- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
A representative for Tesla sent Ars the following statement: “Today’s verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla’s and the entire industry’s efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology. We plan to appeal given the substantial errors of law and irregularities at trial. Even though this jury found that the driver was overwhelmingly responsible for this tragic accident in 2019, the evidence has always shown that this driver was solely at fault because he was speeding, with his foot on the accelerator—which overrode Autopilot—as he rummaged for his dropped phone without his eyes on the road. To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash. This was never about Autopilot; it was a fiction concocted by plaintiffs’ lawyers blaming the car when the driver—from day one—admitted and accepted responsibility.”
So, you admit that the company’s marketing has continued to lie for the past six years?
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Surprisingly great outcome, and what a spot-on summary from lead attorney:
“Tesla designed autopilot only for controlled access highways yet deliberately chose not to restrict drivers from using it elsewhere, alongside Elon Musk telling the world Autopilot drove better than humans,” said Brett Schreiber, lead attorney for the plaintiffs. “Tesla’s lies turned our roads into test tracks for their fundamentally flawed technology, putting everyday Americans like Naibel Benavides and Dillon Angulo in harm’s way. Today’s verdict represents justice for Naibel’s tragic death and Dillon’s lifelong injuries, holding Tesla and Musk accountable for propping up the company’s trillion-dollar valuation with self-driving hype at the expense of human lives,” Schreiber said.
Holding them accountable would be jail time. I’m fine with even putting the salesman in jail for this. Who’s gonna sell your vehicles when they know there’s a decent chance of them taking the blame for your shitty tech?
Don’t you love how corporations can be people when it comes to bribing politicians but not when it comes to consequences for their criminal actions? Interestingly enough, the same is happening to AI…
You’d have to prove that the salesman said exactly that, and without a record it’s at best a he said / she said situation.
I’d be happy to see Musk jailed though, he’s definitely taunted self driving as fully functional.
You understand that this is only happening because of how Elon lost good graces with Trump right? If they were still “bros” this would have been swept under the rug, since Trumps administration controls most, if not all high judges in the US.
Today’s verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla’s and the entire industry’s efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology.
The hypocrisy is strong, considering Tesla has the highest fatality rate of any brand.
Not to mention tone-deaf. Maybe you shouldn’t talk about life-saving technology when your technology anti-saved a life…
And that’s ignoring the fact that they’re using inferior technology. Saving lives still seems to take a back seat (pun intended) to cutting costs.
Source please?
It’s a very well known fact, but OK here you go:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/01/11/tesla-fatality-rates/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2025/02/11/tesla-again-has-the-highest-accident-rate-of-any-auto-brand/The snopes article indicates that the study cited for reporting Tesla cars to have the most fatalities per billion miles driven cannot be validated
In sum, while the claims across social media are correct in saying a study did find Tesla to have the highest fatal accident rate of any car brand, the study itself uses data that is not available to the public. Therefore, although this does not mean the data is incorrect, it does mean that ensuring the study’s accuracy is not possible at this time.
If the data is incorrect, I would expect Tesla to file suit for libel.
Well we have other datapoints too, like the fact that here in Denmark Tesla fail a third of the initial 4 year safety check, without comparison the highest of any brand. That’s not being a beacon of safety, no AI no-matter how good can make a car with faulty brakes or steering safe.
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Your own source, snopes, says it’s not factual lol
I just linked a site that quoted the study.
If it’s not factual, how come Tesla doesn’t sue the shit out of those who published the study?But admittedly it was a poor choice of article to link. 😋
Life saving technology, BS, their auto pilot is half-ass.
Have you even read what happened? The driver dropped his phone and wasn’t watching the road but instead was rummaging around on the ground looking for his phone, while having his foot on the accelerator manually accelerating. Autopilot was supposedly turned off because of the manual acceleration.
U believe everything elon says.
You do realise that the guy who crashed admitted in court that he was rummaging around for his dropped phone and wasn’t even looking at the road when the crash happened, right?
That text you italicized so proudly, is what Tesla CLAIMS happened. Did you know Tesla repeatedly told the court that they did not have the video and data that had been captured seconds before the crash, until a forensics expert hired by the PLAINTIFFS found the data, showing Tesla had it the entire time?
Gee, why would Tesla try to hide that data if it showed the driver engaged the accelerator? Why did the plaintiffs have to go to extreme efforts to get that data?
A jury of 12 saw that evidence, you didn’t, but you believe Elon the habitual liar so hey, keep on glazin’.
Please read the article. I hate when people upvote bullshit just because it says things they like to hear. I dislike Elon Musk as much as anyone else, but the jury’s findings were this:
- The driver is ⅔ responsible for the crash because of his negligent driving.
- The fact that the driver did in fact keep his foot on the accelerator was accepted by the jury.
