Tesla to fall due to Autopilot? Read & decide.
A Florida judge found "reasonable evidence" that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk and other managers knew the automaker's vehicles had a defective Autopilot system but still allowed the cars to be driven unsafely, according to a ruling. (see above)
Judge Reid Scott, in the Circuit Court for Palm Beach County, ruled last week that the plaintiff in a lawsuit over a fatal crash could proceed to trial and bring punitive damages claims against Tesla for intentional misconduct and gross negligence.
The Florida judge found evidence that:
Tesla "engaged in a marketing strategy that painted the products as autonomous".
Musk's public statements about the technology "had a significant effect on the belief about the capabilities of the products."
Judge Scott also found that the plaintiff, Banner's wife, should be able to argue to jurors that Tesla's warnings in its manuals and "clickwrap" agreement were inadequate.
The judge said the accident is "eerily similar" to a 2016 fatal crash involving Joshua Brown in which the Autopilot system failed to detect crossing trucks, leading vehicles to go underneath a tractor trailer at high speeds.
"It would be reasonable to conclude that the Defendant Tesla through its CEO and engineers was acutely aware of the problem with the 'Autopilot' failing to detect cross traffic," the judge wrote.
Banner's attorney, Lake "Trey" Lytal III, said they are "extremely proud of this result based in the evidence of punitive conduct."
The judge also cited a 2016 video showing a Tesla vehicle driving without human intervention as a way to market Autopilot.
The beginning of the video shows a disclaimer which says the person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. "The car is driving itself," it said.
That video shows scenarios "not dissimilar" than what Banner encountered, the judge wrote.
"Absent from this video is any indication that the video is aspirational or that this technology does not currently exist in the market," he wrote.
The ruling is a setback for $Tesla Motors(TSLA)$ after the company won two product liability trials in California earlier this year over the Autopilot driver assistant system.
A Tesla spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment on Tue, 21 Nov 2023.
Accident History:
The Florida lawsuit arose out of a 2019 crash north of Miami.
EV owner Stephen Banner’s Tesla Model 3 — drove under the trailer of an 18-wheeler big rig truck that had turned onto the road, shearing off the Tesla's roof and killing Banner.
A trial set for October was delayed and has not been rescheduled.
According to University of South Carolina law professor Bryant Walker, called Judge Reid Scott’s summary of the evidence significant because it suggests "alarming inconsistencies" between what Tesla knew internally, and what it was saying in its Marketing.
More importantly, this verdict opens the door for a public trial in which the judge seems inclined to admit a lot of testimony and other evidence that could be pretty awkward for Tesla and its CEO - mr musk.
And, the result of that trial could be a verdict with punitive damages.
My Viewpoint:
It is time to call a spade, a spade.
Full Self-Driving (FSD) is Tesla's branding for its beta testing program to achieve fully autonomous driving (SAE Level 5).
The naming is controversial, because vehicles operating under FSD remain at Level 2 automation and are therefore not "fully self-driving" and require active driver supervision.
Mr musk first mentioned Tesla’s self driving in 2016.
7 years on, Tesla’s self driving remains at Level 2, out of 6 levels.
As of February 2023, Tesla has about 360,000 participants in the FSD program.
Imagine being strung along all these years and still nowhere insight for its autonomous driving feature?
How could there be progress when the CEO is so distracted with (a) Space-X rocket launch, (b) Support of antisemitic tweets, (c) Horrors at neuralinks brain implants with calls for human hosts as well and (d) his heavy involvement with ‘Grok”, his artificial intelligence bot.
Will this news kickstart another round of stock price fall for Tesla?
Will the possible lawsuit become cornerstone for many other Tesla’s accidents with its autonomous driving feature.
Do you think the “bad” news will cause Tesla stock price to start falling?
Do you think this case will set the precedence for other similar Tesla’s accidents with its autonomous driving feature?
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Battery price drop 40-50%; lithium price drop 85% from the peak time. I think EV sell could have huge growth in 4th quarter and next year.
Give a TSLA 0.3% up as the stock still continues to make lower highs from $400 and they think shorts are getting burned. Maybe they should start using daily charts? Derp!
Great ariticle, would you like to share it?
Negative news … green market I love it
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Nvidia will go higher and higher and Tesla down and down
You know it's good when most posts here are bad.
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