Technology

The highlights:

"The case that concluded on Tuesday, in a California state court, was filed by two passengers in a 2019 crash who accused the company of knowing Autopilot was defective when it sold the car. Tesla argued human error caused the crash.

The 12-member jury announced they found the vehicle did not have a manufacturing defect. The verdict came on the fourth day of deliberations, and the vote was 9-3.

The civil lawsuit filed in Riverside County Superior Court alleged the Autopilot system caused owner Micah Lee’s Model 3 to suddenly veer off a highway east of Los Angeles at 65 miles per hour (105 km per hour), strike a palm tree and burst into flames, all in the span of seconds.

The 2019 crash killed Lee and seriously injured his two passengers, including a then-8-year-old boy who was disemboweled, court documents show. The trial involved gruesome testimony about the passengers’ injuries, and the plaintiffs asked the jury for $400 million plus punitive damages.

Tesla denied liability, saying Lee consumed alcohol before getting behind the wheel. The electric-vehicle maker also argued it was unclear whether Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash.

In [other Tesla autopilot] lawsuits, plaintiffs allege Autopilot is defectively designed, leading drivers to misuse the system. The jury in Riverside, however, was only asked to evaluate whether a manufacturing defect impacted the steering."

Such a crap use of logic/words to try and escape culpability.

"We said the driver has to be 100% attentive! So if the car swerves suddenly and crashes it's the drivers fault, they should have paid attention!" Jesus, if that's honestly your defence then you have no understanding of the real world

Turns out that if you make tens of millions of cars and put them on the streets, some of them end up in accidents, and in some of these cases people die. Some people, usually with an agenda, see this as an evidence against said car manufacturer while the rest of us see no difference to pretty much every other car on the roads.

Why don't we limit all cars to 30mph? That would greatly decrease the number of fatal accidents. Well the answer is: convenience. We've accepted the trade-off. No sane person is demanding a 100% safety rating because that's impossible.