Khaberni -An American court has sent the company "Tesla" to trial, after an incident that killed a young woman crushed by a "Model S" electric car operating on an autonomous driving system.
The incident was recorded in Florida in 2019, when Nayibel Benavides was lying down stargazing late at night, and was struck by a Tesla car and thrown more than 22 meters into the air, with her body later found in a nearby wooded area, and her friend sustained serious injuries.
Notably in the case, the driver of the car, George McGee is not among the defendants in the trial, as he reached a separate settlement with the families of the victims. However, the family's lawyer insists that he is not solely responsible, because the Tesla's autonomous driving system "failed to warn the driver or activate the brakes before the collision," despite his speeding through stop signals and red lights at approximately 112 kilometers per hour.
For its part, "Tesla" strongly denied the responsibility of the system, which it describes as a "driver's assistant," stating in an official release that "the evidence clearly shows that the accident was not related to the autonomous driving technology," pointing out that the driver was distracted at the time of the accident by reaching for his mobile phone, which the company described as a "common cause of accidents since the invention of mobile phones."
The case is amongst the rare ones that go to trial before a jury, as most previous cases against "Tesla" were settled out of court or dismissed.
According to NBC News, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, was not present during the jury selection session, which saw hesitation among three jurors in delivering a fair judgment due to what they described as "the company's ethics and Musk's ownership."
The victim's lawyers emphasized during the session that "the evidence will show that Tesla ignored warnings years before and after this crime," affirming that the case is about "shared responsibility" and that "Tesla provided the stage for behaviors that could have been avoided."
The trial is expected to bring to light previous statements by Musk claiming that Tesla cars are "safer than human drivers," a claim now widely contested, especially after the recall of about 2.3 million vehicles in 2023 due to concerns about the efficiency of the alert system in the autonomous driving feature.
