Elon Musk's Tesla Faces Wrongful Death Lawsuit Over Model S Crash Which Claimed 3 Lives: Plaintiffs Call Car's Design 'Defective And Unreasonably Dangerous'

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) faces a wrongful death lawsuit filed in a federal court in New Jersey's Camden over a 2024 crash involving a Tesla Model S that claimed three lives.

What Happened: The lawsuit, filed by the estates of the three victims David and Michele Dryerman, both 54, and their daughter Brooke, 17, alleges the crash, which took place on New Jersey's Garden State Parkway, happened due to the Model S's "defective and unreasonably dangerous design," Reuters reported on Monday.

The plaintiffs, who include the family's elder son Max Dryerman, seek an unspecified amount in compensatory damages, the report suggests.

The crash took place on September 14, 2024, when the Dryermans were on their way home from a music festival when their Tesla Model S ran off the road. All the victims were wearing seatbelts.

"Thousands of Tesla drivers have relied on Tesla’s ADAS technology as though it were capable of safe, fully autonomous self-driving with minor software updates when in fact it is incapable of safely handling a variety of routine roadway scenarios without driver input," the complaint cited in the report said.

Why It Matters: The lawsuit comes as Tesla is also under scrutiny from NHTSA for possible traffic violations during Sunday's much-awaited Robotaxi launch in Austin, which was a limited rollout with 10 Tesla Model Ys in an invite-only event.

However, Tesla also sought to keep its responses to a separate NHTSA inquiry about the FSD or Full-Self Driving tech's performance in poor weather conditions private, as Elon Musk's EV giant cited concerns regarding confidential information regarding the workings of its system being used by competitors.

Tesla's FSD tech has raised concerns over its safety, as two incidents involving Tesla vehicles in self-driving mode involved instances where the occupants' safety was threatened.

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