The jury of the US District Court of Miami, Florida decided earlier today that Tesla’s Autopilot technology was partially responsible for a 2019 car crash resulting in a death and severe injuries to other people involved.
Tesla (TSLA) has decided to appeal the decision of the court’s jury as it deems the judgement is not right based on the accident’s circumstances.
During the trial, Tesla argued that the driver of the Tesla Model S was solely responsible for this crash. However, the jury wasn’t satisfied, and the judge accepted the jury’s verdict, NBC reported.
Background
The owner of a Tesla Model S got distracted as he rushed to pick up his phone from the floor of the vehicle during drive. Unfortunately, he performed this maneuver as his vehicle entered an intersection while he was still pressing the accelerator pedal.
In a matter of seconds, the Tesla Model S crashed into a parked vehicle on the other side of the road. Naibel Benavides and her boyfriend Dillon Angulo were standing behind their parked vehicle. Naibel Benavides died on the occasion and Dillon Angulo sustained serious injuries.
The Tesla Model S that caused this fatal crash had the basic Enhanced Autopilot installed on it. This specific version of Tesla Autopilot was a trimmed-down package at the time.
A human driver’s intervention or actions override the decisions of even today’s much more advanced Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) system. Enhanced Autopilot (now discontinued) was only a good driver’s assistance system.
“To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash. This was never about Autopilot; it was a fiction concocted by plaintiffs’ lawyers blaming the car when the driver – from day one – admitted and accepted responsibility,” Tesla said in a statement to NBC earlier today.
Tesla to Pay Part of $329 million Fine
The Miami, FL District Court decided that while the driver of the Model S accepted responsibility, Tesla, as the automaker and inventor of the Autopilot technology, is also partially liable for the damages ($329 million in total).
The court’s verdict document (PDF below), shows that the US-based tech automaker is held 33% responsible for the fatal crash.
Tesla has to pay $200 million in punitive damages and $43 million as compensation to Dillon Angulo and the family of Naibel Benavides.
However, Tesla has decided to appeal the court’s decision. In a response to CNBC, Tesla stated the following:
Today’s verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla’s and the entire industry’s efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology. We plan to appeal given the substantial errors of law and irregularities at trial.
Even though this jury found that the driver was overwhelmingly responsible for this tragic accident in 2019, the evidence has always shown that this driver was solely at fault because he was speeding, with his foot on the accelerator – which overrode Autopilot – as he rummaged for his dropped phone without his eyes on the road. To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash.
This was never about Autopilot; it was a fiction concocted by plaintiffs’ lawyers blaming the car when the driver – from day one – admitted and accepted responsibility.
Tesla just recently released the above graph showing that its Autopilot technology is 10 times safer than a human driver (in the US).
In Q2 2025, we recorded one crash for every 6.69 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology.
By comparison, the most recent data available from NHTSA & FHWA (from 2023) shows that in the United States there was an automobile crash approximately every 702,000 miles.
Tesla safety report
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