A San Mateo County man was killed when his Tesla crashed into a gore point at the Highway 101 and Highway 85 connector in Mountain View on March 23, 2018. Rachel Graf | Bloomberg) — Tesla Inc. is relying on technical support from Apple Inc. as the car company seeks to prove at an upcoming high-profile trial over the safety of its Autopilot system that a Model X driver who worked for the iPhone maker was playing a video game on his phone when he crashed and died.
The two sides are sparring over whether Tesla can call an Apple engineering manager as a witness for a two-month trial set to start next week in state court in San Jose. Apple representatives didn’t respond to a request for comment after regular business hours.Tesla has prevailed in two previous California trials over Autopilot — the second one involving a fatal crash — in which the driver-assistance system was blamed after the vehicles veered off the road.
The Huang family’s lawyers have countered in a court filing that Tesla purposefully hid its questioning of Harding from them until after pretrial fact-finding deadlines. They are now trying to force Apple to provide more information, and the iPhone maker is pushing back, saying that it shouldn’t have to hand over confidential material.