Despite two previous court victories, Tesla settles third Autopilot liability case
- Reference: 1712680206
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/04/09/tesla_settles_autopilot_case/
- Source link:
Lawyers for Tesla [1]asked [PDF] Judge Lori Pegg of the California Superior Court for the County of Santa Clara to seal specifics of the settlement with the family of late Apple engineer and Tesla owner [2]Walter Huang , who died in 2018 when his Model X accelerated into a barrier while under the control of Autopilot.
According to Tesla lawyer Thomas Branigan, the settlement amount could be perceived "as evidence of Tesla's potential liability for losses, which may have a chilling effect on settlement opportunity in subsequent cases." Branigan said Tesla would suffer serious injury if the settlement amount was not withheld, and his motion appears to have been granted based on court documents.
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There's plenty of unknowns in a situation like this, in which Tesla chose to settle the matter a mere day before jury selection was set to begin. Nonetheless, it's the first settlement in an Autopilot-related case for Tesla, which so far has prevailed in court on both cases that went before a jury.
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Tesla emerged victorious in an Autopilot [6]injury case and a [7]second trial involving the death of a Model 3 owner and serious injuries to two passengers, both heard in California. In both instances, jurors decided that Tesla had adequately disclosed Autopilot's functionality and that the company wasn't at fault.
Musk's lawyers tried to avoid his being deposed in the Huang case by [8]arguing that any of his past statements about Autopilot could have been deepfaked videos, and thus couldn't be trusted or treated as evidence of liability.
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Why the automaker ultimately chose to settle this matter isn't clear, though a protracted court battle would mean more bad publicity at a time when [10]Tesla and [11]Musk's reputations are foundering.
[12]Tesla to remote patch 2M vehicles after damning Autopilot safety probe
[13]Tesla says California's Autopilot action violates its free speech rights
[14]Tesla knew Autopilot weakness killed a driver – and didn't fix it, engineers claim
[15]Tesla's Autopilot boasts, safety probed by California AG
Interestingly enough, Musk [16]made the case in 2022 that Tesla would never abandon a legal fight if the case was unjust. Taken at face value, that means Tesla might not have been able to prevail at trial despite trying to pull Apple into the loop by getting the company to provide records that it alleged may have [17]shown Huang was playing games on his phone at the time of the accident, thus lessening Tesla's potential liability.
"We will never seek victory in a just case against us, even if we will probably win," Musk said on Twitter in 2022. Conversely, "we will never surrender/settle an unjust case against us, even if we will probably lose."
We asked Tesla what it had to say about the settlement in light of Musk's previous statements, but haven't heard back.
Tesla is still facing multiple Autopilot-related fatality cases across the US, with a 2019 [18]Florida death [19]set for trial sometime this year and a second Autopilot-related death in Florida [20]currently in court. ®
Get our [21]Tech Resources
[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/04/09/huangvsteslasettled.pdf
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2018/06/07/tesla_crash_report/
[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=2ZhW6h@gU2Hv5oW@iE3H9AAAAAIk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] 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=44ZhW6h@gU2Hv5oW@iE3H9AAAAAIk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] 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=33ZhW6h@gU2Hv5oW@iE3H9AAAAAIk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/24/tesla_wins_first_autopilot_accident/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/31/tesla_fatal_crash_verdict/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/27/musk_autopilot_death_deepfake/
[9] 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=44ZhW6h@gU2Hv5oW@iE3H9AAAAAIk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/02/tesla-tsla-q1-2024-vehicle-delivery-and-production-numbers.html
[11] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/would-be-tesla-buyers-snub-company-musks-reputation-dips-2024-04-01/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/13/tesla_recall_autopilot_safety/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/11/tesla_california_autopilot_lawsuit/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/17/tesla_autopilot_engineers_claims/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/28/tesla_california_ag_investigation/
[16] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1527749734668050433
[17] https://fortune.com/2024/04/05/apple-engineer-walter-huang-killed-crash-employer-supporting-tesla-attempt-blame-distracted-driver-gaming/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/17/tesla_autopilot_engineers_claims/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/22/tesla_autopilot_flaw_liability/
[20] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/10/tesla-autopilot-crash/
[21] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Depositions
Exist exactly for this sort of thing. If Musk wants to claim, under oath, that a video posted somewhere of him making a claim about Autopilot was "deepfaked", that's the proper place to make that claim. He can't claim "it might have been deepfaked" when not under oath as a way of trying to get out of being placed under oath.
The plaintiff could then cross examine him about those claims, by asking those present when he made those statements like interviewers if the video was legit or not, and bring in people knowledge about that stuff to examine the video for signs it was deepfaked, or talk to the likelihood of that if statements made years ago before deepfake video was really possible. And hopefully Musk would face legal consequences if he was willing to make such a claim under oath knowing it to be false.
He is exactly the sort of scumbag who will try to get out of all his past claims by crying "deepfake", and exactly the reason why Apple, Samsung et al need to introduce ways to encode original photos/videos taken with their devices with proof they haven't been modified once they leave the device. Even though the video published would be re-encoded etc. the likelihood that someone still possesses the original one that can be verified as unmodified would prevent such douchebaggery. At least in court, when under oath.
