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Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

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Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#71
post #69

I dont understand this at all. Mercedes recently announced that theyd be liable for accidentals caused by their level 4 system meaning that by default, all other self driving features are driver liable?

I haven't looked at it but that may be regulatory or insurance liability vs civil suits which in America like to invent fantastical numbers.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#72

> The company must pay $329 million in damages to victims and survivor, including compensatory and punitive damages. > A Tesla owner named George McGee was driving his Model S electric sedan while using the company’s Enhanced Autopilot, a partially automated driving system. > 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…

I think the conceptually messed up part is, when such an award includes separate components for compensatory damages and punitive damages, the plaintiff receives the punitive damages even if they're part of a much broader class that was impacted by the conduct in question. E.g. how many people's choice to purchase a Tesla was influenced by the deceptive marketing? How many other people had accidents or some damages? I think there ought to be a mechanism where the punitive portion rolls into the beginning of a fund for a whole class, and could be used to defray some costs of bringing a larger class action, or dispersed directly to other parties.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#73

> The company must pay $329 million in damages to victims and survivor, including compensatory and punitive damages. > A Tesla owner named George McGee was driving his Model S electric sedan while using the company’s Enhanced Autopilot, a partially automated driving system. > 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…

> This doesn't hold up logically unless I'm missing something, certainly the victim wouldn't be getting fined 329 million if it was decided to be his fault for not looking at the road I hope we haven't internalized the idea that corporations should be treated the same as people. There's essentially no difference $3M and $300M fine against most individuals, but $3M means very little to Tesla. If you want Tesla's behav…

$300M means very little to Tesla. The stock didn't even drop a bit (other than the usual market fluctuations today). Perhaps $4.20B or $6.90B would've been meaningful. Elon notices these numbers.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#74
post #20

I bet most of the prosecution time was spent "explaining" the meaning of autopilot to the jury. Easy money.

Airplanes have autopilots too but pilots are still sitting there on the controls and have to be paying attention. A brand or technical name doesn't remove responsibility.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#75
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that logic mean any automaker advertising a "collision avoidance system" should be held liable whenever a car crashes into something? In practice, they are not, because the fine print always clarifies that the feature works only under specific conditions and that the driver remains responsible. Tesla's Autopilot and FSD come with the same kind of disclaimers. The underlying principle is the same.

Right, this is the frustrating thing about court room activism and general anger towards Tesla. By any stretch of the imagination, this technology is reasonably safe. It has over 3.6 billion miles, currently about 8m miles per day. By all reasonable measures, this technology is safe and useful. I could see why plaintiffs go after Tesla. They have a big target on their back for whatever reason, and activist judges go…

> activist judges

Wait what? What activism is the judge doing here? The jury is the one that comes up with the verdict and damage award, no?

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#76

> The company must pay $329 million in damages to victims and survivor, including compensatory and punitive damages. > A Tesla owner named George McGee was driving his Model S electric sedan while using the company’s Enhanced Autopilot, a partially automated driving system. > 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…

I just did some googling around:

> The case also included startling charges by lawyers for the family of the deceased, 22-year-old, Naibel Benavides Leon, and for her injured boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. They claimed Tesla either hid or lost key evidence, including data and video recorded seconds before the accident.

> Tesla has previously faced criticism that it is slow to cough up crucial data by relatives of other victims in Tesla crashes, accusations that the car company has denied. In this case, the plaintiffs showed Tesla had the evidence all along, despite its repeated denials, by hiring a forensic data expert who dug it up. Tesla said it made a mistake after being shown the evidence and honestly hadn’t thought it was there.

-https://lasvegassun.com/news/2025/aug/01/jury-orders-tesla-t...

Nothing enrages a judge faster then an attempt to conceal evidence that a court has ordered be turned over during discovery. If this is then I suspect the punitive damages have to do as much about disregard to the legal process as it is the case itself.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#77

> The company must pay $329 million in damages to victims and survivor, including compensatory and punitive damages. > A Tesla owner named George McGee was driving his Model S electric sedan while using the company’s Enhanced Autopilot, a partially automated driving system. > 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…

[dead]

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the driver would have acted differently if Tesla hadnt sold him a product called "autopilot."

But if it was called 'lane assist' or 'adaptive cruise' he might not have bought the car in the first place.

I agree. If Tesla was not allowed to give their product a misleading name, it probably would get fewer sales. That's the rationale behind false advertising laws.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#79
If I were running a car company, I may decide to stop development on assistive features and remove any that exist from future models. The way people are using them, and the courts are punishing the companies for adding these safety features, is it worth it to them? Not having them would also bring down the base price on vehicles, which seems to be the primary complaint from people right now.

Re: Tesla must pay portion of $329M damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

#80
Tesla tried to hide evidence … the jury probably did not like to be lied to by Tesla.

F** around and find out

> The case also included startling charges by lawyers for the family of the deceased, 22-year-old, Naibel Benavides Leon, and for her injured boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. They claimed Tesla either hid or lost key evidence, including data and video recorded seconds before the accident.

> Tesla has previously faced criticism that it is slow to cough up crucial data by relatives of other victims in Tesla crashes, accusations that the car company has denied. In this case, the plaintiffs showed Tesla had the evidence all along, despite its repeated denials, by hiring a forensic data expert who dug it up. Tesla said it made a mistake after being shown the evidence and honestly hadn’t thought it was there.

https://lasvegassun.com/news/2025/aug/01/jury-orders-tesla-t...

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