A family has blamed Elon Musk in a lawsuit after their son was crushed to death while driving a Tesla.
The man from California died in a crash while his vehicle was in ‘autopilot’ mode.
Genesis Giovanni Mendoza Martinez had reportedly bought the Tesla Model S after mistakenly thinking it was self-driving.
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This is according to a lawsuit that has been filed by his family.
They are suing Tesla after claims were made by the firm and its CEO Elon Musk that the self-driving capabilities had been perfected.
The firm has argued that its vehicles have ‘a reasonably safe design as measured by the appropriate test under the applicable state law’ and the incident ‘may have been caused in whole or in part’ by Mendoza Martinez’s ‘own negligent acts and/or omissions’.
In a response to the lawsuit, Tesla said: “No additional warnings would have, or could have prevented the alleged incident, the injuries, losses and damages alleged.”
Speaking to The Independent, attorney Brett Schreiber, who is representing the family, said: “This is yet another example of Tesla using our public roadways to perform research and development of its autonomous driving technology. The injuries suffered by the first responders and the death of Mr. Mendoza were entirely preventable.
“What’s worse is that Tesla knows that many of its earlier model vehicles continue to drive our roadways today with this same defect putting first responders and the public at risk.”
The crash took place on February 18, 2023, where Mendoza Martinez’s brother, Caleb, was also severely injured.
Speaking about Tesla’s ‘autopilot feature’, the attorney went on to add: “It’s this rush of pushing product out that is not really ready for primetime.”
In the lawsuit, it claims: “Not only was he aware that the technology itself was called ‘Autopilot,’ he saw, heard, and/or read many of Tesla or Musk’s deceptive claims on Twitter, Tesla’s official blog, or in the news media.
“Giovanni believed those claims were true, and thus believed the ‘Autopilot’ feature with the ‘full self driving’ upgrade was safer than a human driver, and could be trusted to safely navigate public highways autonomously.”
The complaint accuses Tesla of training employees to ‘refrain from memorializing customer reports in writing’.
It states: “When Tesla employees did respond to customer reports in writing, it was only to reassure customers that the ‘Autopilot’ feature was working as intended.
“In addition, Tesla… forced consumers to sign nondisclosure agreements to receive repairs under warranty.”
The complaint went on to say: “Predictably, this has led — and will continue to lead — to multiple collisions between Teslas and other vehicles or pedestrians, resulting in death or serious bodily injury.”
Tesla responded in a court filing in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, where it argued that the ‘damages and injuries’ suffered by Mendoza Martinez and Caleb, ‘if any, were caused by misuse or improper maintenance of the subject product in a manner not reasonably foreseeable to Tesla’.
LADbible Group has contacted Tesla for a comment.