Re: Depositions
He is exactly the sort of scumbag who will try to get out of all his past claims by crying "deepfake", and exactly the reason why Apple, Samsung et al need to introduce ways to encode original photos/videos taken with their devices with proof they haven't been modified once they leave the device.
That should be easy enough to do. So my trusty Nikon D2x DSLR had a software update. Part of that update included an ID feature, because apparenltly they were popular in forensics and wanted a method to images hadn't been tampered with. Also handy in case there's any IPR disputes around original ownership, ie I could produce an original RAW file that showed I was the original creator. That Nikon was introduced 20yrs ago, and no idea what state-of-the-art would be today, other than cameras being used for legal purposes should have some method to verify their product. Would also be handy if cameras used for illegal purposes did the same.
Re: Depositions
`a video posted somewhere of him making a claim about Autopilot was "deepfaked"`
That would be big news, as would be the immediate Musk rant on X. Musk is in favour of free speech, but not that kind of free speech.
Bottom line: deepfaked Musk is disinformation. EDIT: ... but it does show what keeps him up at night.
Re: NDAs
Companies in the US will normally settle out of court to avoid accepting liability and/or providing details which they consider either embarassing or worse. As it stands, the case ends here and no one has any legal reason to ask for more details.
It has been long alleged that Tesla's self-driving software isn't up to scratch, but the company has survived court cases by pointing to the small print. We won't know more details about the incident but jurisprudence has moved on may now deem the Ts & Cs no longer sufficient. We'll know if they're changed or have been changed since the incident. The hints about being able to get more data from Apple are just smokescreens.
It might also be worth considering that given the poor performance of Tesla stock, the company no longer has the kind of warchest to take on all comers who can't be fobbed off with stock options.
Re: NDAs
Also, it takes both sides to "settle out of court", so the complainant has to balance an NDA based payout and justice for themselves against a different payout, smaller or bigger, or nothing at all while holding to a principle of justice for all.
Re: NDAs
it takes both sides
Yes, but generally the side offering some money (on condition of an NDA) will claim that it is more than the claimant would get in court if they won, and that therefore if the claimant continues and gets awarded less money, they will be liable for all costs, and in the USA that could be millions more than the award and result in bankruptcy. The response, of course (if your own lawyers are not on a percentage) is to say that you'll take what you'd have been awarded in a court and to hell with the NDA.
Is there a better advertisement
For the state of Tesla.
My reading it is that the settlement was so high that if it was let out, others would demand the same and quickly lead to insolvency.
It also hints at flaws so damning that it would itself ruin the business.
Silence says it all.
Re: Is there a better advertisement
"It also hints at flaws so damning that it would itself ruin the business"
If Tesla goes down that's roughly 140000 people out of a job, and a good percentage of which are engineers; I would be surprised to learn that such "damning flaws" would have been ignored by so many of them that they ended up on production models.
Musk might not be liked by many but it is rather unfair to spit on Tesla's employees at the same time.
Re: Is there a better advertisement
Take a look at the staff turnover in the Autopilot team, the multiple hardware revisions and the continuous "Beta" state of the software that has had at least two "ground up" rewrites.
Most of those engineers have been doing their best to deliver autopilot features - and individually, many of them will have good reason to feel they've done a good job. However, Autopilot is the sum of all of it's parts, and it is senior management that has chosen to present it to the public as "Full Self Driving", rather than the "smart cruise control" it more closely resembles. It is senior management that has chosen to announce that they will launch Robotaxi in three months' time. No doubt there is a team that has just been given a three month deadline to produce a demo that will satisfy investors - I don't envy them at all.
Re: Is there a better advertisement
Also that Mercedes-Benz are the first car manufacturer to have a level-3 autonomous driving system certified.
Tesla's lead has been squandered.
Yay..
The US justice system. The best money can buy.
Tesla and Musk's reputations are foundering?
[1]Volvo Sets All-Time Sales Record Thanks To EV Sales Surge
[2]Tesla EV sales in China double to 62,398 in Mar
[3]EV sales rise in February according to New AutoMotive data
[1] https://cleantechnica.com/2024/04/06/volvo-sets-all-time-sales-record-thanks-to-ev-sales-surge/
[2] https://cnevpost.com/2024/04/09/tesla-sales-in-china-mar-2024/
[3] https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/2024/ev-sales-rise-in-february-according-to-new-automotive-data
NDAs
any of his past statements about Autopilot could have been deepfaked videos
Doesn't Tesla / Musk keep a record of his statements regarding 'Autopilot'? Shouldn't they be required by a court to provide a list of all genuine statements Musk has made about `Autopilot'?
I really dislike the idea that a serious failure in a product can be kept secret by settling a suit out of court with an NDA to prevent publication.
I just read in the UK 'I' paper that builders which create a housing estate where the roads and public spaces are not adopted for maintenance by the local council get a clause in the purchase agreement that house freeholders will pay for maintenance etc for sewers, grass cutting, road maintenance etc., but they are not allowed a cope of the accounts of the company that manages this. If they want a look, they have to travel 100 miles to an office where they are forbidden from making any copies, and have to sign an NDA if the want to see where their money is spent. The contract just says they will pay whatever they are required to pay, and there is no upper limit.