The real crime is marketing the driver assist capability under the name autopilot when it is anything but that.
Oh no, it’s even worse than that.
It’s the CEO and other staff repeatedly speaking of the system as if it’s basically fully capable and it’s only for legal reasons why a driver is even required. Even saying that the car could drive from one side of the US to the other without driver interaction (only to not actually do that, of course).
It’s the company never correcting people when they call it a self driving system.
It’s the company saying they’re ready for autonomous taxis and saying owner’s cars will make money for them while they aren’t driving it.
It’s calling their software subscription Full Self Driving
It’s honestly staggering to me that they’re able to get away with this shit.
I love my Model 3, but everything you said is spot on. Autopilot is a great driver assist, but it is nowhere near autonomous driving. I was using it on the highway and was passing a truck on the left. The road veered left and the truck did as well, keeping in its lane the entire time. The car interpreted this as the truck merging over into my lane and slammed the brakes. Fortunately, I was able to figure out what went wrong and quickly accelerated myself so as to not become a hazard to the cars behind me.
Using Autopilot as anything more than a nice dynamic cruise control setting is putting your life, and other lives, in danger.
Holy shit. My car doing that once and I’d be a nervous wreck just thinking about using it again.
The road veered left and the truck did as well, keeping in its lane the entire time. The car interpreted this as the truck merging over into my lane and slammed the brakes.
Even dynamic cruise control must never do such dangerous mistakes!
You should claim that they fix this on warranty, and they should prove that this is never going to happen again.
Tesla should be playing wrongful death suits every time autopilot kills someone. Their excuses don’t excuse the blatant marketing that leads people to believe it’s a self driving car.
But you see that wasn’t the vehicle’s fault. It’s been programmed perfectly. What happened was the fault of the pedestrians and driver for not properly predicting what the car would do.
maybe /s maybe not.
Do we need to go through what autopilot in a plane or boat actually does again?
It doesn’t matter, Tesla cars are marketed to the public which isn’t expected to know these things. To probably 90% of people “autopilot” means “drive automatically”.
To probably 90% of people “autopilot” means “drive automatically”.
Based on what?
If we do, then they shouldn’t have picked a name that most people think does something it doesn’t.
do we need to go through the differences in training, aptitude and intelligence between pilots, captains and your neighbor Greg again? Marketing it as “autopilot” to anyone who can sign a car loan is reckless and has killed people and will continue to kill people until they stop
It’s a common misunderstanding that an autopilot system in an airplane does everything or even a lot of things. The most basic ones keep the wings level and nothing else. Of course Tesla is probably counting on that misconception to sell this feature, but actual pilots using any kind of autopilot are still on the hook to pay attention 100% of the time.
The guy was going through a suburb at 75 mph blowing through stop lights. Ofcourse he has to pay, im surprised hes not getting jail time. This has nothing to do with the car, thats just gross negligence
My tesla doesn’t let me use autopilot or FSD if I set it over 5% of the posted speed limit. How is this guy going 75 in the burbs?
2 murders, 23 grand. The mafia charge more.
If you wanna kill somebody, use a car.
Wow the value of a life I guess. I don’t really know what can come close to the value of a life, but this doesn’t seem like it.
What would be the value of life then? I’ll save you the answer: no matter how big the number you say, someone else will say bigger. Until it becomes priceless, which is the answer.
However death and accidental death isn’t always avoidable. And when we pin the fault on someone we cannot expect to say “priceless” is what they owe the victim’s family. So we assign an amount of money or time that hurts, and call it good.
Doesn’t mean life is worth that. And saying so doesn’t help anyone.
Sure but even looking a only the financial produce of one person for a family dwarfs the comical 23k here. And that’s not even looking at the emotional side of things. 23k is straight insulting imho.
Seeing as they were using the now being recalled Tesla auto pilot during the auto accident, it may not entirely be the drivers fault. This may be part of the rational behind the judgement.
The U.S. uses the value of statistical life VSL. Here are the numbers from the Department of Transportation over the last 10 years or so.
So, it is interesting and egregious that the driver needs only pay $23K and Tesla pays nothing at all!
So according to this, the DoT values a life at $12.5M in 2022? I’m curious about their methodology.
I can’t put an exact value on a life, but I know it’s not $20,000. If this article said something like idk $250,000 I would probably say “good the driver has been held somewhat accountable. Now how about Tesla?” I feel at least confident enough to say I’d probably think that. The point of the money isn’t to make someone feel like they got their loved one(s) back, but to provide for them and frankly to dissuade other irresponsible actors.
Your comment is the one not helping anyone. You’re trying to spike the entire discussion
That was the penalty for the felony charge for the driver of the car that ran off the highway into a surface street. It’s almost certain that drivers insurance also paid out their maximum.
In addition, Tesla is recalling all those cars to change the system that pretends to ensure a driver using autopilot is actually paying attention.
And a civil suit will likely follow from the 2 victims families.
If you want to kill someone in the US with little consequences, run them over with a car.
Germany the same. Small fine, three month without license, that’s it for killing a human being.
If we’re talking about an honest accident then how long do you think the jail term should be?
“honest accident” is the crux of the question. If the driver was doing everything perfectly and some other party was entirely responsible for the accident, not much (maybe none?).
But, at least in my corner of Canada, most drivers are not behaving responsibly or adhering to the law. Speeding, following too closely, illegally passing, and using phones while driving are common. If a driver kills someone while doing something overtly dangerous, they deserve jail time.
If it were an honest accident then nothing. If it were due to neglect or lack of due diligence then maybe a few months of of weekend jail or month of full time jail.