Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

electrek.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 176 posts

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

#81

Post by breakyerself »

maxdo wrote: post #50
breakyerself wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Did mecha-Hitler tell you that?

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

#82

Post by mmooss »

nickff wrote: post #73
mmooss wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an old argument by corporations against liability. Should they not be fully liable? It should discourage them from making unsafe products. If it's not economical for them to make safe products, it's good that they go bankrupt and the economic resources - talent, money - go to someone else. Bankruptcy and business failure are just as fundamental to capitalism as profit.

These product-liability lawsuits are out of control; perhaps this judgement is directionally correct, but the punitive damages seem insane. This reminds me of the lawsuits which drove Instant Pot bankrupt, where the users were clearly doing very stupid things, and suffered injuries because they were able to physically overpower the safety mechanisms on their pressure-cookers.

> These product-liability lawsuits are out of control

Businesses also claim that, all the time. We need some evidence.

I remember doctors claiming that malpractice lawsuits were out of control; research I read said that it wasn't an economic issue for doctors and that malpractice was out of control.

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

#83

Post by [deleted] »

maxdo wrote: post #56

I'm so lost. The guy decided to pick up the phone from the floor while driving the car at high speed. 1. It could be ANY car with similar at that time auto steer capabilities. 2. Why the hate , because of some false promise ? Because as of today same car would save the guy in exact same situation, because FSD now handles red lights perfectly. Far better and safer vs ANY other tech included in the avg car price of sam…

[deleted]

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

#84

Post by palmotea »

ethmarks wrote: post #61
palmotea wrote: post #42

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: 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…

I can't speak for Tesla's FSD specifically, but Waymo did a study on the collision rate of their autonomous cars compared to human drivers: https://waymo.com/safety/impact/ . They found that Waymos get into about 81% fewer crashes per mile. Compared to a statistical human driver, Waymo prevented around 411 collisions that would have resulted in any injury, and 27 collisions that would have resulted in serious injury…

> I can't speak for Tesla's FSD specifically, but Waymo did a study on the collision rate of their autonomous cars compared to human drivers: https://waymo.com/safety/impact/. They found that Waymos get into about 81% fewer crashes per mile.

I think that's true. Though I recall that Waymo limits their cars to safer and more easily handled conditions, which is totally the right thing to do, but it probably means that statistic needs an asterisk.

> Not sure if that generalizes to Tesla FSD, though.

I don't think it does. They're two totally different systems.

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

#85

Post by palmotea »

WalterBright wrote: post #72
triceratops wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense. If I, a human, hit the brakes in time and avoid an accident today, then hit someone tomorrow, should I not be held responsible for the second incident?

The point is to compare the consequences of more deaths by not using autopilot with deaths by the autopilot. If you accidentally kill someone with your car, do you think you should have to pay $243m?

> If you accidentally kill someone with your car, do you think you should have to pay $243m?

If you have billions of dollars, and somehow can't go to prison, yes you should. If not in compensation to the victim, then in some kind of fine scaled to wealth. The amount paid needs to be high enough to be a deterrent to the individual who did wrong.

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

#86

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

maxdo wrote: post #56

I'm so lost. The guy decided to pick up the phone from the floor while driving the car at high speed. 1. It could be ANY car with similar at that time auto steer capabilities. 2. Why the hate , because of some false promise ? Because as of today same car would save the guy in exact same situation, because FSD now handles red lights perfectly. Far better and safer vs ANY other tech included in the avg car price of sam…

As the source article says, the jury did agree that the driver was mostly liable. They found Tesla partially liable because they felt that Tesla's false promise led to the driver picking up his phone. If they'd been more honest about the limitations of their Autopilot system, as other companies are about their assisted driving functionalities, the driver might have realized that he needed to stop the car before picking up his phone.

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

#87

Post by Gud »

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?

A “reasonable person” in a cockpit is not the same as a “reasonable person” behind the steering wheel.

Pilots undergo rigorous training with exam after exam they must pass.

No one is handed the keys to a Boeing 747 after some weekly evening course and an hours driving test.

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

#88

Post by jqpabc123 »

dekhn wrote: post #52
palmotea wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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.

Post reply on HN