A Tesla crash near Beverly Hills can involve more than the other driver. A defect such as Autopilot, Full Self-Driving, sudden acceleration, or a post-crash battery fire may have caused or worsened your injuries. If so, you may have a product liability claim against Tesla, on top of a negligence claim against the at-fault driver.
Under California’s pure comparative negligence rule, Tesla can be held partially liable even when a driver was also at fault, as the $243 million Autopilot verdict confirmed.
The Tesla’s own recorded data is often decisive, so preserving it early is essential. Call (310) 220-0066 for a free 24/7 consultation. You pay nothing unless we win.
Can You Sue Tesla After a Car Accident in California?
In most cases, the at-fault driver is your primary source of recovery through a standard negligence claim, the same as in any collision. But a Tesla crash can involve a second track: if a defect contributed to or worsened the crash, you may also have a product liability claim against Tesla itself.
The situations that raise a claim against Tesla are specific: an Autopilot or Full Self-Driving failure, sudden unintended acceleration, or a post-crash battery fire. Whether that second track exists depends on the facts and on what the vehicle’s data shows.
California follows pure comparative negligence, a rule from Li v. Yellow Cab Co. It lets more than one party share responsibility for the same crash. Tesla can therefore be held partially liable even when a driver was also at fault. A Tesla crash raises a question an ordinary collision does not: what was the car itself doing?
If your crash involved a Tesla, our car accident lawyers in Beverly Hills can handle the injury claim and investigate whether the facts support pursuing the manufacturer.
Why Trust The Injury Partners for Your Beverly Hills Tesla Accident Claim
As your Tesla accident lawyer, a founding attorney handles your file personally from the first call. You are never routed to a case manager or a call center, and the person who evaluates your case is the same person who builds it.
The Injury Partners handles your car accident and injury claim with that hands-on attention, and investigates whether the facts support a product liability angle against Tesla. We do not force a manufacturer theory the evidence does not support. A claim against Tesla is complex litigation against a well-resourced corporate defendant, and we are honest from the start about whether your case has that dimension.
Omeed Hakimianpour earned the Super Lawyers® Rising Stars distinction in 2025 and 2026, given to only the top 2.5% of California attorneys. He is a graduate of UCLA and USC Gould School of Law. He trained at Kirkland & Ellis handling complex disputes involving major corporations, experience directly relevant when the opposing party is a manufacturer rather than an auto insurer.
Co-founder Daniel Sabet completed the SCALE accelerated J.D. program at Southwestern Law School in two years and has built his career representing accident victims.
The Injury Partners has recovered over $1M for clients, holds a 5.00 Google rating, and works on a contingency-fee basis. We move quickly to preserve the Tesla’s data before it is lost, and we are available 24 hours a day. You can reach our Beverly Hills personal injury lawyers any time, and you pay nothing unless we win.
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Who Is Liable for a Tesla Accident? Driver Negligence vs. Product Liability
Two separate legal tracks can apply to your Tesla crash, and identifying every source of recovery drives the outcome. The at-fault driver faces an ordinary negligence claim. Tesla the manufacturer faces a strict product liability claim when a defect contributed.
Track
Who
Legal Theory
When It Applies
Driver negligence
The at-fault driver
Ordinary negligence
Nearly every crash; the primary recovery in most cases
Product liability
Tesla (the manufacturer)
Strict liability: design defect, manufacturing defect, or failure to warn
When Autopilot, FSD, the battery, or another component contributed
Other defendants may share responsibility depending on the facts. These can include another driver, an employer whose worker caused the crash, a repair provider whose faulty work contributed, or a government entity responsible for a dangerous road.
Because Tesla controls the data that often proves the second track, preserving that evidence early is what separates a single-defendant case from a full accounting of everyone at fault. Under Daly v. General Motors Corp., comparative fault applies even in a product liability case, so a jury can assign Tesla its own share independently of the driver.
Who Can I Sue After a Tesla Crash, the Driver or Tesla?
In most cases you pursue the at-fault driver first, and Tesla only if a defect contributed. The driver’s insurance is usually your primary and fastest source of compensation.
A product liability claim against Tesla is added when the vehicle’s data or physical evidence supports it. When both tracks apply, a jury assigns each its own percentage of fault. We don’t sue Tesla in every case; we identify every party actually responsible for what happened to you.
What Is Product Liability in a Tesla Accident Case?
Product liability holds a manufacturer responsible when a defective product causes injury. Unlike a negligence claim, it does not require proving the company was careless. If the product was defective and the defect caused harm, the manufacturer can be liable, which is what “strict liability” means.
