The parents of a man who died in a Tesla Model S have brought a lawsuit against the company and blamed Elon Musk for his claim that the car's 'Autopilot' was safe and ready for the road.
Genesis Giovanni Mendoza Martinez, 31, was crushed to death in a car crash when his Tesla smashed into a fire truck on February 18, 2023. His family claims he bought the EV believing it could drive itself and is suing Tesla over Musk's assertions that the self-driving technology was perfected.
"This is yet another example of Tesla using our public roadways to perform research and development of its autonomous driving technology," said attorney Brett Schreiber, representing the Mendoza family. "The injuries suffered by the first responders and the death of Mr. Mendoza were entirely preventable."
Tesla argues that their cars have 'a reasonably safe design' under state law and suggests that Mr. Mendoza's actions may have contributed to the accident. Court filings indicate no additional warnings could have prevented the crash or any resulting injuries.
According to court documents, at around 4am on February 18th, Mr. Mendoza was driving northbound on Interstate 680 with Autopilot engaged when his car collided with a parked fire truck at 71mph. The complaint states that Autopilot had been active for approximately 12 minutes without input from Mr. Mendoza before the crash occurred.
"Musk has previously gone as far to claim that the Autopilot feature was 'probably better' than a human driver," reads part of the complaint filed by Eduardo and Maria, Mr. Mendoza’s parents.
The lawsuit highlights multiple other crashes allegedly caused by Tesla's Autopilot feature as well as statements made by Musk which they claim were misleading about its capabilities.
"In less than a year you'll be able to go from highway onramp to highway exit without touching any controls," Musk reportedly stated during a June 2014 shareholder meeting.
The complaint alleges Tesla knew about issues with Autopilot but concealed consumer reports regarding these problems. Between 2015 and 2022, over 1,000 customer reports claimed crashes due to Autopilot while more than 3,000 reported sudden braking or acceleration issues.