Tesla has reached a settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit related to a 2023 crash in California that killed a Model S driver and seriously injured his passenger while Autopilot was engaged.
The agreement comes less than two months before the case was scheduled to go before a jury.
The crash happened at approximately 4 a.m. on February 18, 2023, on Interstate 680 in Contra Costa County. Genesis Giovanni Mendoza Martinez, 31, was driving a 2014 Tesla Model S at roughly 71 mph (114 km/h) when it collided with a county ladder truck positioned across the roadway at the scene of an earlier collision.
Autopilot had been active for about 12 minutes before the impact. Martinez was killed, while his brother Caleb Mendoza, who was riding in the passenger seat, suffered serious injuries.
The resulting lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs argued that Tesla and CEO Elon Musk had overstated Autopilot’s capabilities, contributing to Martinez placing too much trust in the Level 2 driver-assistance technology.
The case was headed toward an October 26 trial following a ruling from U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in May 2025.
Chhabria dismissed a concealment claim but allowed fraudulent misrepresentation claims against Tesla to continue. In his order, the judge found that the Autopilot name was “plausibly misleading,” particularly when considered alongside allegations that some Tesla employees had raised concerns about the terminology.
The ruling also allowed claims based on certain public statements from Musk to move forward, including his characterization of Autopilot as “probably better” than a human driver.
Those issues will now avoid being tested before a jury after the parties reached a settlement, according to Law360. The settlement was confidential, so no financial or other terms have been disclosed.
The settlement comes as Tesla continues to face legal scrutiny over crashes involving its driver-assistance systems. In a separate Florida case, a federal jury awarded $243 million in damages over a fatal 2019 Autopilot crash, a verdict that a judge later declined to overturn.
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