UPDATED 21:24 EDT / JANUARY 01 2017

EMERGING TECH

Tesla sued over allegedly self-accelerating Model X

A South Korean actor is suing Tesla Motors Inc. over claims that his car suddenly accelerated while being parked, causing it to crash through a garage and into the owners house and injuring a number of people along the way.

Ji Chang Son filed the legal action in the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California and is seeking class action status based on other previously reported cases of alleged autonomous acceleration events in Tesla’s vehicles.

“The vehicle spontaneously began to accelerate at full power, jerking forward and crashing through the interior wall of the garage, destroying several wooden support beams in the wall and a steel sewer pipe, among other things, and coming to rest in Plaintiffs’ living room,” the lawsuit claims.

Tesla not only denied the claim, but went as far as hinting that Son may have attempted to blackmail the company so as to restore his “face” over the crash, according to a statement reported by Electrek:

“We take the safety of our customers very seriously and conducted a thorough investigation following Mr. Son’s claims. The evidence, including data from the car, conclusively shows that the crash was the result of Mr. Son pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to 100 percent. Before filing his class action lawsuit against Tesla, Mr. Son had threatened to use his celebrity status in Korea to hurt Tesla unless we agreed to make a financial payment and acknowledge that the vehicle accelerated on its own. However, the evidence clearly shows the vehicle was not at fault. Our policy is to stand by the evidence and not to give in to ultimatums.”

This allegedly isn’t the first time that Tesla’s Model X has been accused of unexpectedly accelerating. The lawsuit cites seven other complaints registered in a database compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration dealing with sudden acceleration without warning. The lawsuit alleges product liability, negligence and breaches of warranty, and seeks unspecified damages.

Image credit: joebehr/Flickr/CC by 2.0

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