The accident happened in February 2023, just after 4 a.m. Giovanni Mendoza Martinez, 31, slammed his 2014 Tesla Model S into a fire truck parked diagonally across two lanes. Giovanni died, and his brother, riding as a passenger, was injured.
Now, the driver’s Contra Costa County family and the city’s insurance provider are both taking Tesla to court.
Martinez had engaged Tesla’s Autopilot roughly 12 minutes before the collision
Both the family and Public Risk Innovation, Solutions, and Management claim that Martinez believed that the Tesla could drive itself.
The city’s ladder rig was assisting first responders at a previous car accident. The EV was moving at about 71 mph when it hit the fire truck…