Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrkeen | Hacker News Reader

I think the following excerpts make a nice juxtaposition:

> 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, strike a palm tree and burst into flames, all in the span of seconds. The 2019 crash, which has not been previously reported, killed Lee and seriously injured his two passengers, including a then-8-year old boy who was disemboweled.

> Wins by Tesla could raise confidence and sales for the software, which costs up to $15,000 per vehicle.

View on HN

A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The FSD confuses a firetruck for an empty lane and drive full-speed into the back of it. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we stop taking money for FSD? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the windfall we get for selling people something called "Full Self-Driving" that isn’t actually self-driving, we keep taking money for it.

I don't dispute the calculus there, but that's not quite what I read in the passage from the article.

In this case it's the consumer that's made to look ridiculous:-

You can buy the car and get wrapped around a tree. But if the courts don't think Musk should pay you damages for that, then somehow you're more likely to buy the car.

Well, another important piece of the puzzle is

> the company has argued that Lee consumed alcohol before getting behind the wheel and that it is not clear whether Autopilot was on at the time of crash.

Given that this case hasn’t been previously reported, I don’t think anyone can claim to know that Tesla’s version of the story is false. Presumably if they’re confident in it, Tesla won’t agree to a last minute settlement, and we’ll see what evidence comes out in the trial.

> Wins by Tesla could raise confidence and sales for the software, which costs up to $15,000 per vehicle.

If anything I would expect the opposite; if the manufacturer were found liable in a few of these cases but continued to sell the thing, that would make it a more attractive product (Mercedes has a limited self-driving thing where they take some responsibility up-front, say).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com