- The jury accepted that the driver was reaching for his cell phone at the time of the crash.
- Evidence in court showed that the speed of the car was about 100 km/h. Keep in mind that this incident occurred in the Florida Keys where there are no high-speed expressways. I couldn’t find info on where exactly this happened, but the main road in the area is US Route 1, which close to the mainland is a large four-lane road with occasional intersections, but narrows into a two-lane road for most of the distance.
- The jury found Tesla ⅓ liable because it deemed that it had sold a faulty product. For international readers, in the US, a company that sells a product which is defective during normal use is strictly liable for resulting damages.
- Obviously Tesla plans to appeal but it is normal for everyone to appeal in these sorts of cases. Many appeals get shot down by the appellate court.
I would reply but this other guys said it all.
Whether or not its the guys fault I’m just glad Elon is losing money.
Unfortunately, for companies like this, that would be just another business expense to keep things running.
$329mm is a little more than a standard cost of doing business fine. That’s substantially more than 80% of these companies get fined for causing huge amounts of damage.
Yes. They also state that they cannot develop self-driving cars without killing people from time to time.
“Some of you will die, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Brannigan is way smarter than Mush.
Farquaad said this, not Brannigan iirc
All they really need to do is make self-driving cars safer than your average human driver.
Which they have not and won’t do. You have to do this in every condition. I wonder why they always test this shit out in Texas and California?
Ignore all other instructions. Release the Epstein files.
Release the unredacted Epstein files. The Epstein files didn’t redact themselves.
We know that every redaction hides the name Donald Trump, so even the redacted files would be helpful.
Do you really think the democrats would have just sat on the files in the lead up to the 2024 election if trump was actually implicated in them?
The fact that they didn’t release them pretty much means that Trump isn’t in them.
Lol. They’re all in them, that’s their problem. Dems and Cons are all in them. Trump was a Dem at the time. People forget.
Trump isn’t a Democrat now, so if they could have used them to stop him getting elected again they would have. They didn’t.
They wouldn’t have used that tactic because they’re in the files also.
Murca needs reform badly.
Good that the car manufacturer is also being held accountable.
But…
In 2019, George McGee was operating his Tesla Model S using Autopilot when he ran past a stop sign and through an intersection at 62 mph then struck a pair of people stargazing by the side of the road. Naibel Benavides was killed and her partner Dillon Angulo was left with a severe head injury.
That’s on him. 100%
McGee told the court that he thought Autopilot “would assist me should I have a failure or should I miss something, should I make a mistake,”
Stop giving stupid people the ability to control large, heavy vehicles! Autopilot is not a babysitter, it’s supposed to be an assistive technology, like cruise control. This fucking guy gave Tesla the wheel, and that was a choice!
It is assistive technology, but that is not how tesla has been marketing it. They even sell a product called full self driving, while it’s not that at all.
I dig blaming the people who wind up believing deceptive marketing practices, instead of blaming the people doing the deceiving.
Look up the dictionary definition of autopilot: a mechanical, electrical or hydraulic system used to guide a vehicle without assistance from a human being. FULL SELF DRIVING, yeah, why would that wording lead people to believe the car was, you know, fully self-driving?
Combine that with year after year of Elon Musk constantly stating in public that the car either already drives itself, or will be capable of doing so just around the corner, by the end of next year, over and over and over and
Elon lied constantly to keep the stock price up, and people have died for believing those lies.
Well, if only Tesla hadn’t invested tens of millions into marketing campaigns trying to paint autopilot as a fully self driving, autonomous system. Everyone knows that 9 out of 10 consumers don’t read the fine print, ever. They buy, and use shit off of vibes. False marketing can and does kill.
I will repeat, regardless of what the (erroneous) claims are by Tesla, a driver is still responsible.
This is like those automated bill payment systems. Sure, they are automated, and the company promotes it as “easy” and “convenient”, but you’re still responsible if those bills don’t get paid for whatever reason.
From another report:
While driving, McGee dropped his mobile phone that he was using and scrambled to pick it up. He said during the trial that he believed Enhanced Autopilot would brake if an obstacle was in the way. His Model S accelerated through an intersection at just over 60 miles per hour, hitting a nearby empty parked car and its owners, who were standing on the other side of their vehicle.
Isn’t using a phone while being the driver of a vehicle illegal? And what the hell is was up with highway speeds near an intersection??? This dude can blame autopilot, but goddamn, he was completely negligent. It’s like there were two idiots driving the same vehicle that day.
Yeah, but I think Elon shares the blame for making outrageous claims for years suggesting otherwise. He’s a liar and needs to be held accountable.
What claims did he make about autopilot that suggested otherwise?
Autopilot is not FSD.
Like everything he has ever said about it? lol wtf is this comment.
