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The parents and grandparents of a family of four who died two years ago in Pleasanton after the electric car they were driving crashed and caught on fire on Foothill Road have filed suit, alleging the company knowingly sold and distributed a defunct and dangerous vehicle.
The complaint for damages and demand for jury trial, submitted April 1 on behalf of the deceased family’s relatives, alleges that VinFast — the vehicle’s manufacturing company that is based in Vietnam — was negligent in allowing the VinFast VF8 electric vehicle to be sold and distributed even after it knew certain features of the car were faulty, which led to the deaths of the parents and children of the George family.
“As a direct and legal result of the negligence and carelessness of Defendants, described herein, Plaintiffs herein have been deprived of kind and loving children and grandchildren, and of their love, companionship, comfort, care, assistance, protection, affection, society, moral support, financial support, training, and guidance,” stated the lawsuit, filed by the Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger law firm.
In response to the new complaint, Van Nguyen — VinFast’s media relations manager — told the Pleasanton Weekly that the company is aware of the 2024 fatal crash and has cooperated with the authorities, but it has not yet been formally served with the lawsuit even though it was aware of its recent filing.
“Should the lawsuit be served, VinFast will file and answer, and defend itself,” Nguyen said in a statement Tuesday.
On April 24, 2024, Pleasanton residents Rincy George, 41, Tarun Cherukara George, 41, and their two children Rowan, 13, and Aaron, 9, died in a single-vehicle crash on Foothill Road near Stoneridge Drive around 9 p.m. Police at the time said evidence from the scene indicated that the VinFast VF8 electric vehicle hit a roadside pole, went airborne and struck a large oak tree that night before the car caught fire twice.
Following the crash, the Pleasanton Police Department stated it believed the force of the impact with the oak was the main factor for the family’s death and not the fire. Nevertheless, officers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s special crash investigations unit began working to determine the actual cause.
Authorities have released no new information about the investigation.
But according to the new civil complaint, the incident might have been caused due to faulty safety features like the vehicle’s advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), which is designed to help drivers avoid crashes.
“When activated, these ADAS features, including Traffic Assist, Highway Driving Assistance, Lane Keeping Assist, Adaptive Cruise Monitoring, and Emergency Lane Keeping Assist, are designed to exert direct control over the vehicle’s lateral and longitudinal motion, including steering inputs and speed modulation in order to maintain lane position and avoid hazards,” the complaint states. “In such circumstances, the systems are intended to provide safe, stable, and predictable control inputs consistent with maintaining the vehicle within its lane and under control.”
But instead of keeping the family safe, the complaint alleges that the assistance systems like the “Lane Keeping Assist”, which provides automatic steering and braking to keep the vehicle within the proper lane, and other components of the car might have actually caused the vehicle to lose control.
“In the moments before the collision, the back of the subject vehicle began to fishtail,” the complaint states.
“A witness to the collision saw the subject vehicle move to the left before abruptly veering off the road to the right, all in a matter of seconds,” according to the lawsuit. “The subject vehicle hit a pole, hit a tree, and then burst into flames, causing the deaths of (the George family).”
The complaint also noted how several other VF8 owners experienced similar issues with the vehicles assistance systems and how on Sept. 10, 2024, the NHTSA opened a preliminary investigation into the vehicle manufacturing company after receiving reports that the Lane Keeping Assist system “has difficulty detecting lanes on the roadway, provides improper steering inputs and is difficult to override by the driver.”
“As of December 2024, NHTSA has received 28 complaints about the VinFast VF8,” the complaint states. “Of these complaints, 9 relate to forward collision avoidance, 14 relate to lane departure, and 10 relate to steering.”
The Weekly previously inquired about the NHTSA investigation and a spokesperson for the agency said on Jan. 7, “Special Crash Investigation remains open, and NHTSA generally does not comment on open investigations.”
In addition to the number of complaints submitted to NHTSA on how the electric vehicle’s Lane Keeping Assist feature “aggressively jerks the vehicle when it detects a lane departure” or how it “does not work in direct sunlight”, the complaint also pointed out how former Tata Technologies engineer Hazar Denli spoke out against the electric vehicle company in a December 2024 BBC News story.
According to the complaint, Denli — who led the engineering team that worked on the VinFast VF8’s front suspension and chassis — voiced his concerns about “improperly designed components in the vehicle’s chassis and suspension system”.
“Mr. Denli reported that while running tests on VinFast cars in February and March 2023, components snapped off the cars on two occasions and failed on another two occasions,” the complaint states. “These components failed at around 15,000 miles when they are normally expected to last for over 90,000 miles.”
The lawsuit further states that Denli shared how the failure of the chassis component creates a “risk that under stress, such as hitting a pothole at speed, the wheels could become misaligned, causing the car to veer to the left or right without prompting, and the driver could lose control.”
The complaint alleges that because the company knew of these issues, there was negligence on part of VinFast as an overall company and the other named defendants, which include the company’s wholesale, distribution and anyone who might have had something to do with the sale, manufacturing and distribution or marketing of the vehicle.
The relatives’ lawyers argue the defendants were “negligent and careless in their design, manufacture, testing, marketing, sale, and maintenance” of the vehicle involved in the fatal crash, as well as for “failing to provide adequate instructions and warnings to protect against injuries occurring as a result of the design, manufacture, testing, marketing, sale, and maintenance” of the car.
“The actual and potential risks, hazards, and dangers of the subject vehicle, described herein, presented a substantial risk of injury and death when the subject vehicle was used or misused in an intended or reasonably foreseeable way,” the complaint alleges. “Said defects were a substantial factor in causing the collision.”
The plaintiffs demand a jury trial and seek unspecified damages. There is an initial case management conference scheduled for this case on Aug. 31 at 2:30 p.m. in Hayward, according to the Alameda County Superior Court portal.
