Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Tesla is going to court next week over the role its Autopilot system played in a fatal crash in 2018 — and it wants Apple to testify in its defense.
Tesla wants to prove that Apple engineer Wei “Walter” Huang was playing a video game on his phone at the time his Autopilot-enabled Model X smashed into a safety barrier along US Highway 101 in Mountain View, California, in 2018. And now, Huang’s family, which is suing Tesla for wrongful death, is claiming that Tesla is secretly working with Apple to aid in its defense.
In a pretrial motion filed this week, lawyers representing Huang’s family accused Apple of “engaging in a secret discovery ‘work around’ to help support Tesla in its defense of the pending case.”