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Tesla Settles Fatal Crash Suit Ahead of California Trial
- 01100011 2y agoMove along folks, nothing to see here. Tesla driver assist is just fine, thanks. Tesla surely followed all relevant software best practices, like MISRA, ISO-26262, etc and is in no way liable for poorly designed software that has been enabling fully self-driving vehicles since 2015 as was promised by the CEO.
- rayiner 2y agoThis has nothing to do with driver assist as far as I can tell? It was a drunk driver that had her foot on the gas the whole time and made no attempt to brake.
- BoorishBears 2y agoThis is burying the other end of the lede: the suit is about someone who died because the car caught fire and their door couldn't be opened. So it could be seen as an engineering shortcoming, even though the cause was someone driving drunk
- seoulmetro 2y agoCan't we sue the people who ran safety tests and regulations on the car to let it get on the road like that? Or the onus is on Tesla and this was a freak accident (manufactured wrong) they should have caught after design?
- orwin 2y agoIn this case, my guess is that door openings aren't regulated (unlike security belts), so it's on Tesla to design their car the sane way.
- cbb330 2y agolets all do the popular thing and judge Tesla’s software reliability by a headline and the opinion of someone on the internet
- boringg 2y agoLong live the popular thing /s
- redundantly 2y agoLet's all just dismiss any criticism of Tesla's products and services by framing it as being specious because internet points.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y agoRemember to do the right thing and take the bullet for the massive corporation.
- AlexandrB 2y ago> Vox Populi, Vox Dei https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1593769469741932544 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1593769469741932544
- pylua 2y agoIt’s a little confusing, but this incident is not about self driving or software (unless the latching system is software) If anything it’s probably about the latching system or how vulnerable it is to catching fire. We may never know the truth but I’m not sure what Tesla is at fault here for or why they would settle. Twice the legal limit for alcohol (alleged) by the driver is very bad for the plaintiff.
- redundantly 2y ago> We may never know the truth That's the point. They're trying to hide something.
- pylua 2y agoSounds like that could be potentially true. Hopefully it has been fixed as that was an older version of the car.
- strix_varius 2y agoDid you not read the article? They included info about an old case for background but this was about the Apple engineer who in 2018 was killed when his Tesla drove itself off the edge of a freeway and into a barrier at 71 mph.
- pylua 2y agoI did read this article, which is what I was commenting on. “This incident” . The article was not about the previous case even though it was referenced.
- LodeOfCode 2y agoThat case was settled in April[1]. TFA is about the passenger in the 2016 crash [1]https://www.ttnews.com/articles/tesla-settles-suit-autopilot https://www.ttnews.com/articles/tesla-settles-suit-autopilot
- hnuser0000 2y agohttps://x.com/elonmusk/status/1527749734668050433 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1527749734668050433
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y agohttps://nitter.poast.org/elonmusk/status/1527749734668050433 https://nitter.poast.org/elonmusk/status/1527749734668050433
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bagels 2y agoThe inference to draw is that the case was just?
- cortesoft 2y agoOr the tweet was bullshit, and Tesla will do what every company does and determine whether it is better to settle or not based on the financial cost/benefit and not the truth or validity of the claim.
- jpcfl 2y agoOr, that his commitment is at odds with his fiduciary duty.
- viraptor 2y agoOr that the man posts stuff whether it's true or not. Based on the history, maybe it's safer to ignore this and just judge the actions.
- seoulmetro 2y agoI wouldn't be surprised if Elon considers it just. Most people consider it just that a revolutionary technology owner is being held liable for their actions, even if they are nearly a decade afterwards. Regulation for big corporations are more like suggestions these days, so this may even feel "fair enough" for Elon in retrospect.
- throw101010 2y agoI wonder how many of these suits they will have to settle (and how many people will die/get injuried in the process) just for them to be able to avoid judgments being used against them in their other procedure for falsely advertising their car as FSD (and charging more specifically for it).
- FireBeyond 2y agoGiven that Tesla has happily gone to all sorts of lengths, and held press conferences to throw drivers under the bus in previous fatal collisions (calling out, misleadingly, telemetry - "the vehicle was telling the driver to pay attention", yeah, once, eighteen minutes before this collision)... ... one has to wonder why they're so keen that this one doesn't go to trial.
