A Florida judge found "reasonable evidence" that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk and other managers knew the automaker's vehicles had a defective Autopilot system but still allowed the cars to be driven unsafely, according to a ruling.
  • dezdog2@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Of course you they did. Look at their leadership. Believes if he repeats the lies enough they become reality.

  • BerkleyJ@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    If Tesla had just named it TeslaCruise would any of these accidents and law suits exist?

    I’d also be interested in seeing a comparison of miles driven per related accident of all the ADAS offerings from the various manufacturers.

    • HeyyyyListennnnnn@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      If Tesla had just named it TeslaCruise would any of these accidents and law suits exist?

      Perhaps. But only if the rest of their marketing material and the CEO’s public statements were consistent with the actual functionality.

      I’d also be interested in seeing a comparison of miles driven per related accident of all the ADAS offerings from the various manufacturers.

      That’s mostly irrelevant. The more important point in this suit is that Tesla knew about a system flaw, knew about the mismatch between marketing and system design, but made no changes to marketing or system implementation prior to Banner’s death.

      Raw crash rates don’t really tell you much about the vehicle design. If you want to make any comparisons, you have to control for the crash location, driver demographics, time of day, weather, road condition, vehicle maintenance, etc. It’s far more valuable to poke into the weeds of how the vehicles are designed and tested, then how manufacturers monitor real life performance to validate their design and testing regime.

  • botsallthewaydown@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    When will the autopilot be good enough that the company will accept liability for it’s failures, and not even install a steering wheel in the cars, at all?

  • Maximillien@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    The absolute chutzpah of Tesla calling their system “Full Self Driving” when it is legally a Level 2 (out of 5) autonomous driving system. I have a Chevy Bolt with “Super Cruise” which can actually go hands-free on most freeways, for a much lower price than a similarly equipped Tesla lol.

    • deja-roo@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      when it is legally a Level 2 (out of 5) autonomous driving system.

      It’s not legally an anything. That’s just terminology made up by some industry group.

  • campionesidd@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I encourage everyone to read the book Ludicrous by Edward Niedermeyer. It goes into detail how seriously Musk and Tesla took to the ‘fake it till you make it’ mentality.

    • twiddlingbits@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I take it you don’t work in or with tech. “Fake it till you make it” is the business model in almost 100% of startups in any technology area, biotech, robotics, AI, etc. Tesla is kind of a combination of many different tech areas so of course that’s the model. You show something to the investors that isn’t really a finished product and they pay to finish it as do the early adopters. Nothing to see here. People are stupid and buy the hype vs the reality and that’s taken advantage of by the business making the product. It sucks but any other system sucks worse.

  • truthdoctor@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Some key takeaways:

    Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor, called the judge’s summary of the evidence significant because it suggests “alarming inconsistencies” between what Tesla knew internally, and what it was saying in its marketing.

    The judge said the accident is “eerily similar” to a 2016 fatal crash involving Joshua Brown in which the Autopilot system failed to detect crossing trucks, leading vehicles to go underneath a tractor trailer at high speeds.

    The judge also cited a 2016 video showing a Tesla vehicle driving without human intervention as a way to market Autopilot. The beginning of the video shows a disclaimer which says the person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. “The car is driving itself,” it said.

    That video shows scenarios “not dissimilar” than what Banner encountered, the judge wrote.

    “Absent from this video is any indication that the video is aspirational or that this technology doesn’t currently exist in the market,” he wrote.