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Jury Holds Tesla Partly Liable in Fatal Autopilot Crash, Awards $242.5 Million in Damages
August 1, 2025
A federal jury in Miami has found Tesla partially responsible for a deadly 2019 crash involving its Autopilot driver assistance system, marking one of the most significant legal setbacks for the electric automaker in its ongoing defense of the technology.
The case stems from a tragic collision in which a Tesla, operating with Autopilot engaged, failed to brake at an intersection and struck an SUV, killing 20-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and seriously injuring her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. The jury concluded that the driver bore two-thirds of the blame for the crash, while Tesla was assigned one-third of the responsibility. The driver was sued in a separate proceeding.
The court ordered Tesla to pay approximately $242.5 million in total damages, including punitive fines. This decision came after a three-week trial that focused heavily on how Tesla markets and implements its driver assistance systems.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that Tesla knowingly allowed drivers to use Autopilot in environments for which it wasn’t designed—namely, city streets rather than controlled-access highways—while its CEO Elon Musk repeatedly promoted the technology as safer than human drivers.
“Tesla’s lies turned our roads into test tracks for their fundamentally flawed technology,” said Brett Schreiber, lead attorney for the plaintiffs. He called the verdict “justice” for the victims and a necessary step toward accountability for the company and its leadership.
Tesla, for its part, strongly disagreed with the ruling and stated it plans to appeal. In a written response, the company said the verdict is “wrong” and risks setting back progress on automotive safety and the development of life-saving technologies.
The case draws attention to a broader issue: growing concern over the public’s perception of semi-autonomous systems. Investigators and safety boards, including the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), have previously criticized Tesla for encouraging overreliance on Autopilot. In one earlier investigation, the NTSB said the company ignored multiple safety recommendations following a fatal crash involving a distracted driver.
Musk himself has acknowledged the risk of “complacency” with Autopilot, once noting that drivers often assume they understand its limitations better than they actually do.
The Miami trial concluded just as Tesla begins its rollout of its long-promised Robotaxi program in Austin, Texas, using an advanced version of its driver assistance platform branded Full Self-Driving. The outcome of this case may cast a longer shadow over the future of that technology than Tesla anticipated.
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