A Florida woman blames a Tesla shop in Mount Kisco for severe injuries she says she suffered in a car accident when an onboard computer froze.
Robyn Nicole Wilson-Wolfe sued the Tesla store for negligence and demanded unspecified damages.
Wilson-Wolfe, of Plant City, Florida, claims she was injured on March 12 when the Tesla’s computer froze and the car crashed into a barrier and concrete wall.
The computer was “installed, serviced and repaired” by the Tesla shop at 115 Kisco Ave., Mount Kisco, according to the complaint, but the device was “inherently defective, and unsafe, inadequate and unfit for the purposes for which it was installed.”
Tesla Inc., Austin, Texas, did not reply to an email asking for a response to the allegations.
The complaint does not clearly identify the device but the wording appears similar to news accounts about failures of Tesla’s touchscreen cockpit displays.
For instance, a California man claimed this past April that his Tesla’s computer screen froze as he was driving 83 miles per hour on a freeway, disabling the accelerator and various buttons and switches. The brakes still worked and he got the car off the road.
Tesla recalled 130,000 cars in May because of the risk that their touchscreen displays could overheat and malfunction.
The Wilson-Wolfe lawsuit is vague about other aspects of the alleged malfunction. It does not identify the model or year or the car or when it was serviced by Tesla, for example. It does not say where the accident happened or whether investigators checked the computer.
Wilson-Wolfe says she suffered severe injuries to her mind and body, including her neck, shoulder and back, and that she has been “greatly incapacitated” and needs continuing medical care.
Her attorney, Cornelius Redmond of Manhattan, filed the complaint in Westchester Supreme Court on Oct. 27. Tesla, represented by Manhattan attorney Peter J. Fazio, moved the case to U.S. District Court in White Plains on Nov. 28.
