- Tesla is scheduled to go to trial Tuesday in a wrongful death lawsuit over a fatal 2018 crash.
- A deposition from a Tesla engineer obtained by WaPo reveals how Tesla’s Autopilot works.
- The engineer testified under oath that the autopilot followed “clearly marked lane lines,” according to WaPo.
Newly reported testimony from a Tesla engineer provides rare insight into how the electric car’s autopilot feature works and what happened during a fatal 2018 car crash in California.
Tesla is scheduled to go to trial Tuesday in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Walter Huang, an Apple engineer who died in March 2018 after his Model X crashed into a guardrail on a California highway.
The family accuses Elon Musk’s company of misleading consumers about its car’s autopilot system and knowingly deploying a “faulty” feature.
In July 2023, lawyers for Huang’s family deposed Akshay Phatak, a Tesla engineer, to better understand how the vehicle’s autopilot system worked. The deposition was obtained and reported by The Washington Post.
The engineer revealed to the family’s lawyers that the car steers itself by relying on marked lanes on the highway – a design similar to lane departure warning systems found in many modern cars, but which Tesla announced as part of its advanced system. “autopilot” technology, the Post reported.
“If there are clearly marked lane lines, the system will follow the lane lines,” Phatak said under oath, according to the Post. He added that Tesla’s system was “designed” to follow highway lane lines.
According to the Huang family’s lawyers, Huang was driving on a highway with autopilot engaged when his Model X approached an “asphalt zone,” a buffer zone. located at the intersection of a highway and an exit ramp.
The autopilot function then caused Huang’s vehicle to turn “left, out of the designated travel lane, and drove him directly into a concrete highway median,” the attorneys claimed in the lawsuit .
The Post reported that the car drifted as lane markings on the highway faded. According to the report, the vehicle then detected lighter markings to the left, pulling the car and causing it to head straight toward the barrier.
A Tesla spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment sent over the weekend.
Tesla’s main defense is that the accident was ultimately due to Huang’s inattention. Tesla’s lawyers argued in a court filing that if Huang “had paid attention to the road, he would have had the opportunity to avoid this accident,” Reuters reported.
Tesla lawyers plan to hear testimony from an Apple engineer who says data from Huang’s iPhone indicates he was using his device before the fatal crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board previously concluded in its investigation that there was no single cause of the crash. The agency said Tesla Autopilot had “system limitations” and that the vehicle’s “ineffective monitoring of driver engagement” contributed to driver “complacency and inattention.”
Phatak also said in his deposition that Tesla’s Autopilot system will work as long as the car’s cameras detect beacons on the road, according to the Post report.
“As long as there are painted lane lines, the system will follow them,” Phatak said, according to the Post.
The Post previously reported that Tesla’s assisted driving software was sometimes activated on roads for which it was not designed.
Lawyers for the Huang family did not respond to a request for comment sent over the weekend.
businessinsider
