergency response to the electric battery fire. The agency said it did not anticipate that Autopilot —Tesla's driver-assistance technology, which has been in the spotlight lately —would be part of its investigation.

"NTSB has a long history of investigating emerging transportation technologies, such as lithium ion battery fires in commercial aviation, as well as a fire involving the lithium ion battery in a Chevrolet Volt in collaboration with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration," NTSB Chairman Robert S. Sumwal said in a statement.

Tesla has not been able to retrieve the vehicle logs, "but everything we have seen thus far indicates a very high-speed collision and that Autopilot was not engaged," a spokesman said Thursday.

"The family who owned the car has been a close friend of Tesla for many years, and this hits us particularly hard," he said.

The NTSB is now investigating four accidents involving vehicles made by the Palo Alto electric-car company, including the fatal accident on Highway 101 in Mountain View in March. That accident killed Walter Huang, 38, of San Mateo, who was driving a Model X and crashed into a concrete barrier. The Model X caught fire. Tesla said Autopilot was engaged in the moments leading up to the March 23 crash.

The agency is also investigating two other crashes in California: A Model S crashed into a fire truck near Culver City in January, and the driver reportedly said Autopilot was engaged at the time. And it is looking into a battery fire of a Model X that drove into a home's garage in Lake Forest last August. </s> SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The National Transportation Safety Board has sent two investigators to look into a fatal crash and fire Friday in California that involved a Tesla electric SUV.

The agency says on Twitter that it's not clear whether the Tesla Model X was operating on its semi-autonomous control system called Autopilot at the time. Investigators will study the fire that broke out after the crash.

The Mercury News of San Jose reported that a 38-year-old San Mateo man was killed in the U.S. 101 freeway crash near Mountain View in Silicon Valley.

The California Highway Patrol told the newspaper that the man was traveling south in the carpool lane when the Tesla hit a freeway barrier. The crash caused the fire. Rescuers freed the man but he died later at a hospital. </s> The National Transportation Safety Board has sent two investigators to look into a fatal crash and fire Friday in California that involved a Tesla electric SUV.

The agency says on Twitter that it's not clear whether the Tesla Model X was operating on its semi-autonomous control system called Autopilot at the time. Investigators will study the fire that broke out after the crash.

The Mercury News of San Jose reported that a 38-year-old San Mateo man was killed in the U.S. 101 freeway crash near Mountain View in Silicon Valley.

The California Highway Patrol told the newspaper that the man was traveling south in the carpool lane when the Tesla hit a freeway barrier. The crash caused the fire. Rescuers freed the man but he died later at a hospital. </s> Tesla Inc.'s ongoing spat with the National Transportation Safety Board over a fatal crash has reached new heights, with the electric-car maker and the safety agency releasing dueling statements. Here’s a timeline of public remarks so far by Tesla and the NTSB.

March 23: Walter Huang, a 38-year-old Apple Inc. engineer, dies after his Model X crashes into highway barrier in Mountain View, California.

March 27: The NTSB sends two investigators to the crash scene and notes on Twitter: “Unclear if automated control system was active at time of crash.”

March 27: Tesla releases its first blog post, “What We Know About Last Week's Accident,” saying it hasn’t been able to retrieve computer logs from Huang’s vehicle and blames the damaged highway safety barrier for the severity of the crash. Tesla also claims the U.S. government found a year ago that Autopilot reduced crash rates by 40 percent, a characterization of data from a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report that some safety experts call misleading. “Out of respect for the privacy of our customer and his family, we do not plan to share any additional details until we conclude the investigation,” Tesla writes.

March 30: Tesla releases a second blog post late on Friday night that acknowledges its driver-assistance software, Autopilot, had been engaged at the time of the crash. “The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision,” Tesla writes.

April 1: An NTSB spokesman tells reporters that the agency is “unhappy with the release of investigative information by Tesla.” The agency’s protocols require companies who are a party to an agency accident investigation to not release details about the incident to the public without NTSB's approval.

April 9: NTSB discloses agency Chairman Robert Sumwalt spoke to Musk over the preceding weekend. An agency spokesman said Sumwalt described the conversation as “very constructive.”

April 10: Tesla puts out a statement that faults Mr. Huang and denies moral or legal liability for the crash.

“According to the family, Mr. Huang was well aware that Autopilot was not perfect and, specifically, he told them it was not reliable in that exact location, yet he nonetheless engaged Autopilot at that location. The crash happened on a clear day with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, which means that the only way for this accident to have occurred is if Mr. Huang was not paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings to do so.”

April 11: Tesla says it has withdrawn from its party agreement with the NTSB: “We believe in transparency, so an agreement that prevents public release of information for over a year is unacceptable.”

April 12: NTSB releases a statement saying it had removed Tesla as a party to its crash investigation. “The NTSB took this action because Tesla violated the party agreement by releasing investigative information before it was vetted and confirmed by the NTSB.” The agency also releases a letter from its chairman to Musk.

April 12: Tesla releases another statement, again claiming to have withdrawn from its agreement with the NTSB.

“It’s been clear in our conversations with the NTSB that they’re more concerned with press headlines than actually promoting safety. Among other things, they repeatedly released partial bits of incomplete information to the media in violation of their own rules, at the same time that they were trying to prevent us from telling all the facts. We don’t believe this is right and we will be making an official complaint to Congress. We will also be issuing a Freedom Of Information Act request to understand the reasoning behind their focus on the safest cars in America while they ignore the cars that are the least safe. Perhaps there is a sound rationale for this, but we cannot imagine what that could possibly be.” </s> A U.S. agency said Tuesday it has sent investigators to look into a fatal crash and fire on a California highway that involved a Tesla electric SUV equipped with a semi-autonomous control system.

The National Transportation Safety Board said on Twitter that it's not clear whether the Tesla Model X was operating on its Autopilot program at the time of the crash.

The feature is designed to keep a vehicle centered in its lane at a set distance from cars in front of it and also can change lanes and brake automatically.

The driver of the Tesla, a 38-year-old man from San Mateo, California, was killed in the crash last week on U.S. 101 in Silicon Valley, California Highway Patrol spokesman Art Montiel said.

Photographs taken of the SUV show the front of the vehicle was obliterated. Its hood was ripped off and its front wheels were strewn on the freeway.

The vehicle was traveling southbound at "freeway speed" when it hit a freeway barrier, causing a collision with two other cars whose drivers were not reported injured, Montiel said.

"For unknown reasons the Tesla caught fire," Montiel said.

Palo Alto, California-based Tesla Motors wouldn't say if Autopilot was working at the time of the crash. It said in a statement Tuesday that it was deeply saddened by the crash and is cooperating with authorities.

The investigation is the latest by federal authorities into a crash involving a Tesla vehicle.

In January, the NTSB and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration dispatched teams to Culver City, near Los Angeles, to investigate the crash of a Model S electric car that may have been operating under the Autopilot system.

The investigations come as Congress and federal agencies grapple with how to regulate autonomous vehicles and those with systems that are partially self-driving.

Tesla has taken steps to prevent drivers from using Autopilot improperly, including measuring the amount of torque applied to the steering wheel and sending visual and audio warnings.

If the warnings are ignored, drivers would be prevented from using Autopilot, the company said.
The family of a man killed in California when his Tesla Model X crashed with the Autopilot engaged says they intend to sue the carmaker. His wife further says he had complained of flaws in the vehicle's behaviour and predicted his death in a collision with the barrier his car ultimately hit.