Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

"We are very sorry for the family's loss.

According to the family, Mr. Huang was well aware that Autopilot was not perfect and, specifically, he told them it was not reliable in that exact location, yet he nonetheless engaged Autopilot at that location. The crash happened on a clear day with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, which means that the only way for this accident to have occurred is if Mr. Huang was not paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings to do so.

The fundamental premise of both moral and legal liability is a broken promise, and there was none here. Tesla is extremely clear that Autopilot requires the driver to be alert and have hands on the wheel. This reminder is made every single time Autopilot is engaged. If the system detects that hands are not on, it provides visual and auditory alerts. This happened several times on Mr. Huang's drive that day.

We empathize with Mr. Huang's family, who are understandably facing loss and grief, but the false impression that Autopilot is unsafe will cause harm to others on the road. NHTSA found that even the early version of Tesla Autopilot resulted in 40% fewer crashes and it has improved substantially since then. The reason that other families are not on TV is because their loved ones are still alive."

Edit: To clarify, in most of these crashes, it's usually a combination of Tesla's fault and the driver's fault. Which is to say, the driver could have avoided the crash, but Tesla could also have avoided it, and the driver's biggest fault lies in trusting the "autopilot" more than they should. In the case of this particular crash, I certainly agree that the driver should have been paying more attention to the road, especially because they already knew the autopilot had issues at that particular point, and if they were paying attention they could have avoided the crash. However, the fact that autopilot can't handle that barrier correctly is a problem especially because the driver reported that exact issue to Tesla multiple times in the past (heck, Tesla probably should have blacklisted that particular GPS location to force the user to take control when approaching that point, if they can't handle the barrier correctly in autopilot). Similarly, Tesla allows drivers the most freedom to ignore the road of any of the "autopilot"-like systems, and they continue to call their system "autopilot"¹, both of which only serves to make this sort of crash much more likely.

¹Yes I know it's technically correct, but it doesn't match what the general public thinks when they hear the term "autopilot". It gives the wrong impression that the system is smarter and more reliable than it actually is.

However, Tesla calling it "Autopilot" should be no longer allowed. It's clear that it is most certainly not that, and customers are not treating this feature in a careful and cautious fashion, and I do believe that's due to Tesla overselling Autopilot's abilities. In addition, its warning systems are obviously not enough to get drivers to take corrective action and ensure their hands are on the wheel. (Why you can take your hands off the wheel at all when engaging autopilot is a mystery to me.)