Tesla’s have-your-cake-and-eat-it days may be coming to an end. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:
Tesla has just been found liable for the death of one person and the severe injury of another after one of its “self driving” cars ran over and killed a couple back in 2019. Twenty-two-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, were out watching the night sky by the side of the road when the “self-driving” Tesla ran them down, killing Leon and almost killing Angulo. A Florida jury has ordered Tesla to pay the victims $243 million in damages.
There are several interesting things about the case, the first thing being that – somehow – Tesla “lost” the video recording of the crash and also the data stream recorded by the car. A “mistake” was made, Tesla claimed. The same kind of mistake that was made the night Epstein didn’t kill himself, probably.
The more interesting thing, however, is the liability precedent that has – at last – been set. Tesla has until now wriggled out of liability for the other crashes that have happened when a “self-driving” Tesla ran into something or someone by pointing out that it has always made it clear that the driver must “pay constant attention” and “be prepared to act immediately” at all times when the self-driving system is engaged – so as to be able to apply the brakes or steer when the tech fails to recognize/react to another vehicle (or person) in the path of the vehicle.
Love that meme of the cyber truck side by side with dumpster on wheels from India 1990.
Remember when everyone thought that free speech was back because technocrat comrade Elon bought Twitter?
Honk, honk.