I don't get taking this position. Even if they don't want to engage on the autopilot issue, the hands on wheel vs crash avoidance issue is a lost cause already

I don't get taking this position. Even if they don't want to engage on the autopilot issue, the hands on wheel vs crash avoidance issue is a lost cause already (IE in most states, they'd lose in any lawsuit on it). If i take any 2018 model year car with front crash avoidance (outside of a tesla :P), and try to drive it into a barrier like this, depending on speed, most avoid the collision, all of them slowed down (AFAICT - i went through the summaries by category on iihs.org). None of them require you have your hands on the wheel to do that. In most jurisdictions, to show a defective design, it's enough to show the existence of an alternative design that would have worked (it doesn't usually even have to have been implemented) , and that it is feasible, economically feasible, and would still perform the original function. Almost all of these cases live and die by the cost of that design and whether it's "too much". Unfortunately for Tesla, there are tons of them here, they all almost certainly cost less than what Tesla is doing, and also all exist. So i'm positive any lawsuit will either settle, or they will show plenty of them would have worked, by driving cars into an identical setup barrier, and Tesla will lose. (This assumes, of course, Tesla can't force them into a jurisdiction with weird defective design rules)