German Court Ordered Tesla to Reimburse Customer for Autopilot Issues

According to a Friday report from Der Spiegel, a Munich court has ordered Tesla to refund a customer for most of the EUR 112,000 (approximately Rs. 90,000) she spent on a Model X SUV due to issues with the Autopilot feature.

According to a technical study, the car sometimes would apply the brakes needlessly and could not correctly identify barriers like the narrowing of a building site.

The court determined that this might result in crashes and provide a “massive danger” in urban areas.

According to Der Spiegel, Tesla attorneys claimed Autopilot was not intended for use in city traffic. The court agreed, stating that it would be dangerous for drivers to turn the system on and off in certain situations manually.

Tesla refused to react to Der Spiegel and could not comment immediately. Could not reach the court for comment right away.

Following reports of 16 collisions involving Tesla cars in Autopilot, including seven injury occurrences and one fatality, which had impacted stopped first-responder and road maintenance vehicles, US safety officials are looking into Tesla’s Autopilot feature.

Tesla claims that although Autopilot enables cars to stop and steer within their lanes automatically, it does not give them the ability to drive independently.

Depending on regulatory permission, Musk said in March that Tesla is expected to release a test version of its new “Full Self-Driving” software in Europe later this year.

At the time, he told employees at the Berlin facility that fully autonomous driving is challenging in Europe because of how widely different the continent’s roadways are from one another.