The manufacturer has been sentenced to compensate more than 10 million euros to the parents of a driver of an accident Tesla Model S in 2018 in the United States. It wasn’t because of Autopilot, but because of reckless driving.
May 8, 2018. Barrett Riley, an 18-year-old boy, was driving his father’s 2014 Tesla Model S around Ford Lauderdale, Florida, very fast. They went with him Edgar Montserrat, in the passenger seat, and another guy in the back. In a corner limited to 50 km / h Riley lost control – which was logical – in the middle of an overtaking and they hit a wall twice.
They were going 187 km/h and Autopilot was not activated. The rear passenger was thrown and was able to count it, but the front occupants were not. The car caught fire due to the magnitude of the collision, which caused structural damage, and they burned to death, an eyewitness stated that they were “still moving” and it was not possible to help them. The families of the victims sued Tesla separately, the boys were to graduate from high school in two weeks.
We already have a verdict, and Tesla has been sentenced to pay compensation to Barrett’s parents, divided into 4.5 million for the father and 6 million for the mother, for damages. The lawsuit, very similar to the one brought by the co-pilot’s parents against Tesla and a technician, argued that they could have survived – at least initially – based on two factors.
From left to right: Edgar Monserratt and Barrett Riley, passenger and driver of the Tesla Model S
On the one hand, the collision could have occurred at a lower speed. It so happens that Barrett, the son of James and Jenny Riley, liked to run a lot. Two months before the accident, Barrett was fined a short distance from home for driving 180 km/h in a 100 km/h limited zone in the same car.
The parents requested in the technical service that a limitation be placed on the car at 137 km/h, which is still more than what is allowed by road regulations throughout the United States. And so it was done, a limitation was imposed on the car, but not on the son, at the request of the mother. He was not scared of his previous experience, in which he had been caught, we can assume that there would be more
But at some point Tesla made a change to the car’s settings and the speed limiter was disabled. The parents were not informed of the change, so they argued that Tesla had something to do with his son’s accident. The funny thing is that it was the son who asked a Tesla technician to remove the limitationtaking advantage of a maintenance.
The second argument is no less twisted. Car batteries caught fire, something quite likely in a collision in which the car suffers significant structural damage, since they are not designed to withstand collisions at these speeds. The parents considered that the batteries were defective and that they did not have all the possible technical advances against fire.
NMC chemistries have a higher risk of fire when the batteries literally rupture. According to Tesla, any type of car could have caught fire in such a collision, it would be enough that the fuel tank had ruptured and there would be any spark.
The parents also considered that after an accident at that speed, which usually severely damages internal organs, they were alive and would have been able to get out of the car. Such a thing did not happen. The competent authority, the NTSB, conducted an investigation and established that the cause of the accident was loss of control due to speeding.
The manufacturer defended that the parents should have taken the car keys from their son after receiving that sanction for doubling the established speed limit. On the other hand, his defense strategy consisted of blaming the driver. The jury strongly agreed with that thesis..
In fact, Tesla’s liability for negligence has been set at 1%, being 90% of the fault of the driver, Barrett Riley, and his father to 9%. Despite the fact that 99% of the fault was attributable to both the father -for not controlling his son- and the son -for flying low in an urban area-, Tesla has to compensate them, it was what the jury asked for, but only based on the removal of the speed limiter, not by the batteries.
The 1% fault means for all practical purposes that Tesla will only have to pay $105,000 to the parents.
According to Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Highway Safety in the US, it is the first time that Tesla has been brought to trial for this reason. A precedent could be set the next time an electric car catches fire after a high-speed crash, even if it was the driver who was pushing the pedal hard, and it’s up to the manufacturer to pay.