Family of driver in fatal Tesla crash hires law firm

Family of Walter Huang will \'explore legal options,\' firm says.

The family of Walter Huang, the deceased driver of the Tesla Model X which caught fire after hitting a median divider while Autopilot was engaged, has hired a law firm to "explore legal options" in response to the accident.

The firm Minami Tamaki LLP announced Wednesday that the family had hired it to investigate the accident, Reuters reports. The firm posted details of its initial review on its blog.

While the focus of the firm's interest appears to be on what it alludes to as a failure of Tesla's Autopilot system, it also points out that (as previously noted in several reports), the metal crash barrier designed to mitigate impact damage had been previously struck and not yet repaired/replaced.

"The lack of a guard potentially increased Huang's injuries," the firm says.

Both Tesla and the National Transportation Safety Board are still investigating the crash and resulting fire. Tesla CEO Elon Musk met with NTSB officials over the weekend after the latter expressed frustration with Tesla's decision to release preliminary crash information ahead of the NTSB's official report, according to Bloomberg.