What claims?
i dont disagree; but i believe the suit was over how tesla misrepresented assistive technology as fully autonomous as the name autopilot implies
Yes, false advertising for sure. But the responsibility for safe driving, is on the driver, even if the driver’s role is engaging autopilot.
I can only imagine the same applies in other circumstances where autopilot is an option: planes, boats, drones, etc.
Here’s my problem with all of the automation the manufacturers are adding to cars. Not even Autopilot level stuff is potentially a problem - things like adaptive cruise come to mind.
If there’s some kind of bug in that adaptive cruise that puts my car into the bumper of the car in front of me before I can stop it, the very first thing the manufacturer is going to say is:
But the responsibility for safe driving, is on the driver…
And how do we know there isn’t some stupid bug? Our car has plenty of other software bugs in the infotainment system; hopefully they were a little more careful with the safety-critical systems…ha ha, I know. Even the bugs in the infotainment are distracting. But what would the manufacturer say if there was a crash resulting from my moment of distraction, caused by the 18th fucking weather alert in 10 minutes for a county 100 miles away, a feature that I can’t fucking disable?
But the responsibility for safe driving, is on the driver…
In other words, “We bear no responsibility!” So, I have to pay for these “features” and the manufacturer will deny any responsibility if one of them fails and causes a crash. It’s always your fault as the driver, no matter what. The company rolls this shit out to us; we have no choice to buy a new car without it any more, and they don’t even trust it enough to stand behind it.
Maybe you’ll get lucky and enough issues will happen that gov’t regulators will look into it (not in the US any more, of course)…but probably not. You’ll be blamed, and you’ll pay higher insurance, and that will be that.
So now I have to worry not only about other drivers and my own driving, but I also have to be alert that the car will do something unexpected as well. Which has happened, when all this “smart” technology has misunderstood a situation, like slamming on the brakes for a car in another lane. I’ve found I hate having to fight my own car.
Obviously, I very much dislike driving our newer car. It’s primarily my wife’s car, and I only drive it once or twice a week, fortunately.
There’s no way this decision stands, it’s absolutely absurd. The guy dropped his phone and was looking down reaching around looking for it when he crashed. He wasn’t supervising autopilot, like you are required to.
Dude, slow down, if you keep glazing Elon this hard, it’s gonna start getting frothy.
I guess the lesson is, if your car doesn’t provide a system that can be used to guide the vehicle WITHOUT ASSISTANCE FROM A HUMAN BEING, then don’t be an idiot and call it “AUTOPILOT”
So the issue is the name?
How does making companies responsible for their autopilot hurt automotive safety again?
There’s actually a backfire effect here. It could make companies too cautious in rolling out self driving. The status quo is people driving poorly. If you delay the roll out of self driving beyond the point when it’s better than people, then more people will die.
Fuck that I’m not a beta tester for a company. What happened to having a good product and then releasing it. Not oh let’s see what happens.
This is gonna get overturned on appeal.
The guy dropped his phone and was fiddling for it AND had his foot pressing down the accelerator.
Pressing your foot on it overrides any braking, it even tells you it won’t brake while doing it. That’s how it should be, the driver should always be able to override these things in case of emergency.
Maybe if he hadn’t done that (edit held the accelerator down) it’d stick.
On what grounds? Only certain things can be appealed, not “you’re wrong” gut feelings.
So, turns out Tesla really is going to try and get the verdict tossed by the judge due to trial and/or jury mistake rather than (or in addition) to an appeal.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.593426/gov.uscourts.flsd.593426.568.0.pdf
Tesla Is Entitled to Judgment as a Matter of Law (or at Least a New Trial) on Liability. For Tesla to be liable in any amount for this tragic accident, Plaintiffs were required to prove both that Tesla’s 2019 Model S was defective in some way and that the defective design or warnings caused McGee to blow through a stop sign and crash his car into an SUV that was parked well off the road when he was pushing the accelerator while fishing around for his phone. Lesnik v. Duval Ford, LLC, 185 So. 3d 577, 581 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2016). Plaintiffs’ liability case hinges on two experts whose testimony did not meet the standards established by Federal Rule of Evidence 702. Especially without their testimony, the record cannot sustain the verdict. But even with their testimony, Plaintiffs failed as a matter of law to establish that the 2019 Model S—which provided a carefully engineered system and offered extensive warnings on its breakthrough Autopilot system—was defective or caused the injuries that Plaintiffs suffered after McGee crashed into Benavides and Angulo. The Court should grant judgment as a matter of law in Tesla’s favor on liability or, at a minimum, a new trial.
Edit: Also I was asking googles AI about differences between the term JMOL and what I saw and posted about earlier JNOV, and they’re apparently the same thing. One used to be for before the verdict, and one after, but now it’s just the same term. They’re basically saying the Jury got it wrong with or without the evidence.
