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

cnbc.com

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

#281

Post by ajross »

EA-3167 wrote: post #22
ajross wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As gets pointed out ad nauseum, the very first "cruise control" product in cars was in fact called "Auto-Pilot". Also real "autopilot" systems in aircraft (where the term of art comes from!) aren't remotely supervision-free. This is a fake argument (post hoc rationalization): It invents a meaning to a phrase that seems reasonable but that has never been rigorously applied ever, and demands that one speaker, and only…

As is also pointed out ad nauseam, the claims made about autopilot (Tesla) go far beyond the name, partly because they sold a lot of cars on lies about imminent "FSD" and partly because as always Elon Musk can't keep his mouth shut. The issue isn't just the name, it's that the name was part of a full-court-press to mislead customers and probably regulators.

Everyone here seems to think this is a case about full self driving. That product didn't exist yet when the car in question was manufactured. No one was making the claims you believe were made.

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

#282

Post by ratelimitsteve »

ajross wrote: post #277
ratelimitsteve wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more. This thing where words have a common definition and then a secret custom definition that only applies in courts is garbage. Everyone knows what "full self driving" means, either deliver that, come up with a new phrase or get your pants sued off for deceptive marketing.

> Everyone knows what "full self driving" means Sadly most people don't know that this case involved a comparatively ancient Tesla that did not have FSD . Seems like better attention to the "meaning of words" (like, the ones in the article you seem not to have read) might have helped things and not hurt them?

The crash took place in 2019, which is the year that FSD went into beta in the model s. Older vehicles were capable of being retrofitted with FSD.

https://www.autopilotreview.com/tesla-now-offering-fsd-hardw...

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

#283

Post by ajross »

ratelimitsteve wrote: post #282
ajross wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone knows what "full self driving" means Sadly most people don't know that this case involved a comparatively ancient Tesla that did not have FSD . Seems like better attention to the "meaning of words" (like, the ones in the article you seem not to have read) might have helped things and not hurt them?

The crash took place in 2019, which is the year that FSD went into beta in the model s. Older vehicles were capable of being retrofitted with FSD. https://www.autopilotreview.com/tesla-now-offering-fsd-hardw...

The car didn't have it. They weren't advertising it at the time of the crash. You couldn't buy it yet. And the upgrades wouldn't ship for months. I think I stand by what I said. Your attempt to make this about FSD seems to be basically a lie, no?

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

#284

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

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…

"This doesn't hold up logically unless I'm missing something, certainly the victim wouldn't be getting fined 329 millioon if it was decided to be his fault for not loooking at the road"

There was no "329 million fine"

There was a (a) 59 million compensatory damages award to the representative of the estate of the deceased and (b) 70 million compensatory damages award to her boyfriend who survived

The punitive damages were likley the result of Tesla's misconduct in deliberately concealing evidence, not its percentage of fault in causing the accident

HN front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44787780

Why would Tesla conceal evidence. That question is left as one for the reader

Indeed, the HN commenter missed several things

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

#285

Post by m463 »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #182
m463 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 quic…

What Tesla touchscreen controls are crucial for driving? FWIW climate is quick little swipe, arguably easier than turning dial.

lol, I just mentioned direction of travel? defrost?

"a quick little swipe" seems like you're trying to minimize something that is actually dangerous. Controls like that should be in one location for muscle memory, stateless and able to be invoked without looking at them.

https://fortune.com/2025/03/07/steve-wozniak-says-tesla-is-w...

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

#286

Post by knodi123 »

metabagel wrote: post #101
knodi123 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to me? an infinite amount! So trying to measure it in dollar terms is already a pointless exercise. If you want to see the hole in this argument, try looking at it from the other side- How can you arrive at the conclusion that a life is worth only $329M? Why so low? Why not a billion, or a trillion? If you have to come up with an objective and dispassionate standard, then I doubt you'd find one where the number it ge…

> So trying to measure it in dollar terms is already a pointless exercise. That strikes me as an argument for a judgement of zero dollars, which is the exact opposite of the reality that life is worth infinitely more than money.

You must not be a programmer, or you'd understand that NULL !== 0

;-)

But my overarching point is that $329,000,000 is an absurd and arbitrary number, so for my purposes, either value NULL or 0 would make my case.

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