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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

#11

> 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…

If anyone's confused about what to expect of autopilot and/or FSD, it's Tesla's doing and they should be getting fined into oblivion for the confusion and risks they're creating.

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

#12

> 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. Hard for me to see this as anything b…

The model s has terrible phone docks. Don't get me started on cupholders, I'll bet people have drink mishaps all the time that affect driving.

I'm actually kind of serious about this - keeping people's stuff secure and organized is important in a moving car.

I'm surprised the touchscreen controls and retiring of stalks aren't coming under more safetly scrutiny.

With the new cars without a PRND stalk, how can you quickly reverse the car if you nose out too far and someone is coming from the side? will the car reverse or go forward into danger?

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

#14
post #5

Wellbeing doesn't have a price tag. There's no amount of money someone could pay you to make up for your daughter dying early or your son becoming disabled. However, $329M sounds like an imaginary amount of money in a liability claim. If this guy crashed into a parked car without Tesla being involved, the family would be unfathomably lucky to even get 1% of that amount.

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

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

#15
post #10

> 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…

> On one hand I don't think you can apply a price to a human life Yes, although courts do this all the time. Even if you believe this as solely manufacturer error, there are precedents. Consider General Motors ignition switch recalls. This affected 800k vehicles and resulted in 124 deaths. > As part of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement, GM agreed to forfeit $900 million to the United States.[4][51] GM gave $600 mill…

If you you make a manufacturing error without intentionally deceiving your customers through deceptive naming of features, you have to pay millions per death.

If you intentionally give the feature a deceptive name like "autopilot", and then customers rely on that deceptive name to take their eyes off the road, then you have to pay hundreds of millions per death.

Makes sense to me.

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

#16

> 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. Hard for me to see this as anything b…

Why would you pull over when you paid top dollars for Autopilot?

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

#17

> 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. Hard for me to see this as anything b…

The driver at that time was Tesla Autopilot. So yeah, drivers fault as the jury said.

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

#18

> 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…

The US justice system uses punitive damages very heavily. And Tesla should absolutely get some punishment here.

On most other places you'd see it paying hundreds of millions in fines and a few millions in damages.

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

#19

> 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…

The product simply should not be called Autopilot. Anyone with any common sense could predict that many people will (quite reasonably) assume that a feature called Autopilot functions as a true autopilot, and that misunderstanding will lead to fatalities.
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