Tesla wins key court battle over Autopilot crash blame
- Reference: 1682357349
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/04/24/tesla_wins_first_autopilot_accident/
- Source link:
In what appears to be the first trial related to an Autopilot crash, Los Angeles resident Justine Hsu said her Tesla swerved onto a curb while in Autopilot mode, leading her airbag to deploy with enough force to "cause numerous breaks in Hsu's jaw and the loss of multiple teeth," the complaint alleged. Hsu also allegedly suffered nerve damage as well.
In their arguments, Hsu's lawyers accused Tesla of negligence and warranty violations, as well as [1]intentional misrepresentation of Autopilot's capabilities, something likely familiar to anyone keeping abreast of the myriad lawsuits and investigations Tesla is facing, including from the US [2]Department of Justice .
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This case, however, won't be seen as a win for Tesla opponents who have been seeking to take the company to task over Autopilot claims: Hsu was awarded zero damages, and the jury [4]found that Tesla did everything right related to disclosing Autopilot's functionality. The jury also found the Autopilot and airbag systems in Hsu's car didn't fail, either.
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Tesla denied liability in the case, and among other arguments said that Hsu was using Autopilot on city streets, which the vehicle's user manual says the system shouldn't be used for, Tesla's lawyers claimed.
The jurors by and large seemed to side with Tesla; they returned decisions that found the 2016 Model S's (Hsu's car) Autopilot feature performed adequately, as did the vehicle's airbag. Tesla further didn't make false statements to Ms. Hsu, nor did it fail to disclose a fact that Hsu "did not know and could not reasonably have discovered."
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The jury opted to not answer questions as to whether Hsu herself was negligent.
Future cases take note
Hsu's case may be the first to end in a verdict, but it's hardly the only case being heard in courts over Tesla's Autopilot software and the safety and/or efficacy thereof.
Tesla is also facing lawsuits over [8]phantom braking , [9]collision monitoring and other issues, which have led shareholders to sue the company for allegedly [10]lying about the capabilities of Tesla's Autopilot and full self driving.
Tesla has also been accused by its own former director of Autopilot software of misrepresenting a 2016 self-driving demo, which the ex-Tesla leader said was [11]faked , and earlier this year the company was forced by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to [12]recall FSD software because it ignored stop signs. Some of the vehicles caught up in the issue included Teslas as old as model year 2016.
[13]How DARPA wants to rethink the fundamentals of AI to include trust
[14]Cardboard drones running open source flight software take off in Ukraine and beyond
[15]Tesla Semi, out since December, already facing a recall over brakes
[16]Alarming: Tesla lawsuit claims collision monitoring system is faulty
Jurors in Hsu's case [17]told Reuters they didn't believe Autopilot was at fault in this instance, and that Hsu's accident wouldn't have occurred had she been paying attention to the alarms and warnings her vehicle is supposed to emit when a driver isn't paying attention.
While the outcome in Hsu's trial is non-precedential, [18]experts say that it's likely to be a bellwether for Tesla's defense of its responsibility in Autopilot and FSD accidents and may indicate how similar cases may shake out - with Tesla on the winning end. ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/27/doj_self_driving_car_criminal/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/01/tesla_autopilot_investigation/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZEb8CgziAH1abLzULcr3cQAAAEg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/1600047/tesla-wins-calif-autopilot-trial-over-driver-s-injuries
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZEb8CgziAH1abLzULcr3cQAAAEg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZEb8CgziAH1abLzULcr3cQAAAEg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZEb8CgziAH1abLzULcr3cQAAAEg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/30/tesla_phantom_braking/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/17/tesla_sued_over_faulty_collision/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/28/tesla_securities_fraud_lawsuit/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/18/tesla_selfdriving_video_faked/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/17/tesla_fsd_upgrade_recall/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/20/darpa_ai_trust/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/07/corvo_cardboard_drone/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/03/the_tesla_semi_out_since/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/17/tesla_sued_over_faulty_collision/
[17] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/teslas-autopilot-never-claimed-be-self-pilot-juror-2023-04-21/
[18] https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-jury-set-decide-test-case-tesla-autopilot-crash-2023-04-21/
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
It’s not fine print, it’s big letters on the internal screen, repeatedly and every time the common idiot uses it.
And it reminds again if the common idiot tries to ignore it.
Looking at this situation... the plaintiff was in stop-and-go traffic, the car veered into a center divider at a speed of "about 25mph". Plaintiff claims she had her hands on the wheel, but also had time to throw her arms up to shield her face (which, incidentally, is not a great plan in a car with airbags, and it results in you punching yourself in the face at high speed!).
Now, 25mph isn't terribly slow, but if you have time to throw your hands up, it seems to me that you probably have time to do other things, too... like mash your foot on the brake?
I have to wonder
If "put her hands up to shield her face" was another way of saying "I was screwing around with my phone because I'm dumb enough to believe Musk's hype about autopilot and thought I didn't have to pay attention".
That would explain why her hands were up but she didn't yank the steering wheel back to center or slam on the brakes.
Re: I have to wonder
Might have been fiddling with controls via the giant fondleslab in the center dash. Where most cars use physical buttons, allowing for a low mental load combo of tactile sense and muscle memory, not requiring you to physically look (or maybe just quickly glance), the fondleslab method used by Tesla requires a lot more of the driver's attention. IMO, the proper US DOT sub-agency needs to crack down on stupid design choices like that. It's a single point of failure for like 95% of your car's functions AND incredibly dangerous to boot.
And it might be for the best that she didn't yank on the wheel, given Tesla's have a nasty reputation for the steering wheels coming off if you give them a good yank. Still, as much as I would have loved to see Twitler taken down a peg or two, this is a lawsuit that probably shouldn't have ever been filed. The details make it sound pretty weak. Specifically the bit about being on residential roads. There's a reason cruise control generally won't engage on cars unless you're going some minimum velocity. Less than a sheep in a vacuum, but more than 25mph. Tesla should get dinged, at least a little, for the fact that it's misnomer autopilot can even be engaged at such low speeds, warnings or no.
From a different site: she attempted to shield her face from the airbags by releasing her hands from the steering wheel and positioning them in front of her face
So, she was able to notice the airbags deploying and react to that by moving her hands to shield her face?
Really?
Really?
Because airbags (which are much more important at crashes at eighty odd) deploy in something like a 20th of a second. That would imply a superhuman reaction time, and I can't but think she might have lost because obvious bullshit is obvious.
"I can't but think she might have lost because obvious bullshit is obvious."
That's my take on it, too.
Fine print and owner's manuals really work against the common idiot.