Tesla won the first U.S. trial over allegations that its Autopilot driver assistant feature led to a death. On the fourth day of deliberating the jury gave their opinion that there was no manufacturing defect involved with the vehicle.

• The civil lawsuit was filed by two passengers in a 2019 crash who accused Tesla of knowing Autopilot was defective when it sold the car.
• Tesla argued human error caused the crash.
• Tesla won an earlier trial in Los Angeles in April with a strategy of saying that it tells drivers that its technology requires human monitoring, despite the “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” names.

The jury verdict in the California state court case is a major victory for Tesla, which is facing several other similar lawsuits across the country. The verdict also represents Tesla's second big win this year, in which juries have declined to find that its software was defective.

The case that concluded on Tuesday involved gruesome testimony about the passengers' injuries, and the plaintiffs asked the jury for $400 million plus punitive damages. Tesla denied liability, saying Lee consumed alcohol before getting behind the wheel. Autopilot may have been engaged when the accident occurred as Tesla’s electric vehicle maker stated.

Matthew Wansley, a former general counsel of nuTonomy, an automated driving startup, and associate professor at Cardozo School of Law, said the steering issues in this case differ from those in other cases against Tesla.

In those lawsuits, plaintiffs allege Autopilot is defectively designed, leading drivers to misuse the system. The jury in Riverside, however, was only asked to evaluate whether a manufacturing defect impacted the steering.

“If I were a juror, I would find this confusing,” Wansley said.

During the trial in Riverside, an attorney for the plaintiffs showed jurors a 2017 internal Tesla safety analysis identifying “incorrect steering command” as a defect, involving an “excessive” steering wheel angle.

A Tesla lawyer said the safety analysis did not identify a defect, but rather was intended to help the company address any issue that could theoretically arise with the vehicle. The automaker subsequently engineered a system that prevented Autopilot from executing the turn which caused the crash.

This win in this court for Tesla should be viewed as positive with all the pressure mounting on the organization due to issues related to autopilot and FSD safety. Nonetheless, it should be mentioned that this is a solitary case; other suits might result differently.