A Fatal Tesla Crash in Texas Sets Up a Legal Showdown
A Fatal Tesla Crash in Texas Sets Up a Legal Showdown
德州发生致命特斯拉车祸，引发法律对决
On a Texas evening last week, a 76-year-old grandmother named Martha Avila was standing in the front room of her suburban home when a Tesla Model 3 hurtled into her brick home at a reported speed of over 70 miles per hour, killing her. 上周的一个德州夜晚，76岁的祖母玛莎·阿维拉（Martha Avila）正站在郊区家中的前厅里，一辆特斯拉 Model 3 以据报超过每小时 70 英里的速度冲进她家的砖房，导致她不幸身亡。
The car’s driver, 44-year-old Michael Butler, later told police that he had Tesla’s driver assistance features—which the automaker argues make driving safer and less stressful—engaged during the crash. Butler exhibited “no signs of intoxication,” the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, which responded to the crash, noted in a report. 肇事司机、44岁的迈克尔·巴特勒（Michael Butler）事后告诉警方，他在车祸发生时开启了特斯拉的驾驶辅助功能——特斯拉公司声称该功能使驾驶更安全、更轻松。负责处理此次事故的哈里斯县警长办公室在报告中指出，巴特勒“没有醉酒迹象”。
Now Avila’s family is suing not only Butler but also Tesla, alleging that the electric-auto maker’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) driver assistance feature, also called FSD, played a role in her death. The feature is designed to handle certain aspects of driving—including navigating city and residential roads, stopping for red lights and stop signs, and changing lanes—but it requires drivers to pay attention and stay ready to intervene if the system makes a mistake. 目前，阿维拉的家人不仅起诉了巴特勒，还起诉了特斯拉，指控这家电动汽车制造商的“全自动驾驶（监督版）”（Full Self-Driving (Supervised)，简称 FSD）驾驶辅助功能在她的死亡中起到了推波助澜的作用。该功能旨在处理驾驶的某些方面——包括在城市和住宅道路上导航、在红绿灯和停车标志前停车以及变道——但它要求驾驶员保持注意力，并随时准备在系统出错时进行干预。
The suit alleges Tesla’s tech “was defective in design and unreasonably dangerous,” lawyers representing Avila’s daughter and son-in-law wrote in a lawsuit filed in Harris County District Court on Tuesday. (The son-in-law, Justin Barbour, was also in the home and injured in the crash.) 代表阿维拉女儿和女婿的律师周二在哈里斯县地方法院提交的诉讼中写道，特斯拉的技术“在设计上存在缺陷，且具有不合理的危险性”。（女婿贾斯汀·巴伯当时也在屋内，并在事故中受伤。）
Tesla didn’t respond to WIRED’s request for comment. But on X, Tesla vice president of AI software Ashok Elluswamy wrote that Tesla data showed that Butler “manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100 percent” and “had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.” Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted that speculation that the company’s technology played a role in the crash “makes no sense.” 特斯拉没有回应《连线》（WIRED）的置评请求。但在 X 平台上，特斯拉人工智能软件副总裁阿肖克·埃卢斯瓦米（Ashok Elluswamy）写道，特斯拉的数据显示，巴特勒“通过将油门踩到底（100%）手动覆盖了自动驾驶”，并且“在撞车后仍踩着油门”。特斯拉首席执行官埃隆·马斯克发帖称，有关该公司技术在事故中起到作用的猜测“毫无意义”。
Plenty of the crash’s specifics have yet to come out, and it’s very possible that Tesla’s tech didn’t have anything to do with Avila’s death. But even if the driver is mostly responsible for what happened, the electric-auto maker could still be found at least partially culpable—and liable for big monetary damages. 此次事故的许多细节尚未披露，特斯拉的技术与阿维拉的死亡无关的可能性很大。但即使司机对事故负主要责任，这家电动汽车制造商仍可能被认定负有部分责任，并需承担巨额经济赔偿。
“If the product is designed in a way that it leaves drivers vulnerable to situations where suddenly the system is not working and they’ve lost situational awareness, Tesla could be found responsible,” says Matthew Wansley, a professor with Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law who studies automotive tech. 叶史瓦大学卡多佐法学院研究汽车技术的教授马修·万斯利（Matthew Wansley）表示：“如果产品的设计方式使驾驶员在系统突然失效且失去态势感知的情况下处于脆弱境地，特斯拉可能会被认定负有责任。”
In fact, it’s happened before. Last year, a Florida jury found that the driver of a Tesla Model S using Autopilot, Tesla’s earlier driver assistance software, was mostly responsible for a crash in which he failed to see that the T-shaped intersection his car was traveling on was ending. He kept his foot on the accelerator, and the Tesla collided with and killed 22-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon. Her boyfriend, 26-year-old Dillon Angulo, was seriously injured. (Despite often touting its vehicles’ expansive data collection abilities, Tesla said it couldn’t recover critical data related to the case; Benavides’ family lawyers were later able to recover it with help from a hacker.) 事实上，这种情况以前也发生过。去年，佛罗里达州的一个陪审团裁定，一名使用特斯拉早期驾驶辅助软件 Autopilot 的 Model S 司机对一起车祸负主要责任，当时他未能发现车辆行驶的 T 型路口已经到头。他一直踩着油门，导致特斯拉撞上了 22 岁的奈贝尔·贝纳维德斯·莱昂（Naibel Benavides Leon）并致其死亡。她的男友、26岁的狄龙·安古洛（Dillon Angulo）受重伤。（尽管特斯拉经常吹嘘其车辆拥有强大的数据收集能力，但该公司称无法恢复与此案相关的关键数据；贝纳维德斯的家庭律师后来在一名黑客的帮助下成功恢复了数据。）
