Tesla friend turns foe after teen's tragic accident

tech.hindustantimes.com:

The Riley family were Tesla true believers: James excitedly plunked down $100 to become one of the first 700 owners of the Model S, Jenny treated a service representative like one of her own children and Barrett dreamed of one day working for Elon Musk.

But in a federal courthouse this week in Florida, James Riley occasionally wept on the stand as he told jurors he believed Tesla Inc.’s negligence resulted in his son Barrett’s death.

Early in the evening of May 8, 2018, shortly before he was to start his freshman year at Purdue University, Barrett died in a fiery wreck when he crashed his father’s Tesla S into the wall of a house. His friend in the front passenger seat was also killed; a buddy in the backseat survived.

Tesla argues that Barrett Riley had a history of dangerous driving and that his parents failed to rein him in before he lost control of the car while driving 116 miles per hour (187 kilometers per hour) on Seabreeze Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

James Riley contends the world’s most valuable car maker shouldn’t have de-activated a speed limiter feature that Tesla technicians had installed at his wife’s request after Barrett was ticketed weeks earlier for driving at 112 mph in a 50 mph zone.

The showdown marks the first time Tesla has had to defend itself at a trial over a fatal crash involving one of its cars. It’s a remarkable turnabout for a family that previously had been so deeply loyal to the company.

James Riley told jurors he had been a “huge, crazy believer” in Tesla. A former military and commercial airline pilot who later ran a technology company, Riley placed the order for his Model S, a seven-seater sedan, in 2010 -- and waited almost two years to receive it.

The father of seven children went