Tesla ordered to pay $242 mn for deadly 2019 Autopilot crash

New York: A Florida jury on Friday ordered Tesla to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to plaintiffs who blamed a deadly 2019 crash on the company s...

New York: A Florida jury on Friday ordered Tesla to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to plaintiffs who blamed a deadly 2019 crash on the company's "Autopilot" driver assistance technology.

The jury found Tesla's system partly responsible for a crash in Key Largo that killed Naibel Benavides Leon and injured her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, according to attorney Darren Jeffrey Rousso, a partner at the law firm that represented Angulo and Leon's family.

The plaintiffs had alleged that Autopilot was to blame when driver George McGee's Tesla careened into a Chevrolet sport utility vehicle, killing Leon and injuring Angulo.

The jury awarded $200 million in punitive damages, plus $59 million in compensatory damages to Leon's family and $70 million in damages to Angulo, according to court records.

Since the jury assigned one-third of the blame to Tesla, the compensatory damages will be reduced, Rousso said, with the total impact of the jury award totalling $242 million after these reductions.