Self-Driving Car Accidents in Michigan: Who Pays in 2026?

By Attorney Manny Chahal · Updated June 2026 · Reading time: ~9 min

Lane-keeping that tugs the wheel, “Autopilot,” “Full Self-Driving,” hands-free highway modes — driver-assistance technology is now on Michigan roads in large numbers, and so are the crashes. After a Florida federal jury returned a verdict of roughly $243 million against Tesla in 2025 in a case involving Autopilot — a verdict the trial court declined to disturb in early 2026 — injured people are asking a fair question: when software is steering, who pays? In Michigan the answer runs through MCL 257.665, the no-fault act, and ordinary product liability law.

Michigan’s Automated Vehicle Statutes

Michigan was one of the first states to legislate on automated driving. The 2016 amendments to the Vehicle Code (the SAVE Act package) added MCL 257.663 through 257.666a. Three provisions matter most to an injury case:

• Automated driving system as “driver” — SAVE fleets only. Within a manufacturer-operated SAVE project fleet, MCL 257.665b treats the automated driving system as the driver or operator for purposes of traffic-law conformance. This framework does not apply to consumer-owned Level 2 vehicles.
• The human as “operator.” The Code’s operator definitions (MCL 257.35a) still reach the person who causes an automated vehicle to move in automatic mode — even if that person is not physically in the vehicle.
• Manufacturer responsibility in SAVE fleets — and immunity for unconsented modifications. For participating on-demand AV fleets, the manufacturer assumes liability for incidents in which the automated driving system is at fault. Separately, MCL 257.665a makes a manufacturer of automated driving technology immune from liability arising out of modifications made to the vehicle or system by another person without the manufacturer’s consent.

Most vehicles on Michigan roads today are not true driverless cars. Tesla Autopilot, GM Super Cruise, Ford BlueCruise, and similar systems are SAE Level 2 driver-assistance technologies: the human remains the driver in law and in fact. That single distinction shapes every liability argument that follows.

Your No-Fault Benefits Do Not Depend on the Technology

Whatever the automation level, Michigan’s first-party system works the same way. If you are injured in a crash involving a vehicle using driver-assistance features, your PIP benefits — medical expenses under MCL 500.3107(1)(a), wage loss, replacement services, attendant care — are payable by your own insurer (or the insurer identified by the priority rules) regardless of fault under MCL 500.3105. A software failure does not delay or excuse PIP payment, and the one-year notice and one-year-back limits of MCL 500.3145 apply as usual. Our overview of Michigan no-fault insurance explains the claim mechanics.

The Third-Party Case: Driver, Manufacturer, or Both

To recover pain-and-suffering damages you must clear the serious impairment threshold of MCL 500.3135. The question then becomes who to pursue:

The 2025 Florida federal verdict against Tesla is significant because the jury allocated part of the fault to the manufacturer notwithstanding driver misuse — crediting evidence that the system’s design and the way it was marketed contributed to the crash. The jury assigned Tesla 33 percent of the fault and the driver the remainder, awarding roughly $43 million in compensatory damages and $200 million in punitive damages — approximately $243 million in total. The judgment was upheld against post-trial challenge in February 2026. It is one verdict, in another jurisdiction, and it remains subject to appeal — but it shows juries will scrutinize what the automation actually did, second by second.

Evidence Disappears Fast

AV and ADAS cases are data cases. Event data recorders preserve only seconds of pre-crash information; telematics and camera footage may be overwritten or held by the manufacturer. A preservation letter should go out immediately, and spoliation duties under Michigan law attach once litigation is reasonably anticipated — see our companion piece on AI accident reconstruction and MRE 702 for how this data is authenticated and challenged in court.

What This Means for an Injured Michigan Driver or Passenger

Treat a crash involving driver-assistance technology like a trucking case, not a fender-bender: multiple potential defendants, proprietary data, and an early evidence fight. The fundamentals still control — PIP first, threshold second, fault allocation third under MCL 600.6304 — but the proof package is different, and the window to secure it is short.

How an ADAS Crash Case Is Actually Built

Investigating a driver-assistance crash looks different from a conventional collision file. The proof develops along three tracks that proceed in parallel:

• The vehicle data track. Counsel sends preservation letters to the owner, the manufacturer, and any fleet operator within days. The event data recorder is imaged by a qualified technician; for connected vehicles, a demand goes to the manufacturer for server-side logs — system engagement status, driver-monitoring alerts, hands-on-wheel warnings, disengagement timing, and firmware version at the moment of the crash.
• The human track. Phone records, witness accounts, and in-cabin camera data establish what the driver was doing while the system was engaged. Over-reliance is foreseeable — that is precisely what made the marketing evidence matter in the 2025 Florida trial — but it is also evidence of the driver’s own negligence.
• The regulatory track. NHTSA defect investigations, recall notices, and standing general order crash reports involving the same system are publicly available and can anchor a failure-to-warn theory or rebut a manufacturer’s claim that the failure mode was unforeseeable.

Expect the Insurers to Point at Each Other

The driver’s liability carrier will emphasize the technology; the manufacturer will emphasize the driver’s misuse and its own disclaimers. For the injured person this finger-pointing is an opportunity rather than an obstacle: under MCL 600.6304, fault is allocated among all parties, and a properly pleaded case keeps every responsible defendant in the room. The mistake to avoid is settling early with the driver’s carrier for policy limits without first evaluating the product claim — a release signed in month two can extinguish the most valuable part of the case.

Michigan-Specific Wrinkles Worth Knowing

Three features of Michigan law give ADAS cases here a different shape than the national commentary suggests. First, owner liability under MCL 257.401 makes the owner of a vehicle liable for its negligent operation with consent — a rule written for human drivers that plaintiffs are now applying to owners who enable and deploy automation features. An owner who hands the keys to a teenager with instructions to “let the car drive” sits squarely within the statute’s logic.

Second, Michigan’s priority and threshold rules concentrate the real fight on the third-party side. Because PIP pays medical bills regardless of fault, the manufacturer dispute is about noneconomic and excess economic damages — which means the serious impairment threshold of MCL 500.3135, not the technology, is often the first battleground. A claimant who cannot clear McCormick v Carrier’s threshold never reaches the product questions at all.

Third, underinsured motorist coverage quietly matters. Many ADAS defendants are ordinary drivers with minimum limits; the product claim may take years. UM/UIM coverage in your own policy can bridge the gap, but consent-to-settle clauses require the carrier’s sign-off before you release the driver — a trap we cover in our UM/UIM guide.

Where Regulation Is Headed

NHTSA’s standing general order requires manufacturers to report crashes involving Level 2 systems, and that public dataset grows monthly. For injured people, the practical effect is discoverable, time-stamped federal reporting that did not exist five years ago. Expect defense experts to know this data; your counsel should too.

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