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

Post by sidibe » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 7:22 AM UTC

MBCook wrote: post #166

juancampa wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autopilot in an aircraft is basically cruise control, not full self flying.

This is such a pointless talking point, it amazes me how pro-Tesla people have latched onto it. It doesn’t matter what it means. It matters what people think it means. This is discussed tons of other places in these comments, and every previous story about Autopilot and FSD here on HN.

Post by recursivecaveat » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 7:54 AM UTC

guywithahat wrote: post #4

> 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…

Post by ninalanyon » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:01 AM UTC

naet wrote: post #84

SilverElfin wrote: post #6

> 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 argument is that if the driver was in a different vehicle he would have done just that, pulled over and picked it up, but because he believed the Tesla was capable of driving safely on it's own he didn't do so. Normally I turn the steering wheel when I want to turn my car. If you sold me a car and told me it had technology to make turns automatically without my input then I might let go of the wheel instead of tu…

Post by ninalanyon » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:12 AM UTC

Zanfa wrote: post #171

andsoitis wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it doesn’t matter because technically the fine print says otherwise. Every time you engage the system it tells you to pay attention. It also has sensors to detect when you don’t and forces you. If you have more than N violations in a trip, the system is unavailable for the remainder of your trip. I don’t know how much clearer it could be. I would argue that the system is actually so good (but imperfect) that people…

> I don’t know how much clearer it could be. Maybe not give it a misleading name that implies full self-driving capabilities. Also not have the CEO publicly make grandiose claims of the performance over 8 years. > If a system were more error prone, people would not trust it so much. Unfortunately not. Youtube is full of videos of FSD trying to crash into oncoming traffic, parked cars etc, but then at the end of the v…

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 9:28 AM UTC

naet wrote: post #84

SilverElfin wrote: post #6

> 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 argument is that if the driver was in a different vehicle he would have done just that, pulled over and picked it up, but because he believed the Tesla was capable of driving safely on it's own he didn't do so. Normally I turn the steering wheel when I want to turn my car. If you sold me a car and told me it had technology to make turns automatically without my input then I might let go of the wheel instead of tu…