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Comment by jerkstate | Hacker News Reader

I would assume, like in the USA, the person who hit the "summon" button would be liable for anything the car did.

During the "Autonomy Day" announcements, I believe Elon Musk said he assumed the company would be liable for any damage caused by driverless vehicles. When the cause of an accident is a manufacturing flaw, the manufacturer is liable. Tesla has been sued several times regarding autopilot, but in all those cases they argued that the product wasn't flawed, it was just missing features that a human driver was expected to provide. I'm not sure what Tesla's expectations of their customers are for this feature. Maybe the owner had to agree to use it only when in line of site and stop it if it was not operating safely.

I think all of the autonomy features Tesla have shipped have requested that the driver monitors them. There's a distinction to be made between this and the eventual autonomy whereby they don't intend on the driver being able to override the car (aka. Robotaxis) when the responsibility would shift from driver to company.

This feature is a little different though. You have no way of immediately gaining control of the vehicle. Your only possible action is top summoning, which may not stop the chain of events that lead to an accident. They have argued that people sitting in a vehicle should be required to anticipate and prevent accidents, but it seems like a stretch to expect the same of someone standing at a curb with nothing but an off switch.

But as the article said, that liability may not be covered by that person's vehicle insurance in British Columbia

> In the recent incident in Richmond, thankfully, there was no accident. Had an accident occurred, the vehicle owner's insurance may not have provided coverage.

I don't think anyone disagrees that the vehicle's driver is liable (regardless of physically being in the vehicle or using summon). The issue here seems to be if that is legal at all and if it is legal if insurance would cover that liability.

Plus what happens if a third party activates summon, for example a toddler? Is the toddler now legal liable for any accidents? Is the owner of the car? Is the child's parent/guardian (even if they weren't physically there)? Lots of interesting legal edge cases to explore.

> regardless of physically being in the vehicle or using summon)

Imagine you're driving along the road, see a pedestrian crossing and see a pedestrian on it. You hit the brake but brake doesn't work, because of the manufacturing flaw (later one they will issue a recall but not just yet) so you hit someone. I think it is pretty obvious that manufacturer of the car is liable in this case. Although you still get into trouble, all the investigation, courts, etc.

> Plus what happens if a third party activates summon, for example a toddler.

In Australia, in NSW, you're responsible if you didn't take the precautions necessary and someone, who's not supposed to drive your car, gains access to it.

Like if you left your windows/doors open and/or car keys in the car or engine running and someone without licenses got inside and drove it, there is a fine.

What if the phone erroneously detected an action? AKA a pocket summon. Is the phone manufacturer liable in that case?

Would the car endlessly follow the person around the mall? Is there a timeout? Seems like after x minutes it should self park and update the app.

The time out is about 500 miles / speed of crawling ;-)

To get a sense of what would be required to "pocket summon" the car, you'd have to:

- pocket unlock phone

- pocket open tesla app

- pocket scroll down to Summon

- pocket click Summon

- pocket select "Smart Summon" from within the Summon screen

- pocket click the target button on the map

- pocket hold down the "come to me" button continuously

All this while being within 200ft of the car.

"pocket summon" probably isn't the most likely scenario. A more likely one is using pocket summon while in the rain, and water on the touchscreen causing the summon button to remain pressed even after the finger's lifted.

This can totally happen. You might have already had the summon view up and targeted already, ready to leave, when your friend mentions something to you and you just stick your phone in your pocket.

That's actually a good point. Even if the tesla app reverts to its default state when the phone is locked, one might pocket their unlocked phone while "come to me" is shown.

I was excited for this feature after playing Batman Arkham Knight game. Batman can summon is Batmobile while jumping over the rooftops and jump right into the drivers seat.

It's a one in a million chance. However there are now millions of Tesla/phone pairs on the market so one in a million translates to inevitability.

This is not possible. You have to hold down the summon button in order for this to work.

It is not at all obvious that would the case in the US.

what if the summoned car gets hit by another car (in such a way the it is not the tesla's fault)?

what if somebody throws themselves into the tesla?

Or hops in...

i'm not a lawyer, but my guess for both questions, the driver's inability to provide an eyewitness account would probably heavily bias towards their fault. Kind of like if you were driving your car with your eyes closed.

I imagine that the footage from the car's built-in cameras could take the place of an eyewitness account

The new Tesla cars have 8 cameras. You can download the video to a USB drive.

What if I'm driving a car and get hit by another car (in such a way that it is not my fault)?

I imagine it would be the same.

except that you're nowhere near your car

Never mind the law, have the actuaries caught up with developments?

This actually happened and was on video as well. It was the first week smart summon came out. A Tesla was moving, already behind a car, then the car just backed out into it. A typical parking lot crash that happens all the time. Parking lots are terrible places for accidents.

Of course many in the media took the video and created a headline which was VERY misleading.. "Tesla smart summon gets into accident"... while yes, that is true, it was no fault of the Tesla doing smart summon.

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