Riverside County, Calif. – Tesla will face a jury Thursday over the role its Autopilot features may have played in a calamitous 2019 crash here, among the first trials in a string of cases involving the technology that will be litigated around the country in the coming months.
Thursday’s trial concerns the death of Micah Lee, who was allegedly using Autopilot features in his Tesla Model 3 while driving his family down a highway at 65 miles per hour. Suddenly, court documents say, the car jolted off the road, crashed into a palm tree and burst into flames. Lee died in the collision, while his son and wife were severely injured.