this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
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That's a tough one. Yeah they sell it as autopilot. But anyone seeing a steering wheel and pedals should reasonably assume that they are there to override the autopilot. Saying he thought the car would protect him from his mistake doesn't sound like something an autopilot would do. Tesla has done plenty wrong, but this case isn't much of an example of that.
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.
To me having the car be able to override your actions sounds more dangerous than being to override the autopilot.
I had one rental truck that drove me insane and scared the shit out of me because it would slam on the brakes when I tried to reverse into grass that was too tall.
What if I were trying to avoid something dangerous, like a train or another vehicle, and the truck slammed on the brakes for me because of some tree branches in the way? Potentially deadly.
I agree. I hate auto braking features. I'm not a fan of cruise control. I very much dislike adaptable cruise control, lane keeping assist, reverse braking, driving assist, and one pedal mode. I drive a stick shift car from the early 2000's for this reason. Just enough tech to be useful. Not enough tech to get in the way of me being in control of the car.
But there's definitely some cruise controls out there even before all the stuff with sensors and such hit the market that doesn't work the way lots of people in this thread seem to think. Braking absolutely will cancel the set cruise control but doesn't turn it off. Accelerating in some cars also doesn't cancel the cruise control, it allows you to override it to accelerate but will go back to the set cruise control speed when you take your foot off the accelerator.
I absolutely recognize that not being able to override the controls has a significant potential to be deadly. All I'm saying is there's lots of drivers who probably shouldn't be on the road who these tools are designed for and they don't understand even the basics of how they work. They think the stuff is a cool gimmick. It makes them overconfident. And when you couple that with the outright lies that Musk has spewed continuously about these products and features, you should be able to see just why Tesla should be held accountable when the public trusts the company's claims and people die or get seriously injured as a result.
I've driven a lot of vehicles with features I absolutely hated. Ones that took agency away from the driver that I felt was extremely dangerous. On the other hand, I have had people just merge into me like I wasn't there. On several occasions. Happens to me at least every month or so. I've had people almost hit me from behind because they were driving distracted. I've literally watched people back into their own fences. Watched people wreck because they lost control of their vehicle or weren't paying attention. Supposedly these "features" are meant to prevent or mitigate the risks of that. And people believe they are more capable of mitigating that risk than they are, due to marketing and outright ridiculous claims from tech enthusiasts who promote these brands.
If I know anything I know that you can't necessarily make people read the warning label. And it becomes harder to override what they believe if you lied to them first and then try to tell them the truth later.