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NZ Herald
01-08-2025
- Automotive
- NZ Herald
Tesla liable for $243m in fatal Key Largo crash, jury blames autopilot
In his closing argument Thursday, Joel Smith, an attorney representing Tesla, lay the blame for the crash solely on McGee. 'He said he was fishing for his phone,' Smith said. 'It's a fact. That happens in any car. That isolates the cause. The cause is, he dropped his cellphone.' On rebuttal, plaintiff's attorney Brett Schreiber told jurors that Tesla promoted the autopilot feature knowing it increased the likelihood of distracting drivers. Schreiber displayed a 2016 statement by Musk saying the emergency braking feature could detect anything, including an alien spaceship or a hunk of metal in the road. Tesla's driver assistance technology was blamed for enabling driver distraction, leading to the fatal crash. Photo / Getty Images 'In the showroom, it's the greatest car ever made,' Schreiber said. 'In the courtroom, they say it's a jalopy. 'Tesla knew for years that its product was defective,' he added. 'Despite that people were using autopilot irresponsibly. This was a case of systematic failure.' The outcome is a massive blow to Musk, who has staked the future of his company on fully autonomous driving. Tesla is facing several similar lawsuits across the country that allege the CEO and his company have overstated the capabilities of the technology. Friday's verdict could now open Tesla up to more liability in the future. The verdict comes at a particularly vulnerable moment for Tesla, which has been struggling since Musk's controversial foray into politics. The company's sales and profits tanked after Musk joined the Trump administration and led its controversial cost-cutting initiative, the US Doge Service. The billionaire left the administration after a fiery public fallout with the President over his spending Bill – but Tesla's finances have yet to recover. Tesla faced two California juries in 2023 for alleged defects and was found not liable in both cases. It has also settled at least four such cases out of court that alleged defects with its technology, including one regarding a separate autopilot-related case just days before the Miami trial was set to begin. In Oakland, California, state regulators are also fighting to remove Tesla's ability to sell vehicles in the state over allegations that it dangerously misled drivers to believe its cars could drive themselves without human oversight. That case is ongoing. In Miami, Tesla faced a highly technical and emotional three-week trial as the Benavides Leon family and Angulo attended nearly every day. The families sat through much of the testimony and attentively listened as attorneys dissected the crucial seconds leading up to the crash. The two sides sparred over whether the company's statements about autopilot were misleading, whether the company was forthcoming about critical evidence in the case – and if the crash could have been prevented at all. The case also tested public sentiment of Musk, a controversial figure known for pushing boundaries and evolving technology out to the public. Last month, Tesla launched its fully autonomous Robotaxi in Austin, despite a lack of federal regulation and clear safety guidelines. Beyond Tesla, Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, came under fire last month after launching into an antisemitic rant. The verdict could increase Tesla's future liability, amidst ongoing lawsuits and regulatory challenges. Photo / Getty Images Several days into the trial, a juror was dismissed for perceived bias against Musk. The defence said it uncovered a 'vitriolic and venomous' tirade against Musk on one of the juror's social media pages, according to a court transcript provided to the Post. In a TikTok post from earlier this year, according to the transcript, the juror states 'A good Nazi is a dead one. Do you agree? F-U Elon Musk.' The plaintiffs' attorney rested much of their defence on Musk's statements about autopilot, which they argue convinced his customers that his technology was more capable than reality. They highlighted statements from the CEO that claim autopilot has 'superhuman' sensors, that autonomous driving is a 'solved' problem and that his technology can see any object on the road including 'an alien spaceship'. They also argued that Tesla acted recklessly by allowing autopilot to function on roads it is not designed for. Tesla's decision not to limit the technology to operate only on roads that meet the criteria in its own user manuals was the subject of a 2023 recall by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Advertisement Still, the defence faced a tough legal battle, as Tesla has extensive warnings in its owner's manual and the law indicates that drivers are responsible for the trajectory of the vehicle despite the type of feature engaged. McGee, told police at the scene that he took his eyes off the road to pick up a dropped cellphone. McGee said on the witness stand that he wasn't sure if he had heard Musk's comments about the technology and didn't believe they influenced his decision to buy the vehicle. He testified that he knew his Tesla 'was not self-driving' and that it was his 'job to always be alert as a driver'. He also told the jury that he believed autopilot would lead him to have an overall 'safer drive' by helping him navigate on his long commute and avoid collisions. 'My concept was that it would assist me should I have a failure … or should I make a mistake,' he said. 'And in that case I feel like it failed me.' Tesla's defence attorneys grilled Angulo and Benavides Leon's sister, Neima, about their previous lawsuit against McGee in which they settled over allegations that he operated his vehicle recklessly. The defence also mentioned the boat and home that Angulo bought since the crash. Neima Benavides and Angulo told the jury that they didn't initially know McGee was using autopilot when they sued him. But as time passed, Neima Benavides said they learned there were 'two components' in the crash. 'We have the driver,' she said. 'And we have the car too.'
