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Tesla has to pay historic $243M judgement over Autopilot crash, judge says

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Re: Tesla has to pay historic $243M judgement over Autopilot crash, judge says

#161

Post by Retric »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #160
Retric wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Contributed to", in the sense that the pilots decided to just blindly trust the autopilot and let it make a developing situation worse rather than, oh I don't know, maybe FLYING THE DAMN PLANE. Excuses don’t save lives. You can’t trust pilots or drivers to always make the correct decision instantly. Any system designed in such a manner will get people killed. > If you allow the autopilot to fly the plane into the…

> Excuses don’t save lives. You can’t trust pilots or drivers to always make the correct decision instantly. Any system designed in such a manner will get people killed. Okay, so what's your answer? Stick yet another computer in to go wrong and fly the plane into the ground when it gets the wrong idea about a situation? Add yet more sensors to the car to prevent the driver steering away from an obstacle because it th…

> Okay, so what's your answer? Stick yet another computer in to go wrong and fly the plane into the ground when it gets the wrong idea about a situation? Add yet more sensors to the car to prevent the driver steering away from an obstacle because it thinks they're not using their indicators yet?

I’m not condemning the airline industry here, the safety conscious approach has done a good job over time especially in terms of redundancy. A major area of improvement is the way autopilots are communicating with pilots, but that’s a hard process.

The car industry isn’t doing nearly as well in terms of redundancy etc so there’s many obvious areas of improvement through solid engineering without changing anything fundamental. That said, communication is again lacking.

> Can you find an example of one that isn't down to gross mechanical failure, or just plain Operator Idiocy?

Operator Idiocy isn’t some clearly defined line, an aircraft with a moderate fuel leak can look like idiocy after the fact but it’s an easy mistake to make. That’s exactly the kind of thing autopilots could catch not just from fuel sensors but how the flight characteristics change as the aircraft gets lighter, but aircraft have happily flown into trouble over the ocean.

Re: Tesla has to pay historic $243M judgement over Autopilot crash, judge says

#162

Post by Onavo »

tapoxi wrote: post #75
nitinreddy88 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to your analogy. Certified pilot = Certified driving license holder. Its not like Tesla is advertising non driving license or in eligible person can drive using Autopilot. I wonder how can you even justify your statement

Autopilot is part of a private pilots license and systems are approved by the FAA. Tesla autopilot isn't part of a driving license, nor did it undergo review by the NHTSA prior to launch because Elon considered it "legal by default".

No. You don't need to know the autopilot to get your PPL. You do however need to know how to follow the POH (pilot operating handbook, which may include manufacturer guidelines for the autopilot) and perform basic instrument flying in an emergency. I don't recall any significant expectations of autopilot usage at the PPL level though.

Re: Tesla has to pay historic $243M judgement over Autopilot crash, judge says

#163

Post by walletdrainer »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #88
dekhn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autopilot is similar to cruise control that is aware of other cars, and lane keeping. I would fully expect the sort of accident that happened to happen (drop phone, stop controlling vehicle, it continues through an intersection). FSD has much more sophisticated features, explicitly handling traffic stops and lights. I would not expect the sort of accident to happen with FSD. The fact that Tesla misleads consumers is…

Autopilot is similar to cruise control that is aware of other cars, and lane keeping. Thanks for explaining why labeling it "Autopilot" is misleading and deceptive.

Is anyone actually being deceived? When you’re buying a Tesla, they definitely carefully explain these options to you.

Re: Tesla has to pay historic $243M judgement over Autopilot crash, judge says

#164

Post by bsder »

diasf wrote: post #130

The comments on this post are very misinformed. The car did not issue a "Take over immediately" alert despite having the capability or claiming to do so[1]. Hence the partial blame. The punitive damages are justified since, Tesla during the whole process has been found to repeatedly lie about the existence of the server logs. @greentheonly on X, found that the server logs was indeed uploaded to their servers[2] and a…

> Tesla knew that they had the server logs all along. For a corporation to engage in this behavior is almost criminal.

Not almost. It IS criminal. And if plebeians like us did that, the judge would toss us in jail without blinking.

Re: Tesla has to pay historic $243M judgement over Autopilot crash, judge says

#165

Post by digitalPhonix »

Onavo wrote: post #162
tapoxi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autopilot is part of a private pilots license and systems are approved by the FAA. Tesla autopilot isn't part of a driving license, nor did it undergo review by the NHTSA prior to launch because Elon considered it "legal by default".

No. You don't need to know the autopilot to get your PPL. You do however need to know how to follow the POH (pilot operating handbook, which may include manufacturer guidelines for the autopilot) and perform basic instrument flying in an emergency. I don't recall any significant expectations of autopilot usage at the PPL level though.

