On March 12, according to the automotive website Electrek, a woman in Texas sued Tesla, claiming more than $1 million. Previously,Her Cybertruck, with Fully Self-Driving (FSD) on, tried to drive straight off a viaduct in Houston and hit a concrete guardrail.
Cybertruck
The lawsuit contains an unusually pointed allegation:Tesla failed to hire and retain Elon Musk as CEO.
The case was filed in Harris County District Court, becoming the latest lawsuit related to Tesla's "self-driving" promotion. Just weeks ago, a federal judge upheld a historic $243 million verdict involving Tesla's liability in another Autopilot crash.
According to court documents reviewed by Electrek, plaintiff Justine Saint Amour purchased a used Cybertruck equipped with Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" (FSD) package from a Florida dealer in February 2025.
On August 18, 2025, Amul drove this Cybertruck on Eastex Highway 69 in Houston and turned on the FSD function. The Cybertruck was supposed to be following a right-hand curve as the vehicle approached a Y-shaped viaduct fork near the Eastex Park and Ride 256. However, according to the complaint, the vehicle attempted to drive straight ahead and crashed directly into the concrete guardrail next to the viaduct, which leads to the highway below. Amur then switched off the FSD and took over the steering wheel, but it was too late to avoid the collision.
While negligence and product liability claims are not uncommon in Tesla Autopilot-related lawsuits, the allegations in this case go further than most.The complaint lists 16 specific allegations of negligence, including accusations that Tesla "neglected in hiring and retaining Musk as CEO and allowing him to participate in product design decisions."
The complaint alleges that Tesla engineers had recommended integrating radar and lidar sensors, the same laser systems used by competitors such as Waymo, in its vehicles to improve the safety of its driver assistance systems. However,Musk rejected that suggestion and instead advocated relying solely on cameras.This decision has shaped and limited Tesla's development direction in the field of autonomous driving for many years.
The complaint describes Musk as "an aggressive and irresponsible salesman who has a long history of making dangerous design choices and overpromising the capabilities of his products."
In addition to the negligence allegation, the lawsuit also raises strict liability claims based on design defects and marketing defects. The complaint alleges that the Cybertruck and its FSD capabilities are "defective and unreasonably dangerous" due to the lack of an effective driver monitoring system, lack of lidar, ineffective automatic emergency braking (AEB), and misleading marketing of the system as "autonomous driving."