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

electrek.co

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

#41

Post by blackjack_ »

palmotea wrote: post #31
mey wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask the CEO? Based on recent incentives and acquisitions, are they planning to remain a car company?

>> I'm not clear on what Tesla is doing these days. > Ask the CEO? Based on recent incentives and acquisitions, are they planning to remain a car company? I believe Musk wants to hype humanoid robots, because he can't get away with irrationally hyping electric cars or self-driving technology like you used to. Tesla was never a car company, their real product is sci-fi dreams.

Agreed, and he’s already behind in humanoid robots, so the hype there won’t last long. The problem is that China is obliterating him at every turn because they actually build things that work instead of just hyping things and saying fake numbers of how much money it could be if every human on the planet bought 20.

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

#42

Post by palmotea »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #32
palmotea wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's an absurd judgement. > Consider also how many lives have been saved by the autopilot. > Be careful what you wish for. How many? Tell me.

There's legit dashcam video showing Autopilot preventing severe crashes. Go on YouTube instead of balking. Here's a few to get your algorithm working: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3K410O_9Nc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy6SplEn4hQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcfgIltPyOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu2N8f3nEYc

> There's legit dashcam video showing Autopilot preventing severe crashes. Go on YouTube instead of balking. Here's a few to get your algorithm working:

So? I just watched those. They don't prove anything about "lives [that] have been saved by the autopilot." They all look like scenarios a human driver could handle (and *I, personally have handled situations similar to some of those). If autopilot is saving lives, you have to show, statistically, it's better than human drivers in comparable conditions.

Also the last one appears to be of a Tesla fanboy who had just left a Tesla shareholder meeting, and seems pretty biased. I'd say his Cybertruck actually reacted pretty late to the danger. It was pretty obvious from the dashcam that something was wrong several seconds before the car reacted to it at the last second.

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

#43

Post by atonse »

palmotea wrote: post #34
dekhn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I read the article it says autopilot, not FSD.

> If I read the article it says autopilot, not FSD. What's the difference? And does it matter? Both are misleadingly named, per the OP: > In December 2025, a California judge ruled that Tesla’s use of “Autopilot” in its marketing was misleading and violated state law, calling “Full Self-Driving” a name that is “actually, unambiguously false.” > Just this week, Tesla avoided a 30-day California sales suspension only b…

I remember having this argument with a friend.

My argument was that the idea that the name Autopilot is misleading comes not from Tesla naming it wrong, it comes from what most people think "Autopilots" on an aircraft do. (And that is probably good enough to argue in court, that it doesn't matter what's factually correct, it matters what people understand based on their knowledge)

Autopilot on a Tesla historically did two things - traffic aware cruise control (keeps a gap from the car in front of you) and stays in its lane. If you tell it to, it can suggest and change lanes. In some cases, it'll also take an exit ramp. (which was called Navigate on Autopilot)

Autopilots on planes roughly also do the same. They keep speed and heading, and will also change heading to follow a GPS flight plan. Pilots still take off and land the plane. (Like Tesla drivers still get you on the highway and off).

Full Self Driving (to which they've now added the word "Supervised" probably from court cases but it always was quite obvious that it was supervised, you had to keep shaking the steering wheel to prove you were alert, same as with Autopilot btw), is a different AI model that even stops at traffic lights, navigates parking lots, everything. That's the true "summon my car from LA to NY" dream at least.

So to answer your question, "What's the difference" – it's huge. And I think they've covered that in earlier court cases.

But one could argue that maybe they should've restricted it to only highways maybe? (fewer traffic lights, no intersections), but I don't know the details of each recent crash.

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

#44

Post by bsimpson »

Good

It seems clear that "autopilot" was a boisterous overclaim of its capabilities that led to people dying.

It may be minorly absurd to win founder-IPO-level wealth in a lawsuit, but it's also clear that smaller numbers don't act as an effective deterrent to people like Elon Musk.

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

#45

Post by keeganpoppen »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #2

Tesla Apologists: The judge/jury agreed that Tesla was "Full Self Driving" all the way to the scene of the crash.

well the other person in the comments said the guy literally held his accelerator to the floor the entire time. is that actually a reasonable standard, or are you preemptively out for blood because you would never let reality get in the way of a good agenda? ironic, given that you go out of your way to accuse others of this. methinks you doth protest too much?

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

#46

Post by 1970-01-01 »

palmotea wrote: post #42
1970-01-01 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's legit dashcam video showing Autopilot preventing severe crashes. Go on YouTube instead of balking. Here's a few to get your algorithm working: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3K410O_9Nc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy6SplEn4hQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcfgIltPyOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu2N8f3nEYc

> There's legit dashcam video showing Autopilot preventing severe crashes. Go on YouTube instead of balking. Here's a few to get your algorithm working: So? I just watched those. They don't prove anything about "lives [that] have been saved by the autopilot." They all look like scenarios a human driver could handle (and *I, personally have handled situations similar to some of those). If autopilot is saving lives, yo…

The last link is literally a man stating he could not handle the situation without FSD driving him. You're experiencing cognitive dissonance with the evidence.

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

#47

Post by jrjeksjd8d »

tass wrote: post #40

I’m not usually an apologist, and I’d agree with this judgement if the car was left to its own devices, but the driver of the car held his foot on the accelerator which is why it blew through those stop signs and lights. In regards to the autopilot branding, would a reasonable person expect a plane on autopilot to fly safely if the pilot suddenly took over and pointed it at the ground?

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".

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

#48

Post by bigyabai »

Almondsetat wrote: post #37
standardUser wrote: post #10

I'm not clear on what Tesla is doing these days. They've been left in the dust on autonomous driving, they've failed to update their successful car models, and their only new model was a spectacular failure.

By which metrics has Tesla been left in the dust wrt autonomous driving? Right now they are the only brand where you can buy a car and have it do basically 90% (or sometimes 100%) of your daily driving. Sure, it's supervised, but the alternatives are literally extremely geogated taxis

It's not free, is it? You buy the car, subscribe to their arbitrarily-priced subscription service, and then it does 90% of your driving.

That's like paying for a "self-juicing juicer" that only works with proprietary juice packages sold through an overpriced subscription.

Edit: Mostly a criticism. I have no bone to pick with Elon, but subscription slopware is the reason why Chinese EVs are more desirable to average Joes like me.

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

#49

Post by selridge »

keeganpoppen wrote: post #45
jqpabc123 wrote: post #2

Tesla Apologists: The judge/jury agreed that Tesla was "Full Self Driving" all the way to the scene of the crash.

well the other person in the comments said the guy literally held his accelerator to the floor the entire time. is that actually a reasonable standard, or are you preemptively out for blood because you would never let reality get in the way of a good agenda? ironic, given that you go out of your way to accuse others of this. methinks you doth protest too much?

Hope he sees this, bro

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

#50

Post by maxdo »

breakyerself wrote: post #22
dolphinscorpion wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their stock would crash to $10 without the hype machine

It will be zero if they keep doing the same shit

this is literally one of 1-3 companies who have a decent strategy in the age of AI. the rest is pretending changes will not affect them. even this judgement: the guy decided to pick the phone while driving car not capable of red light detection. It could be any other car with similar auto steer capabilities. Right now same car with OTA updates would keep him alive. Sure, they are doing something wrong.
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