Last week he said that Tesla would unveil a “robotaxi” car, which is expected to rely entirely on driverless software and won’t feature a steering wheel or pedals, in August.
The announcement sent Tesla’s shares up by almost 5pc on Monday.
Details of the agreement between Tesla and Mr Huang’s family were not disclosed. The company said in legal filings that it settled “to end years of litigation”.
Tesla had argued that Mr Huang was playing a video game at the time of the crash, in contravention of Autopilot’s requirement for drivers to keep their attention on the road at all times. Lawyers for Mr Huang’s family had denied this.
Mr Huang had believed claims that Autopilot was safer than human drivers, his widow and children had claimed.
They had also sued California’s highways department for failing to fix the barrier Mr Huang hit after a previous crash.
Autopilot has faced investigations from the US road safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which has led the company to issue updates to the software.
The NHTSA investigated Mr Huang’s death and said that Autopilot had failed to keep the vehicle in its lane, but that Mr Huang had probably been distracted.
The company has also received questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission and US Department of Justice regarding Autopilot, although the state of those inquiries is unclear.
Tesla has won two previous trials over Autopilot but faces more in the coming months.
Source link