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This is behind a paywall. On the surface, this looks correct. We should have autonomous cars. Makers should pay damages when they kill people, since the fault

This is behind a paywall. On the surface, this looks correct. We should have autonomous cars. Makers should pay damages when they kill people, since the fault shifts from drivers to manufacturers. This should be part of the cost of doing business, and should be factored into the price of both the car and of insurance. Tesla market cap is nearing a trillion dollars. A typical wrongful death lawsuit is around $1 million in damages. If autonomous cars reach 100% market share, and kill 40,000 people each year (the same as normal cars), that adds $40B each year to the cost of doing business, so O(1/20th) of Tesla's market cap. If Tesla pays, this would also translate into lower insurance fees as well. Car prices go up slightly, but if safety is similar to human driving, total cost of car ownership remains the same. If autopilot is safer, cost goes down. If humans are safer, costs go up. There's a clear business upside to making safer cars, so Tesla invests there. In any case, that's not enough to drive Tesla out-of-business, but it is enough to align incentives to make safe self-driving cars.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
40k people a year in the US die in auto accidents already, and we collectively pay for that. Now Tesla pays for it when humans make poor risk choices. If you're watching a movie on Autopilot and end up dead, how is that Tesla's fault? Yes, Tesla should not be able to lie about driver assist capabilities ("full self driving"), but there is no perfect safeguard against humans abusing assist systems (Tesla puts interior cameras in the cabin now to detect attentiveness and alertness, and people complain about that). Will we simply pay out to next of kin of those who abuse safety systems and end up dead? If so, I guess that is the cost of progress in a system with human participation. If you exceed the capabilities of systems where life safety is involved, you'll die, and we'll all move on. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla-driver-killed-autopilot-self-driving-car-harry-potter https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla-dri... https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/52/ https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/52/ > A Tesla Model S on autopilot crashed into an articulated tractor-trailer on Highway US 27A in Williston, Florida killing the driver, Joshua Brown. The trailer was turning left in front of the incoming Tesla, and the Tesla autopilot system was unable to detect the white trailer against the bright sky. Cruise control was set at 74mph and did not slow before collision. The driver had his hands on the wheel for 25 seconds of the 37 minute trip and was watching a Harry Potter movie when the collision occurred. Before the collision, the driver received 6 audible warnings that his hands had been off the wheel for too long.
- codeTired 3y ago
  Tesla autopilot should be outright illegal. Tesla is well liked among geeks, so I expect downvotes. However, Musk pitches FSD as actual full self driving which it isnt. He made comments that driver is there for legal reasons. If a car makes an abrupt turn into a highway divider one may not have enough time to react. Going back to the incident, why was the driver allowed to continue to drive? Shouldnt the car stop and disable FSD? Plus, the vision system can’t even detect rain properly and phantom braking is still an issue in the right circumstances.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Regulators aren't going to make it illegal, but you are still entitled to your opinion. You can't stop a determined human ignoring or bypassing safety systems from getting themselves killed. It is an unfortunate reality. I am not without empathy, just pragmatic when you try to build systems to protect humans and they do what they do. "Make something idiot-proof, and they will build a better idiot." Until regulators pull it from vehicles, we're going to carry on with it except for folks who get themselves killed (with some economic drag from these legal proceedings). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards
  - toast0 3y ago
    > Tesla autopilot should be outright illegal. Is the problem lane keeping, traffic adaptive cruise control, and automatic emergency braking? Or is it the marketing around it and how people use it? Maybe it's the lack of a controlled stop when the driver attention check fails? Plenty of other cars have driver assistance features, but we don't hear about people not paying attention to their well equiped Pacifica and it crashing into things. Maybe because there's no videos from Chyrsler saying the car is driving itself, driver there for legal purposes only. Maybe because the driver assistance equipped unit sales are lower. Maybe the collisions are happening, but don't make the news. Driver assistance features seem like a good idea if used properly. Drive normally, but the computer is always supervising and will help if it sees a problem you don't. They don't work well when the easily distractable human driver is supposed to be supervising the computer.
Workaccount2 3y ago
Market cap is a pretty arbitrary value and meaningless in this context. It's not a bank account full of that much money. Their revenue for 2022 was $81B with a profit of $21B. Framed correctly, $40B is in no way a tiny amount.
- jpc0 3y ago
  I'm rather tired of making the argument that market cap != Cash, thank you. The easiest would be to compare this to giving fines based on net worth. If you own a home and car your net worth could be in the range of 100-200k dollars. You happy to receive a fine of 10k dollars? That surely is nothing for you, I mean its 5-10% of your net worth. I'd argue for a lot of people even a fine of 1k dollars would put them back quite a bit.
- coin 3y ago
  Furthermore, spending 2x of its profit on liability payouts would lower is present and projected profit, resulting in a much lower market cap.
  - frognumber 3y ago
    No one is proposing Tesla be liable for every accident on the road.... At the time they have 100% market penetration, their market cap will be much higher. Nevertheless, it's not clear the impact on Tesla's market cap. If a self-driving car costs $1000 more, and saves me $1000 on insurance, on the net, it's a wash for the buyer. Tesla can quite literally pass on the costs to the buyer in the purchase price, who can get it back in insurance premiums. Personally, it'd be an upside to me. My costs would be the same, but my stress, risk, liability, etc. would go down. I don't want to kill someone, and if I do cause an accident, I don't want the headache. If other people are like me, sales (and market cap) might go up.
- frognumber 3y ago
  I respectfully disagree. 1) The denominator and numerator need to match up. $40B is the total costs assuming self-driving had 100% market penetration and were self-driving 100% of the time. It's not an estimate for damages this year. If you look at a snapshot today, Autopilot is responsible for O(300) accidents per year, leading to around $300M in potential damages. That's about 1% of their profit, and 0.25% of their revenue. 2) Market cap is quite literally a bank. I can always borrow from the market by releasing more shares, or do the reverse by buying them back.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

