Tesla lawyers ask the judge to throw a verdict of 243 million dollars, saying that the mention of Elon Musk has misleaded the jury

The depot in front of Miami Federal Court seeks to reverse the scholarship of $ 243 million after a 22 -year -old student, Stargazing, was thrown into the air until his death by a Tesla leak equipped with automatic pilot traits that Musk had spoken for years. A jury earlier this month found that the driver of Tesla excess of speed was mainly to blame, but Tesla was also responsible due to a defective technology.

The case was closely monitored by car manufacturers to develop fully autonomous features. They fear that this may take risks of massive responsibility if the future juries examining accidents decide that car manufacturers are also to be blamed even when drivers are recklessly acting.

“If the verdict is authorized to stand up, it will cool innovation, will harm road safety and invite future juries to punish manufacturers who put new security characteristics on the market,” said the company in the file.

Tesla also claims that opposing lawyers “have directed the jury in error” by introducing “highly harmful but not relevant evidence” suggesting that Tesla had hidden or lost videos and data which, after having been unearthed by the opposite team, helped to recreate what passed moments before the accident. Tesla had said that it had made a mistake by not offering proof earlier and did not deliberately do it.

Musk had attempted a great chance by allowing the case to proceed at a pivotal moment for his electric car company. He tries to convince Americans that his autonomous technology has improved since the 2019 crash, can trust in the midst of ambitious plans to deploy a Tesla driver -free robotaxis across the country.

Many similar cases against Tesla have been rejected or have been settled by the company before proceeding.

The applicant’s lawyers revealed in a legal file last week that they had said to Tesla that they were ready to accept $ 60 million to settle. But Tesla refused. In the end, the jury decided on compensatory and punitive damages for the family of Naibel Benavids killed and his boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, raising this amount four times.

On Friday, Tesla’s deposit asked the judge to grant him a new trial, to throw the price or at least to reduce it considerably.

The jury judged that Tesla had an important responsibility because her technology had failed even if the driver had admitted that he was wrong to be distracted by his mobile phone. The driver had settled separately with the Benavids and Angulo family. Tesla said technology had nothing to do with the accident.

The applicant’s lawyers also said Tesla’s decision to use the term automatic pilot has shown that he was ready to mislead people and take big risks with their lives, because the system only helps drivers to change tracks, slow down a car and other tasks, not missing the car itself.

They said other car manufacturers used terms such as “Assist Driver Assist” and “Copilot” to ensure that drivers are not too counting on technology.

European regulators complained about the choices of tesla words for its driver help software and have raised questions about the question of error drivers. Musk had told investors last year that he expected to obtain the approval of these regulators for a more advanced version of the automatic pilot in March, but she still awaits the green light.

This advanced driving assistance function, which Musk calls full -fledged driving, has also scored a meticulous examination in us for possibly misleading drivers. An administrative judge in California hears a case in which the state vehicle department of the State is looking to withdraw the Tesla license to sell cars in part because of what it says to be misleading names.

“I trusted technology too much,” said the driver of the Florida crash, George McGee, in his testimony. “I thought that if the car saw something in front of it, it would provide a warning and apply the brakes.”

The main defense lawyer in the Miami case, Joel Smith, replied that Tesla warns the drivers that they have to keep her eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel, but McGee chose not to do so while he was looking for a lowered mobile phone, adding to the danger by accelerating.

The Tesla action dropped by almost 3.5% on Friday, after a drop a day earlier, when sales in Europe showed that car buyers always avoid Tesla. The company had been struck with boycott and protest earlier its year after Musk kissed politicians from the extreme right wing there.