The trend is to include as much as the aircraft’s capabilities in the checkride now.

For an IFR checkride, if you do it in an aircraft equipped with autopilot, at least one approach will have to be flown with the autopilot.

Not sure if that’s made it’s way to the PPL checkride (or been codified) but it’s inevitable.

Re: Tesla has to pay historic $243M judgement over Autopilot crash, judge says

#166

Post by digitalPhonix »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #126
jrjeksjd8d wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average person does not know how to fly a plane or what a plane autopilot does. It's a ridiculous superficial comparison. Planes have professional pilots who understand the capabilities and limits of aviation autopilot technology. Tesla has had it both ways for ages - their stock price was based on "self-driving cars" and their liability was based on "asterisk asterisk the car cannot drive itself".

Autopilots in airplanes are kind of dumb (keep heading, speed, and altitude, they won’t do much anything else), which is why Tesla doesn’t use the name as branding for its full self driving software. People at least know that much. But then again even on HN people like parent think that autopilot is the same as full self driving, when it is and always has been just smarter cruise control. The payout was for autopilot…

> Autopilots in airplanes are kind of dumb (keep heading, speed, and altitude, they won’t do much anything else)

That is absolutely false.

A 20 year old avionics suite in General Aviation (GTN 450) does much more than maintain altitude, speed & heading - you input a flight plan including an approach, it will fly the flight plan, capture the approach signals (VOR/localiser/whatever - which is far more complex than “keeping course”) all the way down to approach minimums.

It can go down to 200ft for an LPV approach.

Re: Tesla has to pay historic $243M judgement over Autopilot crash, judge says

#167

Post by IAmBroom »

sonofhans wrote: post #106
joshfraser wrote: post #102

[flagged]

> self driving software is already ~10x safer than a human. This is, technically speaking, pure bullshit. You have no proof because none exists.

I strongly believe the data will support this claim, and strongly support your assertion that it is not yet documented.

In general, if not necessarily data from a company guided by a narcissist man-baby.

Re: Tesla has to pay historic $243M judgement over Autopilot crash, judge says

#168

Post by rogerrogerr »

digitalPhonix wrote: post #165
Onavo wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You don't need to know the autopilot to get your PPL. You do however need to know how to follow the POH (pilot operating handbook, which may include manufacturer guidelines for the autopilot) and perform basic instrument flying in an emergency. I don't recall any significant expectations of autopilot usage at the PPL level though.

The trend is to include as much as the aircraft’s capabilities in the checkride now. For an IFR checkride, if you do it in an aircraft equipped with autopilot, at least one approach will have to be flown with the autopilot. Not sure if that’s made it’s way to the PPL checkride (or been codified) but it’s inevitable.

> if you do it in an aircraft equipped with autopilot

There's also a (stupid, imo) tendency for APs to conveniently become inop right before a checkride. It's not accurate to say that all pilots, or even all pilots that have taken an IR ride, are "pilots who understand the capabilities and limits of aviation autopilot technology."

Re: Tesla has to pay historic $243M judgement over Autopilot crash, judge says

#169

Post by tass »

digitalPhonix wrote: post #165
Onavo wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You don't need to know the autopilot to get your PPL. You do however need to know how to follow the POH (pilot operating handbook, which may include manufacturer guidelines for the autopilot) and perform basic instrument flying in an emergency. I don't recall any significant expectations of autopilot usage at the PPL level though.

The trend is to include as much as the aircraft’s capabilities in the checkride now. For an IFR checkride, if you do it in an aircraft equipped with autopilot, at least one approach will have to be flown with the autopilot. Not sure if that’s made it’s way to the PPL checkride (or been codified) but it’s inevitable.

I'm not sure it's been codified, but I was told I would need to understand how to use the VOR and autopilot if the plane I was in had one.

In the fleet at the school I was learning in (Cessna 162) only one plane had an autopilot, which meant nobody practiced with it, so they never scheduled this plane for a check ride.

Re: Tesla has to pay historic $243M judgement over Autopilot crash, judge says

#170

Post by IAmBroom »

keernan wrote: post #141

Tesla has been taking the legal position in these lawsuits that Tesla vehicles are not intended to be operated without an attentive driver with their hands on the steering wheel at all times. I suspect it is technologically feasible to design a Tesla to detect: (i) someone is sitting in the driver's seat (seatbelt systems detect that for years); (ii) hands are on the steering wheel; (iii) the driver is attentive (not…

My Kia Soul detects i & ii (because of its soft lane-following tech). iii doesn't seem too hard for camera tech: the eyes must be facing forward and visible in a narrow FOV (basically the seat width).
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