California recognizes three types of defect: a design defect, a manufacturing defect, and a failure to warn. A design defect claim uses one of two tests. The consumer-expectations test asks whether the product performed as safely as an ordinary user would expect, from Barker v. Lull Engineering.
For a technically complex system like Autopilot, courts generally apply the risk-benefit test instead, which weighs the design’s dangers against its benefits, as the California Supreme Court held in Soule v. General Motors. A Tesla claim usually turns on that second test.
Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Crashes: How Liability Works
A Tesla Autopilot accident lawyer starts from a fact the name obscures: Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) are Level 2 driver-assistance systems, not self-driving cars. Level 2 is a classification set by SAE International. It means the system can steer, brake, and accelerate, but a human driver must stay engaged and ready to take over at any moment.
California law reflects this: the driver remains responsible for controlling the vehicle, so that responsibility does not vanish because a feature was switched on.
If the system is alleged to have contributed to a crash, though, it raises a product liability claim against Tesla in addition to the driver’s negligence. The driver may have been inattentive and the system may have been defective, and pure comparative negligence lets a jury assign each a share of the fault.
The clearest illustration is a 2025 federal jury verdict of roughly $243 million from a fatal Autopilot crash. The jury found the driver mostly at fault but still held Tesla responsible for its own share and imposed punitive damages. A judge upheld the verdict in February 2026, and it is now on appeal.
It established that Tesla can be held partially liable for an Autopilot crash even when the driver was also at fault. Marketing claims and a “beta” label are not automatic defenses. Autopilot and FSD also remain under active federal scrutiny. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating whether the systems perform safely in real-world conditions. Separately, a California court found in late 2025 that Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” name was misleading.
Who Is at Fault in a Self-Driving Car Accident?
With the systems on the road today, the human driver remains legally responsible. Autopilot and Full Self-Driving are Level 2 features, not autonomous vehicles, and a driver cannot avoid responsibility simply by pointing to the feature.
When a driver-assistance system is alleged to have failed, though, the manufacturer can share the fault. That is the second track a self-driving car accident lawyer investigates: the driver’s inattention and the system’s defect are weighed separately, and both can contribute to the same crash. True driverless vehicles, like Waymo robotaxis, raise different questions, but today’s Teslas are not in that category.
Can Tesla Be Liable if Autopilot Was On but the Driver Was Also at Fault?
Yes. California’s pure comparative negligence rule lets both the driver and Tesla be liable for the same crash. A jury assigns each party a percentage of fault and apportions the damages accordingly, so one party being mostly responsible does not clear the other.
The $243 million Autopilot verdict proved the point: the jury found the driver bore most of the blame yet still held Tesla accountable for its own share. Under Daly v. General Motors Corp., comparative fault applies even in a product liability case, so Tesla’s fault is measured on its own and not erased by the driver’s mistakes.
Tesla-Specific Crash Hazards
Tesla and other electric vehicle crashes involve hazards that ordinary car cases rarely present, and each one can add an investigative or product-liability dimension to your claim:
Post-crash battery fires. A damaged lithium-ion battery can undergo thermal runaway, a chain reaction in which it overheats and ignites. These fires can start after impact, burn extremely hot, and even reignite hours later, turning a survivable collision into a catastrophic burn injury.
Sudden unintended acceleration. Some Tesla claims allege the vehicle accelerated on its own, leaving the driver unable to stop in time.
Phantom braking. The driver-assistance system may brake hard for a hazard that is not there, causing rear-end collisions.
Instant torque. Electric motors deliver full power immediately, so a Tesla accelerates faster than a comparable gas car, leaving less margin to correct a mistake.
Added vehicle weight. Heavy battery packs make EVs much heavier than similar gas vehicles, increasing crash forces, especially against smaller cars, pedestrians, and cyclists.
Door and egress problems. Electronic door releases can complicate escape after a crash, particularly if power is lost or a fire has started.
Why Tesla’s Vehicle Data Is the Most Important Evidence
An electric vehicle accident lawyer knows that modern Teslas record extensive data through an Event Data Recorder, or EDR, confirming exactly what happened in the seconds before a crash. That record, capturing speed, braking, steering inputs, and throttle position, often decides a case. Depending on the vehicle, a Tesla also logs Autopilot and camera data showing whether a driver-assistance feature was active and what it was doing.
This data can be decisive either way for a Tesla accident lawyer. It can prove the at-fault driver was speeding, or show that a driver-assistance system failed to respond as it should have. The evidence is powerful, and Tesla controls it.
