Tesla Hit with BIG Lawsuit Payout

Stocks A to Z
1

I am sure this verdict is headed for appeal court.

A Miami jury decided that Elon Musk’s car company Tesla was partly responsible for a deadly crash in Florida involving its Autopilot driver assist technology and must pay the victims $329 million.

The payout includes $129 million of compensatory damages and $200 million of punitive damages

The decision comes as Musk seeks to convince Americans his cars are safe enough to drive on their own as he plans to roll out a driverless taxi service in several cities in the coming months.

They claimed Tesla either hid or lost key evidence, including data and video recorded seconds before the accident.

Tesla has previously faced criticism that it is slow to cough up crucial data by relatives of other victims in Tesla crashes, accusations that the car company has denied.

In this case, the plaintiffs showed Tesla had the evidence all along, despite its repeated denials, by hiring a forensic data expert who dug it up. Tesla said it made a mistake after being shown the evidence and honestly hadn’t thought it was there.

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Sounds like the judgement was as much or more about the handling of the case as it was about FSD.

3

If Tesla has 8 million cars on the road that comes to $41.125 per car. Just trying to put the numbers into perspective.

The Captain

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4

Juries hate that kind of stuff. The jury concluded that Tesla was only 33%
responsible for the accident, but slapped Tesla with $200 million in punitive damages on top of their share of the compensatory damages, so about $242.5 million total.

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I.e., about 80% of the award was about Tesla’s behavior, not the 4 year ago FSD.

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