NZ Herald
02-05-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
Häagen-Dazs and Buddha: Elon Musk waxes philosophical on his time with Trump
He has been vilified by opponents. He has been parodied on Saturday Night Live. He has clashed with members of the Cabinet. And Americans have grown increasingly critical of his role in the Trump administration. But as Musk's role begins to fade – he has said he is going to be spending much less time in Washington and more time running his companies – he reflected on what it's been like these past 100 days. At times, he projected a can-you-believe-this attitude. He said he is still a little unsure his ideas will come to fruition. And at moments he appeared as though he couldn't believe he's here in the first place – the man running the show wondering aloud how the show even started. 'It is funny that we've got Doge. Doesn't the absurdity of that seem like a weird simulation? It was a meme coin at one point,' he said. 'How did we get here?' he said. 'Doesn't it seem absurd?' Several times, Musk referred to his efforts with religious fervour – 'Doge is a way of life. Like Buddhism' – and he recalled being struck by the similarities between his efforts and those undertaken by former President Bill Clinton and former Vice-President Al Gore. 'We're basically Democrats from the 1990s who got teleported into 2025,' he said. Musk recalled the blizzard-like pace of activity that has marked the past three months, during which his team infiltrated various federal agencies and gained control of their systems, consolidating data in ways it sought to use to find Government waste. The effort has attracted lawsuits seeking to block the US Doge Service's access to private data, concerns about potential conflicts of interest for Musk and others, and criticism over the treatment of federal employees. It has also soured public opinion on Musk, with 57% disapproving of his performance in a late-April Post-ABC poll, up from 49% in February. 'Things have been very intense,' Musk said. 'It's a start-up, effectively.' Asked where he slept, he said he spent some nights inside the White House residence – evenings that, by his telling, unfolded like boyhood friends spontaneously inviting one another over for a sleepover. 'The President is – I guess we're good friends,' Musk said. 'And we'll be on Air Force One or Marine One. And then he's like, 'Hey, do you want to stay over?' I'm like, 'Sure'.' He emphasised that the Lincoln Bedroom was something Trump offered, not something he requested. Trump gave him a tour and talked about the history of the room – and then provided it for him. But the presidential hosting duties didn't stop. 'He'll actually call, like, late at night and say, 'Oh, by the way, make sure you get some ice cream from the kitchen',' Musk said. He obliged, he said. He proceeded to empty the entire container. 'It was epic. I mean, don't tell RFK,' he said, in reference to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy jnr, letting out several bursts of laughter. 'This stuff is amazing. I ate a whole tub of it, added 3lbs [1.4kg] in one night.' He declined to say how many nights he stayed over, but he offered that it was 'more than once'. Musk said he is pleased with the US$160 billion ($270b) in estimated savings that Doge – the Department of Government Efficiency, though it is not a Cabinet-level agency – claims to have achieved, and he says it is still 'possible' to get to US$1 trillion. 'It's a long road to go. It's really difficult. But our rate of savings per day is pretty good,' he said. 'It's sort of, how much pain is the Cabinet and this Congress willing to take? It can be done, but it requires dealing with a lot of complaints. And the fraudsters complain the loudest.' He said his team has found instances of fraud and turned over cases to the Justice Department. He also said it has unearthed widespread fraudulent use of Social Security numbers, although many of the biggest examples cited in the past have been found to be overblown or inaccurate. Advertise with NZME. 'There are definitely fraud rings operating, but in order to break it up, it's basically like mafia,' he said. 'You work your way up the chain until you get the mafia boss.' But cutting funding, Musk said, has proved difficult. He has faced opposition from members of the Cabinet protecting their agencies and members of Congress speaking out for their constituents. 'There's an intense set of interests in the vast federal bureaucracy that wants to keep things as they were before,' he said. 'In order to change that, it's like changing the direction of a fleet of supertankers.' He's planning now to phase out his time in Washington. 'It's like 60% fun, 70% fun. Depends on the week,' he said. 'Being attacked relentlessly is not super fun. Seeing cars burning is not fun.' Previously, he was spending almost every day working on Doge but now plans to spend an average of one or two days per week, perhaps travelling to Washington every other week. 'The amount of time that it's necessary for me to spend here is much less,' he said. 'And I can return to primarily running my companies, which do need me.' Musk said he would keep his West Wing office, which he said is small and where, from time to time, he has played video games including Diablo and Pathfinder on a large computer monitor. 'It has a view of nothing. It has a window, but all you see is the HVAC unit,' he said. 'Which is fine. It's harder to shoot me there … there's not a good line of sight. I like my comically tiny office upstairs.' He said about 100 employees work on Doge, and it's unclear how many will continue. He believes the effort can continue without him running it, possibly for the duration of Trump's second term. Asked who would lead it when he fades, he demurred.