- estheryo 2y ago>It also said police reports revealed that Speckman was found to be driving with a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit. Driving under the influence, what more is there to say?
- DoesntMatter22 2y agoFrom the rest of the comments here it's the Musk was ultimately at fault regardless of anything else.
- Terr_ 2y agoNah: If anybody was actually holding Musk "ultimately at fault regardless of anything else", we wouldn't be talking about settling a product-safety lawsuit, but instead about a criminal trial for manslaughter. Since that's not the case--and I don't think anyone has even suggested it needs to be--we can safely infer that there's already a high degree of nuance and splitting of different levels and layers of responsibility going on. At the end of the day, "operator error"--even drunken operator error--is not enough to automatically negate all safety flaws.
- DoesntMatter22 2y agoLol... I love it. Blame the company for a person drunken driving
- cdchn 2y agoThat having impaired drivers does not absolve you of liability for unintended acceleration.
- nomel 2y agoIs it possible to know the truth, for that? > Tesla maintains there was nothing wrong with the car. It said the data event recorder showed that Speckman kept her foot on the accelerator pedal before the crash and never attempted to brake. The family settling could seen as support for this claim. If it really did accelerate randomly, that seems like more of an NHTSA (or whoever) sort of thing more than something that could be settled.
- kart23 2y ago> propensity of the vehicle to catch fire, as well as the defective design of the door latch system entrapping him in the vehicle sounds like theres something that tesla would not like being in news headlines if the case went to trial.
- xyst 2y agoMounting legal troubles, slowly bleeding market share, inferior “asd”, layoffs at all levels. This company is a joke
- dorkwood 2y agoThey have the best self driving of any company in the world. What other car can you buy and send off to work as a robotaxi on your behalf? That is truly incredible and I never hear anyone talking about it.
- peter422 2y agoGoogle has the best self driving in the world with Waymo and I don't think it's even close.
- MaxHoppersGhost 2y agoNot relevant since I can buy a Tesla but can’t buy a Waymo car.
- snypher 2y agoIt really is relevant when the claim was >They have the best self driving of any company in the world.
- ClassyJacket 2y agoLol. I know Musk eventually did produce FSD (for America), but the unmanned robotaxi thing just seems to have so many fundamental problems I can't imagine it ever working (with people's owned cars, as opposed to the Waymo model)
- FireBeyond 2y ago> Musk eventually did produce FSD (for America) ... on certain roads, and with good quality road markings, and in certain weather and seasons, and for some, but not most or all, traffic conditions...
- userbinator 2y agothe defective design of the door latch system entrapping him in the vehicle This was discussed furiously in the HN articles of the time; the latch apparently has a manual actuator, but how to use it is not obvious at all, especially in an emergency. I also noticed the subtitle is "Settlement Comes After Automaker in April Struck Confidential Accord". That had to be deliberate.
- jader201 2y ago> the latch apparently has a manual actuator, but how to use it is not obvious at all, especially in an emergency. The result of prioritizing design over function — and in this case, safety!
- maxerickson 2y agoIs it even that? Are there a lot of people that are put off by mechanical pulls?
- nomel 2y agoMaybe ideally they should have mixed the two: a light pull does the electronic thing (rolls windows clear of weather stripping, etc), a hard pull does the manual thing.
- toast0 2y agoI test drove a Lexus TX recently, it has a door assist too, but it's real simple: push the handle and the door assist operates, pull the handle (maybe twice if locked) and the door operates like a normal door. Easy and intuitive.
- wredue 2y agoMan. It feels like yesterday that everyone wanted a Tesla. Now it is almost a toxic brand. Ive never seen a company do this so incredibly quickly.
- MaxHoppersGhost 2y agoEveryone still wants a Tesla. I have two friends who each purchased one in the last couple months.
- gcheong 2y agoI don’t!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Freedom2 2y agoIf everyone still wanted a Tesla how does that explain the price cuts recently? That goes against typical market dynamics.
- MaxHoppersGhost 2y agoAll cars are cutting prices. It’s a correction from Covid.
- bsagdiyev 2y agoYou couldn't pay me to buy that shit. There are other electric options that make more sense.