> Are folks going to sue GM and Ford when people don't pay attention when their versions of driver assist don't stop the car for an obstacle or traffic signal? Probably, but that's because America is highly litigious and has lost the concept of personal responsibility.
A decent case can be made for making GM and Ford responsible, if you view tort law from an economic perspective rather than a moral perspective.
Under the moral perspective approach tort law's goal is to identify those whose negligence or wrongdoing are responsible for some harm and making them bear the cost of that harm.
That works fine when it is hard to have big torts that cause so much damage that the tortfeasor cannot cover it. You then start having to have insurance. Potential tortfeasors might have insurance that pays if their torts cause too much damage, and potential victims might have insurance that pays if they get harmed by an uninsured tortfeasor.
When an uninsured tortfeasor harms an uninsured victim and the victim needs expensive emergency medical treatment that they cannot afford they get it and the hospital pays or the taxpayers pay.
Under an approach to tort law based on an economic perspective it is not about blame. It is about putting responsibility where it can do the most to reduce the number and severity of similar future torts.
If Tesla and GM and Ford are responsible when their driver assist features are involved in an accident, regardless of whether it was user error or use stupidity or bad design or a manufacturing defect or whatever that causes, they will have good data on how often this happens, how much damage it causes, how those compare between their cars and the other cars, and can try to make changes to reduce frequency and severity if it turns out that their cars are having this issues at a higher rate than expected.
Under the insurance approach in the moral-based tort system, the insurance companies will have data on how often each company's cars have these problems so they can set premiums based on that. Drivers of higher risk cars will pay more to insure against accidents they are at fault in. All of us will pay more for coverage that covers us against accidents caused by underinsured drivers.
That might provide some incentive to the car companies to address the issue--if people know they are going to have to pay more for insurance if they buy one of your cars they might be more likely to choose a different car--but it isn't likely to be very much incentive.
With the approach in the economic-based tort system there are more incentives to actually improve safety instead of just raising prices for insurance.