Tesla asks Apple to help prove driver in fatal Autopilot crash was distracted

Tesla is set to go to court next week as part of a long-running lawsuit over the safety of its Autopilot driver assistance technology. As part of its defense, Tesla is hoping that Apple can prove that the driver in a fatal Autopilot crash was distracted by his iPhone while behind the wheel…

As our friends at Electrek have reported in the past, Tesla is facing a wrongful death lawsuit from the family of Wei “Walter” Huang, a former Apple engineer who was killed in a 2018 car accident. Huang was driving on US Highway 101 in Mountain View, California when his Model X crashed into a safety barrier while the car was on Autopilot.

Huang’s family has argued that Tesla’s Autopilot system is “defective in its design” and that the automaker is responsible for Huang’s death. Tesla, meanwhile, has asserted that Huang was playing a game on his phone when the crash occurred.

Following its own investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that data from Huang’s iPhone wasn’t specific enough to “ascertain whether the Tesla driver was holding the phone at the time of the crash.” The investigation did find, however, that the game (Sega’s Total War: Three Kingdoms) was running in the foreground on Huang’s phone.

Ultimately, the NTSB cited “limitations” of the Autopilot system and Huang’s “lack of response due to distraction likely from a cell phone game application and overreliance” on Autopilot as the reasoning for the crash.

As reported by Bloomberg this week, however, Tesla is turning to Apple in the wrongful death lawsuit from Huang’s family. Tesla hopes that Apple – Huang’s former employer – will be able to help prove that Huang was actively playing the game when the crash occurred.

According to filings this week, Tesla obtained a sworn statement from James Harding, an Apple engineering manager, who analyzed data from Huang’s phone. That data, according to Harding, “suggests possible user interaction, which might be a screen touch or button press.”

Lawyers for Huang’s family say that Apple is “secretly” working with Tesla. The family allegedly asked Apple to provide additional information, but Apple is “pushing back” and arguing that it “shouldn’t have to hand over confidential material.”

Tesla obtained a sworn statement from an Apple engineering manager, James Harding, who analyzed unencrypted telemetry data on Huang’s phone and said it “suggests possible user interaction, which might be a screen touch or button press.”

The Huang family’s lawyers have countered in a court filing that Tesla purposefully hid its questioning of Harding from them until after pretrial fact-finding deadlines. They are now trying to force Apple to provide more information, and the iPhone maker is pushing back, saying that it shouldn’t have to hand over confidential material.

The case is set to go to trial next week in San Jose. The trial is expected to run for two months.