A representative for Tesla sent Ars the following statement: "Today's verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla's and the entire industry's efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology. We plan to appeal given the substantial errors of law and irregularities at trial. Even though this jury found that the driver was overwhelmingly responsible for this tragic accident in 2019, the evidence has always shown that this driver was solely at fault because he was speeding, with his foot on the accelerator—which overrode Autopilot—as he rummaged for his dropped phone without his eyes on the road. To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash. This was never about Autopilot; it was a fiction concocted by plaintiffs’ lawyers blaming the car when the driver—from day one—admitted and accepted responsibility."

So, you admit that the company’s marketing has continued to lie for the past six years?

Yes, false advertising for sure. But the responsibility for safe driving, is on the driver, even if the driver's role is engaging autopilot.

I can only imagine the same applies in other circumstances where autopilot is an option: planes, boats, drones, etc.

Good that the car manufacturer is also being held accountable.

But...

In 2019, George McGee was operating his Tesla Model S using Autopilot when he ran past a stop sign and through an intersection at 62 mph then struck a pair of people stargazing by the side of the road. Naibel Benavides was killed and her partner Dillon Angulo was left with a severe head injury.

That's on him. 100%

McGee told the court that he thought Autopilot "would assist me should I have a failure or should I miss something, should I make a mistake,"

Stop giving stupid people the ability to control large, heavy vehicles! Autopilot is not a babysitter, it's supposed to be an assistive technology, like cruise control. This fucking guy gave Tesla the wheel, and that was a choice!

More than one person can be at fault, my friend. Don't lie about your product and expect no consequences.

There are other cars on the market that use technology that will literally override your input if they detect that there is a crash imminent. Even those cars do not claim to have autopilot and Tesla has not changed their branding or wording which is a lot of the problem here.

I can't say for sure that they are responsible or not in this case because I don't know what the person driving then assumed. But if they assumed that the "safety features" (in particular autopilot) would mitigate their recklessness and Tesla can't prove they knew about the override of such features, then I'm not sure the court is wrong in this case. The fact that they haven't changed their wording or branding of autopilot (particularly calling it that), is kind of damning here.

Autopilot maintains speed (edit), altitude (end of edit), and heading or flight path in planes. But the average person doesn't know or understand that. Tesla has been using the pop culture understanding of what autopilot is and that's a lot of the problem. Other cars have warning about what their "assisted driving" systems do, and those warnings pop up every time you engage them before you can set any settings etc. But those other car manufacturers also don't claim the car can drive itself.

This isn't really something you can be 'too cautious' about.

Hopefully we can at least agree that as of right now, they're not being cautious enough.

Fuck that I'm not a beta tester for a company. What happened to having a good product and then releasing it. Not oh let's see what happens.

A representative for Tesla sent Ars the following statement: "Today's verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla's and the entire industry's efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology. We plan to appeal given the substantial errors of law and irregularities at trial. Even though this jury found that the driver was overwhelmingly responsible for this tragic accident in 2019, the evidence has always shown that this driver was solely at fault because he was speeding, with his foot on the accelerator—which overrode Autopilot—as he rummaged for his dropped phone without his eyes on the road. To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash. This was never about Autopilot; it was a fiction concocted by plaintiffs’ lawyers blaming the car when the driver—from day one—admitted and accepted responsibility."

So, you admit that the company’s marketing has continued to lie for the past six years?

Life saving technology, BS, their auto pilot is half-ass.

Yeah, but I think Elon shares the blame for making outrageous claims for years suggesting otherwise. He's a liar and needs to be held accountable.

Today’s verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla’s and the entire industry’s efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology.

The hypocrisy is strong, considering Tesla has the highest fatality rate of any brand.

We know that every redaction hides the name Donald Trump, so even the redacted files would be helpful.

You mention other cars overriding your input. The most common is the auto breaking when it sees you are going to hit something. But my understanding is that it kicks in when it is already too late to avoid the crash. So it isn't something that is involved in decision making about driving, it is just a saftey feature only relevant in the case of a crash. Just like you don't ram another car because you have a seatbelt, your driving choices aren't affected by this features presence.
The other common one will try to remind you to stay in your lane. But it isn't trying to override you. It rumbles the wheel and turns it a bit in the direction you should go. If you resist at all it stops. It is only meant for if you have let go of the wheel or are asleep.
So I don't know of anything that overrides driver input completely outside of being too late to avoid a crash.

What claims did he make about autopilot that suggested otherwise?

Autopilot is not FSD.

A representative for Tesla sent Ars the following statement: "Today's verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla's and the entire industry's efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology. We plan to appeal given the substantial errors of law and irregularities at trial. Even though this jury found that the driver was overwhelmingly responsible for this tragic accident in 2019, the evidence has always shown that this driver was solely at fault because he was speeding, with his foot on the accelerator—which overrode Autopilot—as he rummaged for his dropped phone without his eyes on the road. To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash. This was never about Autopilot; it was a fiction concocted by plaintiffs’ lawyers blaming the car when the driver—from day one—admitted and accepted responsibility."

So, you admit that the company’s marketing has continued to lie for the past six years?

What claims did he make about autopilot that suggested otherwise?

Autopilot is not FSD.

https://electrek.co/2016/07/05/elon-musk-tesla-autopilot-save-life/

https://electrek.co/2018/04/13/tesla-autopilot-never-perfect-10x-safer-than-human-elon-musk/

List of predictions for autonomous Tesla vehicles by Elon Musk - Wikipedia

(en.m.wikipedia.org)

Considering Elon's been using the two interchangeably, and that autopilot gives the lay person a false equivalence to what actual pilots use in planes. Can you really blame them?

Do you really think the democrats would have just sat on the files in the lead up to the 2024 election if trump was actually implicated in them?

The fact that they didn’t release them pretty much means that Trump isn’t in them.

Yeah, but I think Elon shares the blame for making outrageous claims for years suggesting otherwise. He's a liar and needs to be held accountable.

Have you even read what happened? The driver dropped his phone and wasn’t watching the road but instead was rummaging around on the ground looking for his phone, while having his foot on the accelerator manually accelerating. Autopilot was supposedly turned off because of the manual acceleration.