But the jury also found, in a precedent-breaking decision, that Tesla shared one-third responsibility for the crash because it believed Autopilot was effective. It determined that Tesla was liable for $200 million in punitive damages, plus an additional $43 million in compensatory damages. A judge upheld the verdict earlier this year. 但陪审团在一项打破先例的裁决中还发现，特斯拉对这起事故负有三分之一的责任，因为它让驾驶员认为 Autopilot 是有效的。陪审团裁定特斯拉需承担 2 亿美元的惩罚性赔偿，外加 4300 万美元的补偿性赔偿。法官在今年早些时候维持了这一判决。
Critics of Tesla’s approach argue that it’s precisely because FSD is pretty great that the feature presents a problem. If drivers trust that the system operates well all the time, they might not be prepared to take over if something goes wrong. In a 2018 California highway crash, the driver behind the wheel of a Model X using Autopilot failed to take over steering before the vehicle crashed into a barrier, killing him. (Tesla later settled a lawsuit related to the crash hours before it was set to begin.) 特斯拉方法的批评者认为，正是因为 FSD 表现相当出色，该功能才带来了问题。如果驾驶员相信系统始终运行良好，那么在出现问题时，他们可能无法做好接管准备。在 2018 年加州的一起高速公路车祸中，一名使用 Autopilot 的 Model X 司机在车辆撞向护栏前未能接管转向，导致身亡。（特斯拉后来在相关诉讼开庭前几小时达成了和解。）
An ongoing probe conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects opened last fall also gets at this potential issue. The investigation was triggered by more than 40 reported incidents in which FSD failed to adhere to traffic laws, including one crash caused by a Tesla with the feature engaged running a red light. The review, the agency wrote in a filing, will assess whether the feature gives users “prior warning or adequate time for the driver to respond to the unexpected behavior or to safely supervise” the tech. 美国国家公路交通安全管理局（NHTSA）缺陷调查办公室去年秋季启动的一项调查也触及了这一潜在问题。该调查是由 40 多起 FSD 未能遵守交通法规的报告引发的，其中包括一起特斯拉在开启该功能时闯红灯导致的事故。该机构在一份文件中写道，此次审查将评估该功能是否为用户提供了“预先警告或足够的时间，让驾驶员对意外行为做出反应或安全地监督”该技术。
NHTSA compelled Tesla to issue an Autopilot-related recall in 2023 after a two-year investigation suggested the system encouraged driver inattention. The recall was issued as an over-the-air software update. 在两年的调查显示该系统助长了驾驶员注意力不集中后，NHTSA 于 2023 年强制特斯拉发布了与 Autopilot 相关的召回。此次召回以无线软件更新的形式进行。
More is expected to come on the Texas crash, even if the lawsuit doesn’t make it to the open litigation stage. At least two federal agencies are investigating. The National Transportation Safety Board, an independent federal agency that investigates notable transportation incidents, said Wednesday that it had opened a joint probe with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office into the crash. (Peter Knudson, a spokesperson for the agency, couldn’t say whether it had received additional information or data from Tesla before opening the investigation, but said that the NTSB typically receives “very general information about the circumstances of the accident in order to make the decision whether or not to investigate.”) 即使诉讼没有进入公开审理阶段，预计关于德州车祸的更多信息也会浮出水面。至少有两个联邦机构正在进行调查。负责调查重大交通事件的独立联邦机构——美国国家运输安全委员会（NTSB）周三表示，已与哈里斯县警长办公室联合对这起事故展开调查。（该机构发言人彼得·克努森（Peter Knudson）无法说明在启动调查前是否从特斯拉收到了额外信息或数据，但他表示，NTSB 通常会收到“关于事故情况的非常笼统的信息，以便决定是否进行调查”。）
The NHTSA, the nation’s top road safety regulator, confirmed this week that it had also opened an investigation into the crash. 美国最高道路安全监管机构 NHTSA 本周证实，也已对这起事故展开调查。
In a statement, Ryan Zehl, a lawyer representing Martha Avila’s family in the Texas crash lawsuit, said her family was “understandably devastated.” 在德州车祸诉讼中代表玛莎·阿维拉家人的律师瑞安·泽尔（Ryan Zehl）在一份声明中表示，她的家人“理所当然地感到悲痛欲绝”。
“We are committed to determining exactly what happened to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future,” he said. “我们致力于查明到底发生了什么，以防止未来发生类似的悲剧，”他说。