Tesla must pay $42 of $329 million in damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/01/tesla-must-pay-329-million-in-damages-in-fatal-autopilot-case.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.worldhttps://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/01/tesla-must-pay-329-million-in-damages-in-fatal-autopilot-case.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
$42 million, not $42
Understandable. But it doesn’t seem impossible these days, either.
Okay folks, here's the financial breakdown.
Total compensatory damages, covering actual harms (tangible and intangible): $129 million. Punitive damages: $200 million. Sum: $329 million.
Punitive damages are capped at 3x compensatory damages, but that's not a factor here because it's less than 2x.
Tesla was assigned 33% of the blame. The driver is 67% to blame.
That gives Tesla a bill of ($129 million * 33%) + ($200 million), because the punitive damages were assessed against Tesla only. Total Tesla payout: $242 million.
The driver is liable for the rest: $87 million. Plaintiffs will presumably be able to extract a tiny fraction of that from insurance.
Thank you. That headline is horrible.
Really wonder how many lawyers Musk had to fire before they named it Full Self-Driving^tm