A hacker helped a family secure $243 million in compensation from Tesla after discovering “lost” data about the company’s Autopilot system, which was involved in the death of a young woman in Florida.
Naibel Benavides Leon, 22, died in 2019 after the car she was in with her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, was struck by a Tesla operating on the company’s autonomous system.
After being sued by the family, Tesla claimed the crash was entirely caused by the driver, George McGee, who admitted he was using Autopilot when he looked down to pick up a fallen cellphone.
The company told jurors that its manual clearly states drivers must remain attentive, and that “this crash had nothing to do with Tesla’s Autopilot technology.”
However, the jury partially sided with Angulo and the Benavides family, who accused Tesla of misleading them for years about the data available—after a hacker found files that had allegedly been deleted, according to The Washington Post.
Greentheonly, as he is known online, said he found the file “within minutes” and confirmed it had been transmitted to Tesla’s servers immediately after the crash.
The recovered data showed that Tesla’s cameras detected a vehicle about 52 meters away and a pedestrian about 35 meters away, as the car was attempting to navigate through the couple’s parked truck.
Tesla’s lawyer, Joel Smith, admitted the company had been “clumsy,” but denied wrongdoing. “We didn’t think we had it, and we discovered we did… this is incredibly useful information,” he said.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that Tesla not only failed to warn the driver the road was ending but also “misled” investigators about the data it possessed “before police even arrived.”
The verdict, delivered last month in court, found Tesla partially liable for the crash and ordered the company to compensate the families with $243 million.
The Florida case, which marked a legal defeat for Tesla, set a precedent for similar lawsuits. Prior to this, the company had won several cases or settled them quietly.
However, attorneys said this case exposed Tesla’s secret crash data systems in a way that resonated strongly with jurors.
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