A Florida jury on Friday found that flaws in Tesla’s self-driving software were partly to blame for a crash that killed a 22-year-old woman in 2019 and severely injured her boyfriend. The verdict is a significant setback for the carmaker, which is staking much of its future on developing self-driving taxis.
The jury awarded $59 million in compensatory damages to the family of the woman and $70 million to her boyfriend, plus $200 million in punitive damages but Tesla will pay only a third of those damages.
The jury found that Tesla bore 33 percent responsibility for the crash, and blamed the driver, George Brian McGee, for the remainder. Mr. McGee had previously settled with the family for an undisclosed sum.
The decision comes just weeks after Tesla began limited testing of autonomous taxis in Austin, Texas. Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, said in a conference call with investors in July that the service could cover half the population of United States by the end of the year.
Mr. Musk, who has a history being overly optimistic about how quickly products will become available, has said that Tesla’s growth hinges on revenue from autonomous taxis and humanoid robots rather than car sales, which have been declining.
The trial, in federal court in Miami, focused attention on Tesla technology and whether the company’s self-driving software is safe. The technology, known as Autopilot, has improved since 2019, but still requires human supervision.
It was the first federal lawsuit stemming from a fatal accident involving Autopilot to go to a jury. Other cases have been settled.
Tesla was sued by the family of Naibel Benavides, a college student who died on April 25, 2019, after being struck by a Tesla Model S sedan driven by Mr. McGee on a dark, two-lane road near Key Largo, Fla. Dillon Angulo, her boyfriend, was severely injured and is a plaintiff in the suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Mr. McGee was approaching a T-intersection with Tesla’s Autopilot software activated when he dropped his phone and bent to look for it. The Tesla blew through the intersection at more than 50 miles per hour and crashed into a black S.U.V. legally parked on the far side, according to testimony.
Ms. Benavides and Mr. Angulo were standing outside the S.U.V.
Mr. McGee told police immediately after the crash that he did not notice the intersection or the stop sign posted nearby. Data from the car showed he hit the brakes 1.65 seconds before impact.
While approaching the intersection, Mr. McGee had his foot on the accelerator pedal, overriding a function of Autopilot that is capable of stopping for objects in the road.
Mr. McGee said on the witness stand that he thought Autopilot would protect him and prevent a serious crash if he made a mistake.
Brett Schreiber, who represented the plaintiffs, accused Tesla of a “misinformation campaign” that exaggerated Autopilot’s capabilities and caused drivers to become complacent. He quoted Mr. Musk as saying that the system was safer than a human being.
“The car they claimed to have invented didn’t exist,” Mr. Schreiber said during closing arguments Thursday. “They knew all along that the Autopilot was defective.”
Tesla’s lawyers sought to lay the blame on Mr. McGee.
Joel Smith, representing Tesla, noted that Mr. McGee had admitted being distracted after dropping his phone. He was a “reckless” and “aggressive” driver who was driving well over the speed limit, Mr. Smith said.
“No car could have prevented” the crash, Mr. Smith said.
Lawyers for Ms. Benavides’s family and Mr. Angulo asked the jury to find that Tesla was at least partly to blame because its technology was flawed.
They cited data and video from the car showing that Autopilot recognized the S.U.V., at least one pedestrian, and the end of the road, yet did nothing to avoid the accident.
Mr. McGee‘s Tesla was equipped with another system, called automatic emergency braking, and a third, known as drivable space backup braking, that also failed to stop the car.
Mary Cummings, an expert on autonomous driving technology and a former safety adviser to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, was a key witness for the plaintiffs.
She testified that Autopilot was defective because it failed to react to obstacles it recognized and failed to ensure Mr. McGee kept his eyes on the road.
Similar driver-assistance systems made by General Motors and Ford Motor have cameras that track a driver‘s eyes to make sure they are looking at the road. The version of Autopilot in Mr. McGee’s Tesla would keep operating as long as the driver touched the steering wheel occasionally, whether his eyes were on the road or not.
Mr. Smith, the lawyer for Tesla, said the company never claimed its cars could drive without human oversight. He showed jurors excerpts from the car’s owner’s manual that warned, “It is the drivers’ responsibility to stay alert, drive safely and be in control of the vehicle.”
Federal safety officials were aware of at least 211 accidents from 2018 to 2023 involving Tesla cars operating with Autopilot engaged, according to evidence presented during the trial.
The jury heard detailed testimony about three fatal crashes in which Autopilot failed to react to obstacles in the road. The first occurred in 2016, three years before the one that killed Ms. Benavides.
In that accident, a Tesla driver named Joshua Brown was using Autopilot when he became distracted. Neither he nor Autopilot applied the brakes when a tractor-trailer crossed the road in front of his car. Mr. Brown died in the crash.
The lawsuit also claimed Tesla withheld crucial data and video from Mr. McGee’s car, and only produced it after the plaintiffs recovered the data and video from the car’s computer on their own.
Mr. Smith said the data was deleted by mistake.
Neal E. Boudette is based in Michigan and has been covering the auto industry for two decades. He joined The New York Times in 2016 after more than 15 years at The Wall Street Journal.
Jack Ewing covers the auto industry for The Times, with an emphasis on electric vehicles.
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