Story highlights
• Tesla faces trial over a fatal Florida crash involving Autopilot
• Driver admits he trusted Tesla’s Autopilot “too much”
• California DMV seeks to suspend Tesla’s license for misleading claims
• Case could impact rollout of Musk’s planned self-driving robotaxis
MIAMI — Elon Musk fought court cases on opposite coasts Monday, raising a question about the billionaire that could either speed his plan to put self-driving Teslas on U.S. roads or throw up a major roadblock: Can this wildly successful man who tends to exaggerate really be trusted?
In Miami, a Tesla driver who has admitted he was wrong to reach for a dropped cell phone moments before a deadly accident, spoke of the danger of putting too much faith in Musk’s technology — in this case his Autopilot program.
“I trusted the technology too much,” said George McGee, who ran off the road and killed a woman out stargazing with her boyfriend. “I believed that if the car saw something in front of it, it would provide a warning and apply the brakes.”
In unusual coincidence, regulators arguing an Oakland, California, case tried to pin exaggerated talk about the same Tesla technology at the center of a request to suspend the carmaker from being able to sell vehicles in the state.
Musk’s tendency to talk big — whether it’s his cars, his rockets or his government costing-cutting efforts — have landed him in trouble with investors, regulators and courts before, but rarely at such a delicate moment.
After his...
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