Tesla settles lawsuit over fatal Autopilot crash
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Severity severe: Safety of life test met: the driver was killed in the crash, and the passenger was seriously injured.
A Tesla Model S with Autopilot enabled, driven by Genesis Giovanni Mendoza Martinez on Interstate 680 in Contra Costa County, California, hit a fire truck responding to an earlier accident on February 18, 2023. Martinez was killed in the 70-mph crash. Data recovered from the car showed Autopilot had been engaged roughly 12 minutes before the crash. The lawsuit alleged that Tesla and Elon Musk misrepresented the capabilities of the Level 2 driver-assistance system. Tesla contested the claims, saying Martinez had ignored warnings in the owner's manual and active warnings inside the vehicle. Tesla has since settled the lawsuit before a jury trial, and details of the settlement remain confidential.
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- 2023-02-18 The Model S crashed into a fire truck responding to an earlier accident.
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- Autopilot was engaged roughly 12 minutes before the crash.
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The date the settlement was reached and the date it was disclosed are not stated; the article date of 2026-09-17 is not used as a value. The 2019 Florida case and its $243 million verdict concern a different incident and are excluded. The source is a press report, not the company's own account.
LR-2026-0722 · version 1 · published 2026-11-01 after automatic checks; not yet checked field by field by a person · JSON