Tesla Autopilot Failure Claims Girl’s Life, Company Ordered to Pay ₹2,100 Crore Compensation

San Francisco (The Uttam Hindu)- A federal jury in the US has ordered billionaire businessman Elon Musk-led electric car maker Tesla to pay more than $240 million (2100 crores in Indian currency) to the victims of a 2019 accident. This accident was allegedly caused by the company's faulty "Autopilot" driver assistance technology.

According to the victims, the jury found Tesla's system partly responsible for the accident. In this accident that took place in 2019, a Tesla Model 3 car hit a couple named Naibel Benavides Leon and Dillon Angulo, who were watching the stars on the roadside late at night, in which 22-year-old Leon died, while Angulo was seriously injured. The driver of the crashed Tesla car has admitted to being distracted due to his mobile phone, but the jury concluded that Tesla's autopilot technology also failed and the company cannot shirk its responsibility.

According to court records, the jury awarded $200 million in punitive damages, $59 million in compensatory damages to Leon's family and $70 million in damages to Angulo. According to several reports, the verdict held that the company would take moral responsibility for technical malfunctions such as malfunctions of driver assistance technology or "Autopilot", even if human error was involved. Tesla has previously either settled similar lawsuits out of court or dismissed them before trial. This case breaks that trend and will encourage many to seek justice in court.

The decision comes at a time when Elon Musk is preparing to launch Tesla's driverless taxi service in select cities later this year. Although Tesla has made significant advances in its autopilot system since the 2019 accident, the decision will raise questions about the real-world reliability of its software.