Tesla settles another wrongful death lawsuit that has big implications
Tesla has settled another wrongful death lawsuit, and it has significant implications based on Tesla’s legal strategy of not settling unless it is at fault.
Admitting a mistake is difficult. We humans are not good at it, which is why I respected Elon Musk when he said that Tesla wouldn’t seek victory in “just” legal cases against it and would “never settle an unjust case” against the company:
We will never seek victory in a just case against us, even if we will probably win. – We will never surrender/settle an unjust case against us, even if we will probably lose..
This strategy also means that if Tesla ever settles a case, it is admitting that it was in the wrong, even if settlements often come with no admission of wrongdoing.
Tesla has very rarely settled cases and Musk made this comment back in 2022. A lot has changed since then.
In fact, around the same time Musk made that comment, he announced that he was building a team of “hardcore lawyers” at Tesla to pursue legal cases aggressively.
But it started to happen over the last few years.
In the UK, a Tesla owner challenged Tesla over its failure to deliver on its full self-driving claims and won a settlement that represented a refund of his purchase cost for FSD, with interest, after filing a claim in small claims court in 2023.
Last year, Tesla also finally settled a wrongful death lawsuit regarding the death of Model X owner Walter Huang, who was one of the first Tesla owners to die while using Autopilot back in 2018.
Now, Tesla has settled a second wrongful death lawsuit.
The estate of Clyde Leach, a Tesla Model Y owner, sued Tesla for wrongful death after his Model Y “suddenly accelerated, went off the road, and slammed into a pillar at an Ohio gas station.” Leach, 72, died from “blunt force trauma, burns, and other injuries” after the vehicle burned down following the impact.
Unlike Huang’s case, the lawsuit didn’t focus specifically on Tesla’s Autopilot or other ADAS features, but it claimed that a defect led to a “sudden acceleration” that contributed to the crash.
There have been numerous allegations of “sudden unintended acceleration” against Tesla vehicles, but in most cases, the evidence has pointed to the driver mistakenly pressing the wrong pedal.
This makes it particularly interesting that Tesla, which claims never to settle unjust claims against the company, has confirmed that it settled the case with Leach’s estate in a filing on Monday in federal court in San Francisco.
The terms of the settlement have not been released.
Electrek’s Take
In Tesla’s early days, there were numerous claims of “sudden unintended acceleration” regarding Tesla vehicles. I would often look into them, and we even had third parties review the telemetric logs; you could almost always prove pedal misplacement.
I assumed some of it also had to do with people not being used to vehicles that accelerate as quickly as Teslas, leading to less forgiving situations when pressing the wrong pedal.
However, considering Tesla settled this case and Musk’s claim that Tesla would not settle an “unjust” claim, there could be a case that sudden acceleration could occur with Tesla vehicles.
This could complicate a lot of other cases against Tesla.
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New EVs got a little more expensive in April, and consumers saw fewer deals than before, according to new estimates from Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book.
In April, the average transaction price (ATP) for a new EV climbed to $59,255. That’s up 3.7% from the same time last year, and slightly higher, by 0.2%, than in March. Kelley Blue Book even revised March’s average price downward to $59,132.
Erin Keating, executive analyst at Cox Automotive, noted that “Ever since President Trump announced auto tariffs 47 days ago, the cost of new cars has been steadily climbing.”
At the same time, incentives took another dip. They made up just 11.6% of the average EV transaction price in April, down from 13.9% when they peaked in November 2024. This marks the second month in a row that EV incentives have declined.
Tesla led the way in May, selling more than 45,000 EVs – its best performance of the year so far. Most of those sales came from the updated Model Y, which continues to dominate the US EV market. Tesla’s average transaction price rose in April to $56,120, up both month over month and year over year.
Meanwhile, the Cybertruck, once the top-selling EV priced over $100,000, had an average sales price of $89,247 last month. But sales dropped below 2,000 units for the first time in a year, signaling a potential cool-off for the controversial pickup.
Overall, new EV sales in April were down nearly 6% from March, based on Kelley Blue Book’s early estimates. But year-to-date EV sales in 2025 are still up 5.4% compared to the same period in 2024.
Read more: Tesla Model 3 and Model Y prices rose higher in March as sales fell
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The EV3 is already one of the top-selling EVs in Europe and Korea, but when will Kia bring it to the US? After it was recently spotted testing on US streets, the Kia EV3 could finally make its North American debut soon. Here’s what we know.
When will the Kia EV3 make its North American debut?
Kia’s compact electric SUV was again the top-selling EV in Korea last month. It’s also currently among the best-selling electric cars in Europe.
Kia sold 27,761 EVs in Europe in the first quarter, up 17% from the previous record set in Q3 2023. The EV3 led the surge with 17,878 models sold, or 64% of Kia’s total electric vehicle sales in the region.
In March, the EV3 was also the best-selling retail electric car in the UK, driving Kia’s EVs to a record 21% share of its total sales. With the EV3 rolling out in other global markets, like Australia and New Zealand, when will it finally arrive in the US?
After the Kia EV3 was recently spotted testing on US streets, its North American debut could finally be coming up soon.
The new video from KindelAuto shows the 2026 Kia EV6 GT-Line trim, but with what appears to be the US-spec model. Despite the camo, you can see the EV3 has minor design changes, like added orange side reflectors, which are likely to meet regulations.
Although Kia has yet to confirm it, the EV3 could make its North American debut as early as later this year and launch in early 2026. Prices will be revealed closer to its debut, but the EV3 will likely start at around $35,000 to $40,000.
Kia’s smaller electric SUV starts at around 36,000 euros ($40,000) in Europe and roughly $30,700 in Korea (KRW 42.08 million).
In the meantime, those in North America will see Kia’s first electric sedan, the EV4, arrive next year. Kia confirmed the 2026 EV4 will have a built-in NACS port to access Tesla Superchargers and an estimated driving range of up to 330 miles. Prices are also expected to start at around $35,000 to $40,000.
Source: KindelAuto, TheKoreanCarBlog
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Less than a year after officially launching in the US, the 2025 Audi Q6 e-tron has received its safety rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). According to the German automaker, its compact luxury crossover has been awarded Top Safety Pick+ status—the highest possible rating from the IIHS.
The Q6 e-tron remains the newest edition to Audi’s long-running all-electric segment of sedans, GTs, and SUVs. We first caught wind of it back in March 2024 when Audi teased a shadowy image while promising the Q6 e-tron would “overtake expectations.”
The 2025 Q6 e-tron made its official debut last September. The lineup includes an RWD version that delivers the longest range (321 miles) of any Audi BEV. At that point, the Q6 e-tron had received a five-star safety rating from the Euro NCAP, but until today, we were still awaiting its rating from the IIHS.
Today, Audi confirmed that the 2025 Q6 e-tron is an IIHS Top Safety Pick+ – the best you can get.
Audi Q6 e-tron wins Top Safety Pick+ amidst higher criteria
When announcing the award status from the IIHS, Audi pointed out that the US institute altered its Top Safety Pick+ criteria for 2025 models, making the top-tier award harder to achieve. This included a new focus on rear-passenger safety and a moderate overlap front collision test, which simulates a head-on collision, whereas the test vehicle strikes a vehicle of equal size and weight at 40 mph with 40% of the front widths of those vehicles overlapping.
The compact crossover achieved a “good” (the highest IIHS) rating on all tests, warranting the Top Safety Pick+ status. As such, the IIHS has deemed the Q6 e-tron one of the safest all-electric models on the road.
The 2025 Q6 e-tron starts at $63,800 in the US and is currently available in three trimlines and a Premium quattro powertrain configuration.
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