Tesla has been forced to fork out almost $250 million to the family of a woman who was killed when a Model S vehicle struck her and her boyfriend while on Autopilot. 

Naibel Benavides Leon, who was 22, died from the crash, while her partner, Dillon Angulo, suffered severe injuries during the impact in Key Largo, Florida, in April 2019. 

The driver, George McGee, confessed that he was leaning down to pick up his phone before the electric vehicle crashed into the couple’s parked car. 

However, McGee said his 2019 Tesla Model S was in ‘Autopilot’ mode, and the car’s feature failed to brake before the fatal collision. 

Benavides Leon’s family sued Tesla and the driver, but their case was consolidated with a criminal indictment in 2024 and subsequently moved to federal court for trial by jury. 

The trial marked a setback for Elon Musk’s vision of advancing self-driving cars and contributed to a precedent for holding vehicle manufacturers accountable. 

Jurors ruled in favour of the family last August, but attorneys for Tesla filed a motion for a new trial, claiming there was not enough evidence to support the assertion that the car’s Autopilot function caused the crash. 

However, US District Judge Beth Bloom supported the jury’s decision on Friday, awarding $200,000,000 to be divided between Angulo and Benavides Leon’s family, with an added $19,470,000 to Benavides Leon’s family, and $19,470,000 to Angulo.

Bloom said the evidence presented in last year’s trial supported the jury’s decision that Tesla was in part at fault for the crash. 

The judge’s decision has finally closed the years-long case that has haunted a bereaved family since the devastating accident.

The horror evening unfolded when Benavides Leon and Angulo pulled over on the side of the road to watch the stars near Key Largo, Florida, on April 25, 2019. 

McGee was driving his Tesla, and video footage from the car’s front camera showed him blowing through a red light at nearly 70mph. 

McGee then crashed into the couple’s parked vehicle, throwing Benavides Leon 75 feet. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Angulo broke numerous bones and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He attended the trial against Tesla and stepped into the courtroom with a limp. 

In a 60 Minutes interview from October, Angulo recalled the brutal moments of the crash. 

In the end, it was the driver’s fault because autopilot does not imply that the driver should not have constant control of the vehicle; however, it is down to the company as well because they made the vehicle and it was their design, which undoubtedly still has some bugs in it, and automation is certainly not fool proof, and will always need some form of control.

If a product is advertised and it doesn’t do what it was advertised to do, then that suggests the company lied. After all, ‘Red Bull’ was sued because it didn’t give people ‘wings’, but then you’re dealing with a nation that wore face masks because they were told to. Sheep follow sheep!

Cars should invariably be driven by people. Even driverless trains have someone keeping an eye on them in case something goes seriously wrong.

Equipment goes wrong, and when all is said and done, it is just a piece of equipment, and please tell me a piece of equipment that hasn’t gone wrong at some point, but then everybody wants to take zero accountability, and nobody, no matter what type of car it is should be looking for their phone while the car is in motion.