Jury orders Tesla to pay more than $240 million in Autopilot crash case
[August 02, 2025] By
BERNARD CONDON and DAVID FISCHER
MIAMI (AP) — A Miami jury decided that Elon Musk’s car company Tesla was
partly responsible for a deadly crash in Florida involving its Autopilot
driver assist technology and must pay the victims more than $240 million
in damages.
The federal jury held that Tesla bore significant responsibility because
its technology failed and that not all the blame can be put on a
reckless driver, even one who admitted he was distracted by his
cellphone before hitting a young couple out gazing at the stars. The
decision comes as Musk seeks to convince Americans his cars are safe
enough to drive on their own as he plans to roll out a driverless taxi
service in several cities in the coming months.
The decision ends a four-year long case remarkable not just in its
outcome but that it even made it to trial. Many similar cases against
Tesla have been dismissed and, when that didn't happen, settled by the
company to avoid the spotlight of a trial.
“This will open the floodgates,” said Miguel Custodio, a car crash
lawyer not involved in the Tesla case. “It will embolden a lot of people
to come to court.”
The case also included startling charges by lawyers for the family of
the deceased, 22-year-old, Naibel Benavides Leon, and for her injured
boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. They claimed Tesla either hid or lost key
evidence, including data and video recorded seconds before the accident.
Tesla said it made a mistake after being shown the evidence and honestly
hadn’t thought it was there.
“We finally learned what happened that night, that the car was actually
defective,” said Benavides' sister, Neima Benavides. “Justice was
achieved.”
Tesla has previously faced criticism that it is slow to cough up crucial
data by relatives of other victims in Tesla crashes, accusations that
the car company has denied. In this case, the plaintiffs showed Tesla
had the evidence all along, despite its repeated denials, by hiring a
forensic data expert who dug it up.
“Today’s verdict is wrong," Tesla said in a statement, “and only works
to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla’s and the entire
industry’s efforts to develop and implement lifesaving technology,” They
said the plaintiffs concocted a story ”blaming the car when the driver –
from day one – admitted and accepted responsibility.”
In addition to a punitive award of $200 million, the jury said Tesla
must also pay $43 million of a total $129 million in compensatory
damages for the crash, bringing the total borne by the company to $243
million.
“It's a big number that will send shock waves to others in the
industry,” said financial analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities. “It's
not a good day for Tesla.”
Tesla said it will appeal.
Even if that fails, the company says it will end up paying far less than
what the jury decided because of a pre-trial agreement that limits
punitive damages to three times Tesla’s compensatory damages.
Translation: $172 million, not $243 million. But the plaintiff says
their deal was based on a multiple of all compensatory damages, not just
Tesla’s, and the figure the jury awarded is the one the company will
have to pay.
It’s not clear how much of a hit to Tesla’s reputation for safety the
verdict in the Miami case will make. Tesla has vastly improved its
technology since the crash on a dark, rural road in Key Largo, Florida,
in 2019.
[to top of second column] |
Neima Benavides, whose sister died in a Florida crash involving
Tesla’s Autopilot driver assist technology, speaks to reporters
outside the federal courthouse in Miami, Friday, Aug. 1, 2025. (AP
Photo/David Fischer)
 But the issue of trust generally in
the company came up several times in the case, including in closing
arguments Thursday. The plaintiffs’ lead lawyer, Brett Schreiber,
said Tesla’s decision to even use the term Autopilot showed it was
willing to mislead people and take big risks with their lives
because the system only helps drivers with lane changes, slowing a
car and other tasks, falling far short of driving the car itself.
Schreiber said other automakers use terms like “driver assist” and
“copilot” to make sure drivers don’t rely too much on the
technology.
“Words matter,” Schreiber said. “And if someone is playing fast and
lose with words, they’re playing fast and lose with information and
facts.”
Schreiber acknowledged that the driver, George McGee, was negligent
when he blew through flashing lights, a stop sign and a
T-intersection at 62 miles an hour before slamming into a Chevrolet
Tahoe that the couple had parked to get a look at the stars.
The Tahoe spun around so hard it was able to launch Benavides 75
feet through the air into nearby woods where her body was later
found. It also left Angulo, who walked into the courtroom Friday
with a limp and cushion to sit on, with broken bones and a traumatic
brain injury.
But Schreiber said Tesla was at fault nonetheless. He said Tesla
allowed drivers to act recklessly by not disengaging the Autopilot
as soon as they begin to show signs of distraction and by allowing
them to use the system on smaller roads that it was not designed
for, like the one McGee was driving on.
“I trusted the technology too much,” said McGee at one point in his
testimony. “I believed that if the car saw something in front of it,
it would provide a warning and apply the brakes.”
The lead defense lawyer in the Miami case, Joel Smith, countered
that Tesla warns drivers that they must keep their eyes on the road
and hands on the wheel yet McGee chose not to do that while he
looked for a dropped cellphone, adding to the danger by speeding.
Noting that McGee had gone through the same intersection 30 or 40
times previously and hadn’t crashed during any of those trips, Smith
said that isolated the cause to one thing alone: “The cause is that
he dropped his cellphone.”
The auto industry has been watching the case closely because a
finding of Tesla liability despite a driver’s admission of reckless
behavior would pose significant legal risks for every company as
they develop cars that increasingly drive themselves.
__
Condon reported from New York.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