That control is the problem. Vehicle data can be overwritten or lost, and a wrecked Tesla can be repaired or scrapped before anyone reviews what it recorded. Sending prompt preservation demands, sometimes called a legal hold, keeps the data before it disappears.
So after a crash, get medical care, preserve the vehicle, photograph the scene, gather witness information, and contact an attorney quickly. This is where Tesla cases are won or lost.
Common Tesla Accident Injuries
The high energy of an electric vehicle collision, combined with the risk of a battery fire, can make your injuries especially severe. These are often catastrophic, life-changing harms:
Burn injuries from lithium-ion battery fires, which can cause deep, disfiguring burns that require skin grafts and long-term care
Traumatic brain injuries, from the force of a high-speed impact
Spinal cord injuries and paralysis, which can permanently change how you live and work
Fractures and crush injuries, common in high-force collisions
Internal injuries, including organ damage and internal bleeding that may not be obvious right away
Fatal injuries, which give surviving family members the right to bring a wrongful death claim
If you lost someone you love in a Tesla crash, we handle these cases with the care they deserve. Our focus is on holding every responsible party accountable while your family has the space to grieve.
Compensation You Can Recover After a Tesla Accident
You can recover economic, non-economic, and in some cases punitive damages after a Tesla crash. What your claim is worth depends on the severity of your injuries and their long-term effect.
Economic damages cover your measurable financial losses:
All past and future medical care, including surgery and rehabilitation
Lost wages and lost earning capacity
Property damage
Out-of-pocket costs related to the injury
Non-economic damages cover the human cost of the injury, which is often the larger share:
Pain and suffering
Emotional distress
Disfigurement, which is especially relevant after a battery-fire burn
Loss of enjoyment of life
Punitive damages may be available under California Civil Code § 3294 when a manufacturer knew about a defect or acted recklessly. The Autopilot verdict included $200 million in punitive damages for exactly that kind of conduct. Families who lost someone can also recover wrongful death damages for both financial and emotional losses. California’s pure comparative negligence rule reduces your recovery by your own percentage of fault, if any, while Tesla’s share is assessed independently.
Deadlines to File a Tesla Accident Claim in California
Most California personal injury and product-liability claims must be filed within two years of the date of injury, under California Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1. Missing that deadline usually means losing the right to recover anything. A shorter deadline applies if a government entity is involved, such as a claim based on a dangerous road condition. In that situation you generally have only six months to file under California Government Code § 911.2.
One point outweighs the filing deadline itself: preserving the Tesla’s data cannot wait two years. The vehicle’s evidence can disappear within weeks of the crash, long before any lawsuit is filed. The legal deadline protects your right to sue; only prompt action protects the evidence.
Tesla, Autopilot, and EV Accidents in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles
A California Tesla accident attorney sees the pattern locally. Beverly Hills and greater Los Angeles have among the highest concentrations of Teslas and electric vehicles in the country, so these crashes happen here more than almost anywhere else. California is also Tesla’s home state and a center of Autopilot and autonomous-vehicle activity, including Waymo robotaxis now operating on Los Angeles streets.
High-traffic corridors like Wilshire, Santa Monica, and Sunset Boulevards and the 405, 101, and 10 freeways see heavy EV traffic daily. The instant acceleration and added weight of these vehicles raise the stakes in a collision. Serious injuries are often treated at LA-area centers like the Grossman Burn Center, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center.
The same questions that apply to a Tesla also apply to other electric vehicles like Rivian and Lucid, and to autonomous vehicles like Waymo. Those questions are the vehicle’s data, its driver-assistance systems, and its battery behavior. The Injury Partners is positioned for these tech-forward crashes throughout Los Angeles County.
Speak With a Beverly Hills Tesla Accident Attorney at The Injury Partners
A Tesla crash deserves an attorney who investigates every source of recovery and moves fast to protect the evidence. The Injury Partners handles your injury claim with founding-attorney attention, and where the facts support it, we pursue Tesla in addition to the at-fault driver. We are honest about which tracks apply, because a clear answer serves you better than an empty promise.
When you call, you speak directly with Omeed Hakimianpour or Daniel Sabet. You pay nothing unless we win, and our team is available 24 hours a day for a free consultation.
Contact The Injury Partners today at (310) 220-0066, or visit our office at 499 N. Canon Dr., Suite B1, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. If a Tesla crash upended your life, let us find everyone responsible and hold them to account.
