Tesla Wrongful Death Lawsuit
 

Some interesting information here about the wrongful death lawsuit against Tesla for a Model X that hit a barrier while on autopilot and burst into flames.

The confusing part for me though is this part of the article:

Obviously the car bursting into flames is an issue, but I'm pretty sure if I had the Autopilot fail in the same place more than once I would probably not be using Autopilot when I went by that spot.

For that matter once I saw it fail, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even use it, at least not without my hands on the wheel at all times.

Don't see that working out for the family...

You've got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. Unfortunately people like to pretend they are all in the future and go to sleep/sit in passenger seat/show off on camera/push the limit of the tech/etc. and make the egg breaking process more interesting.

Tesla should be able to recover the data to analyze the situation. I’m pretty sure they are data collecting from all their cars.

[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AO33rOofFpg[/ame]

At 58:00 he talks about sourcing data from the fleet.
[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-b041NXGPZ8[/ame]

Ya. I can understand the angle they were aiming for with "We told them it didn't work 10 times and they didn't fix it" but a jury is probably going to read into it like Dadhawk (and I) did. "OK so he knew that one spot was a problem but relied solely on the autopilot anyway". Reading through the material it is interesting to note that they pulled the module from the Head unit so they will know exactly what was happening at the time of the crash.

I agree in principle but two wrongs don't make a right and this is never more true than in legal proceedings.

For example, someone can be in the congress of committing one crime, then have another crime committed against them, and the 2nd crime will be upheld, because it's not like your rights end just because you are committing a crime. There have been cases of home invaders who have been shot and killed by the home owners and the home owners end up convicted of murder, despite the fact that the situation only came about because of the original burglary.

A little oversimplified but in a place with castle laws, one man still gets murder convictions for killing intruders, AFTER reporting the problem to police who did nothing about it:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...teens/8480047/

My point is that I think it's unlikely Tesla will get out of this unscathed.

Oh I don't think they will walk away and not saying it a great excuse on Telsa's part. It just makes the case a bit more muddy. It could just be the phrasing but it will mess with a judge/jury's head(s).

I agree with you both @Tcoat and @Lynxis. Even if Tesla gets by on the Autopilot portion there is the more significant (to me) concern of the resulting battery fire.

All that said, the driver was an idiot and if I were on the jury and the family's attorney focused only on the autopilot issue I'd have a hard time voting in their favor.

We had a good discussion about Tesla and their media coverage at the GLC/S/GLE Hybrid training.

They made a good point, gas cars catch on fire all the time when they crash. Fire departments respond to all MVAs. No one brings it up because everyone understands gasoline is flammable and when you crash a car it may catch on fire. There's some assumed safety that removing the gas tank removes the chance for fire. The opportunity is still there, it just needs to be understood and managed in different ways.

Mercedes starting putting QR codes on the driver door jamb and fuel door years ago. Links directly to a page designating safety hazards, cut points, etc for first responders. I hope to see this take off industry wide in the (near) future.

https://cnet1.cbsistatic.com/img/qXm...e-assist-2.jpg

https://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/servi.../rescue_assist

Laziness and Darwinism is what killed this guy, not Tesla. However Tesla didn't help the situation by bursting into flames, but again who would have thought an EV vehicle could burst into flames after a crash.

I have no delusions that an electric car is immune to catching fire but I do agree a lot of people don't realize how much a possibility it is in either a fuel powered or electric powered car.

In this case though there are clear indications that Tesla warns of not using Autopilot in the manner the driver apparently was using it (not attentive and in a situation where he knew conditions weren't favorable for Autopilot).

There is not the same clear indication that the actions of the driver contributed to the fire, if you discount the actions leading to the accident. Whether or not someone driving a conventional vehicle would have been more likely not to have experienced a fire, I cannot say.

Every production vehicle caries enough stored/potential energy to throw you down the road at ~100mph for many miles. It does not matter how the energy is stored (petrochemical, battery, fusion, etc) -- release a large portion of that potential energy all at once and SOMETHING will be on fire!

Most consumers have not seen an electrical fire up close, so I understand how they can get trapped by the false idea that "no fire in the engine" == "nothing to burn".

Lithium ion batteries have long been known to be combustible when the jelly sacks inside are compromised in some way. That is what Samsung phone issue was a couple of years ago. There are plenty of videos out there showing lithium ion batteries catching fire when damaged. It should not be much of a surprise when an electric car battery pack catches on fire due to damage. All electric car battery packs are literally packed with rows and rows of those larger cylindrical lithium ion vape batteries.

As for this case Tesla will most likely settle. Everything on every car is being documented all the time no matter what. They knew what really happened after a couple of days, people got fired instantly.

The break a few eggs, darwinism, attentive driver argument everyone is making here can on the surface seem logical 1/(some large number) thing and this guy had it coming etc...

But with Tesla recently announcing their plan to roll out an autonomous taxi service soon with the same auto pilot algorithms which were on this model x, that makes the details of this case a little more comparable to how the larger public may be experiencing their autopilot in the near future.

Just some food for thought.

Would anyone here trust sitting in the backseat of Tesla taxi which driverlessly autopilots you to your destination with the technology as it stands in 2019?

If Tesla could demonstrate that their autopilot was statistically safer than getting into a car with a human driver then of course yes. The risk will never be zero. Obviously if they are ready to invest in a fleet of self-driving, expensive (Tesla) taxis then I would say they must have confidence in the statistics and technology.