40k people a year in the US die in auto accidents already, and we collectively pay for that. Now Tesla pays for it when humans make poor risk choices. If you're watching a movie on Autopilot and end up dead, how is that Tesla's fault? Yes, Tesla should not be able to lie about driver assist capabilities ("full self driving"), but there is no perfect safeguard against humans abusing assist systems (Tesla puts interior cameras in the cabin now to detect attentiveness and alertness, and people complain about that). Will we simply pay out to next of kin of those who abuse safety systems and end up dead? If so, I guess that is the cost of progress in a system with human participation. If you exceed the capabilities of systems where life safety is involved, you'll die, and we'll all move on. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla-driver-killed-autopilot-self-driving-car-harry-potter https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla-dri... https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/52/ https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/52/ > A Tesla Model S on autopilot crashed into an articulated tractor-trailer on Highway US 27A in Williston, Florida killing the driver, Joshua Brown. The trailer was turning left in front of the incoming Tesla, and the Tesla autopilot system was unable to detect the white trailer against the bright sky. Cruise control was set at 74mph and did not slow before collision. The driver had his hands on the wheel for 25 seconds of the 37 minute trip and was watching a Harry Potter movie when the collision occurred. Before the collision, the driver received 6 audible warnings that his hands had been off the wheel for too long.

codeTired 3y ago
Tesla autopilot should be outright illegal. Tesla is well liked among geeks, so I expect downvotes. However, Musk pitches FSD as actual full self driving which it isnt. He made comments that driver is there for legal reasons. If a car makes an abrupt turn into a highway divider one may not have enough time to react. Going back to the incident, why was the driver allowed to continue to drive? Shouldnt the car stop and disable FSD? Plus, the vision system can’t even detect rain properly and phantom braking is still an issue in the right circumstances.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Regulators aren't going to make it illegal, but you are still entitled to your opinion. You can't stop a determined human ignoring or bypassing safety systems from getting themselves killed. It is an unfortunate reality. I am not without empathy, just pragmatic when you try to build systems to protect humans and they do what they do. "Make something idiot-proof, and they will build a better idiot." Until regulators pull it from vehicles, we're going to carry on with it except for folks who get themselves killed (with some economic drag from these legal proceedings). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards
- toast0 3y ago
  > Tesla autopilot should be outright illegal. Is the problem lane keeping, traffic adaptive cruise control, and automatic emergency braking? Or is it the marketing around it and how people use it? Maybe it's the lack of a controlled stop when the driver attention check fails? Plenty of other cars have driver assistance features, but we don't hear about people not paying attention to their well equiped Pacifica and it crashing into things. Maybe because there's no videos from Chyrsler saying the car is driving itself, driver there for legal purposes only. Maybe because the driver assistance equipped unit sales are lower. Maybe the collisions are happening, but don't make the news. Driver assistance features seem like a good idea if used properly. Drive normally, but the computer is always supervising and will help if it sees a problem you don't. They don't work well when the easily distractable human driver is supposed to be supervising the computer.

Workaccount2 3y ago

Market cap is a pretty arbitrary value and meaningless in this context. It's not a bank account full of that much money. Their revenue for 2022 was $81B with a profit of $21B. Framed correctly, $40B is in no way a tiny amount.

jpc0 3y ago
I'm rather tired of making the argument that market cap != Cash, thank you. The easiest would be to compare this to giving fines based on net worth. If you own a home and car your net worth could be in the range of 100-200k dollars. You happy to receive a fine of 10k dollars? That surely is nothing for you, I mean its 5-10% of your net worth. I'd argue for a lot of people even a fine of 1k dollars would put them back quite a bit.
coin 3y ago
Furthermore, spending 2x of its profit on liability payouts would lower is present and projected profit, resulting in a much lower market cap.
- frognumber 3y ago
  No one is proposing Tesla be liable for every accident on the road.... At the time they have 100% market penetration, their market cap will be much higher. Nevertheless, it's not clear the impact on Tesla's market cap. If a self-driving car costs $1000 more, and saves me $1000 on insurance, on the net, it's a wash for the buyer. Tesla can quite literally pass on the costs to the buyer in the purchase price, who can get it back in insurance premiums. Personally, it'd be an upside to me. My costs would be the same, but my stress, risk, liability, etc. would go down. I don't want to kill someone, and if I do cause an accident, I don't want the headache. If other people are like me, sales (and market cap) might go up.
frognumber 3y ago
I respectfully disagree. 1) The denominator and numerator need to match up. $40B is the total costs assuming self-driving had 100% market penetration and were self-driving 100% of the time. It's not an estimate for damages this year. If you look at a snapshot today, Autopilot is responsible for O(300) accidents per year, leading to around $300M in potential damages. That's about 1% of their profit, and 0.25% of their revenue. 2) Market cap is quite literally a bank. I can always borrow from the market by releasing more shares, or do the reverse by buying them back.