Tesla reached a settlement regarding the fatal accident involving Autopilot. The court previously deemed the name “plausibly misleading.”
Tesla reached a settlement regarding a fatal accident on February 18, 2023, in California, when a Model S with Autopilot activated collided with a parked fire truck at around 70 mph, or 113 km/h. The driver died, and the passenger was seriously injured. The settlement is confidential and allows the company to avoid a jury trial.
This case is *Caleb Mendoza et al. v. Tesla, Inc. (No. 24-cv-08738-VC)* in the federal court for the Northern District of California, presided over by Judge Vince Chhabria. The plaintiffs claimed not only that the product failed but also that Tesla and Elon Musk exaggerated the capabilities of Autopilot beyond what a Level 2 system permits. This is at the heart of the dispute.
The accident occurred around 4 a.m. on Interstate 680 in Contra Costa County. Genesis Giovanni Mendoza Martinez, 31, was driving a 2014 Tesla Model S. The car collided with a fire ladder placed across the lanes following a previous traffic incident. It sounds brutal, and that’s because it was.
Judge allowed the most serious charge against Tesla
In May 2025, Judge Chhabria dismissed the charge of concealment but allowed the charges of fraudulent misrepresentation to proceed. The ruling stated that the name “Autopilot” itself is “plausibly misleading,” meaning it is likely to cause confusion.
The court also ruled that Elon Musk’s public statements could be legally significant, including his claim that Autopilot is “probably better” than a human driver. This posed a serious dilemma for Tesla in front of the jury, as promises regarding autonomy, telematics, and internal documents would have been on the table. Instead, we have a settlement. The amount was not disclosed.
Tesla Pays Again to Avoid a Verdict
This is not an isolated case. Tesla has long been quietly resolving lawsuits over fatal accidents involving Autopilot and Full Self-Driving just before trials.
Once the lawsuit proceeded, it ended badly. A federal jury in Florida awarded Tesla $243 million in a 2019 death lawsuit, and the court upheld that verdict in February. Since then, the company has had to deal with additional lawsuits, including one from June involving a fatal pedestrian collision while using FSD.
The pressure is also increasing in terms of numbers. Tesla is facing lawsuits related to Autopilot and FSD totaling as much as $14.5 billion. The verdict in Florida gave plaintiffs a strong argument, which is evident from the subsequent lawsuits.
There’s another issue as well. Since 2019, Tesla has been editing the descriptions of incidents in 99.9% of federal safety reports related to fatal accidents involving Autopilot and FSD, while manufacturers like GM, Ford, and Toyota do it only minimally or not at all. Legally, this might be an effective strategy. However, it looks worse from a reputational standpoint.
For now, the picture is simple: when the court allows an evaluation of Tesla’s marketing and Musk’s statements to the jury, the company prefers to hand over a check rather than test those promises in an open trial. How long will this work given lawsuits already amounting to billions of dollars?
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