A fiery crash that killed two California teens is being blamed on batteries, according to multiple lawsuits from the victims families.James B. Riley, the father of the driver, is now suing Tesla for the crash, which the lawsuit alleges should have been entirely survivable, according to the Detroit Free Press.In May of 2018, Barrett Riley and his friend Edgar Monserratt died after he lost control of his fathers Tesla Model S at 187 km/h. Another friend was thrown from the car and survived.The family of Edgar Monserratt had already filed a similar lawsuit against Tesla in January. Both of the suits blame the cars lithium-Ion battery pack for the occupants deaths, since it exploded upon impact with the brick wall. They said and wrote and published that they were going to compensate by putting this fireproofing material in but they never put the fireproofing material in, Riley said. Tesla intentionally removed safety features that engineers intentionally put in those (battery) cells to protect property and protect life.The vehicle originally had a speed limiter installed after Barrett got a speeding ticket for doing 177 km/h. The lawsuit also says the accident occurred because the speed limiter was removed without their consent or permission.According to a statement from Tesla issued earlier this year about the accident, no car could have withstood a high-speed crash of this kind. According to the Rileys, Barrett was uninjured due to the crash, and it was the fire that ensued that killed
Origin: Father sues Tesla, saying son’s fatal fiery crash should have been survivable
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Autopilot was on when Tesla hit semi trailer in fatal crash: safety board
A Tesla Model 3 involved in a March 1 fatal crash in Florida was being driven by the vehicle’s semi-autonomous Autopilot system and the driver’s hands weren’t on the steering wheel, according to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. The driver was killed when the car slammed into the side of a semi-truck that was crossing a highway in Delray Beach, the NTSB said in a preliminary report released Thursday. The driver apparently wasn’t steering in the eight seconds before the collision, according to NTSB. “Preliminary vehicle data show that the Tesla was traveling about 68 mph (109 km/h) when it struck the semitrailer,” the report said. “Neither the preliminary data nor the videos indicate that the driver or the ADAS executed evasive maneuvers.” ADAS refers to Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system. The NTSB used video from a nearby surveillance camera showing the collision and the video devices that Teslas use to help them steer and perform other functions. “We are deeply saddened by this accident and our thoughts are with everyone affected by this tragedy,” Tesla said in an emailed statement. The company informed NTSB and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about the Autopilot activation after reviewing the car’s computerized data log, the company said. The crash is the latest Tesla accident under investigation by the NTSB and is strikingly similar to 2016 case in which a Model S hit the side of a truck without braking. In that fatal collision, the NTSB found that the design of Tesla Autopilot system was partially responsible for the crash and issued two recommendations to the company and other manufacturers to improve the safety of such partially autonomous driving tools. Among the NTSB’s findings was that the car’s sensors weren’t designed to identify the side of the truck and, therefore, didn’t slow the car. The NTSB preliminary report on the March 1 collision doesn’t spell out what the car’s sensors detected as the vehicle approached the truck. The safety board is also looking at another fatal crash involving Autopilot in 2018 in California. In that case, a Model X struck a concrete highway barrier, killing the driver. NTSB investigators are also probing how the electric Tesla’s batteries behave after accidents following several
Origin: Autopilot was on when Tesla hit semi trailer in fatal crash: safety board
Tesla sued over fatal crash blamed on autopilot navigation error
2018 Model X sits on display outside a Tesla showroom.David Zalubowski / AP Photo 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, California, 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
Origin: Tesla sued over fatal crash blamed on autopilot navigation error
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