this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
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Don't take my post as a defense of Tesla even if there is blame on both sides here. However, I lay the huge majority of it on Tesla marketing.
I had to find two other articles to figure out if the system being used here was Tesla's free included AutoPilot, or the more advanced paid (one time fee/subscription) version called Full Self Drive (FSD). The answer for this case was: Autopilot.
There are many important distinctions between the two systems. However Tesla frequently conflates the two together when speaking about autonomous technology for their cars, so I blame Tesla. What was required here to avoid these deaths actually has very little to do with autonomous technology as most know it, and instead talking about Collision Avoidance Systems. Only in 2024 was the first talk about requiring Collision Avoidance Systems in new vehicles in the USA. source The cars that include it now (Tesla and some other models from other brands) do so on their own without a legal mandate.
Tesla claims that the Collision Avoidance Systems would have been overridden anyway because the driver was holding on the accelerator (which is not normal under Autopilot or FSD conditions). Even if that's true, Tesla has positioned its cars as being highly autonomous, and often times doesn't call out that that skilled autonomy only comes in the Full Self Drive paid upgrade or subscription.
So I DO blame Tesla, even if the driver contributed to the accident.
Did the car try to stop and fail to do so in time due to the speeding, or did the car not try despite expected collision detection behavior?
Going off of OP's quote, the jury found the driver responsible but Tesla is found liable, which is pretty confusing. It might make some sense if expected autopilot functionality despite the drivers foot being on the pedal didn't work.
From the article, it looks like the car didn't even try to stop because the driver was overridden by the acceleration because the driver had their foot pressed on the pedal (which isn't normal during autopilot use).
This is correct. And when you do this, the car tells you it won't brake.