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A comment on Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana. Parent comment

Re:Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana by ssharp on Wednesday July 13, 2016 @08:38AM (#12085649)
Tesla's spin control is backfiring. They tried to blame the driver. They're being sued by the family of the dead driver, and being investigated by the NHTSA (the recall people), and the NTSB. In comparison, when a Google self-driving car bumped a bus at 2mph, Google admitted fault, took the blame, and Urmson gave a talk at SXSW showing the data from the sensors and discussing how the self-driving car misjudged the likely behavior of the bus.

It's a hell of a lot safer for Google to take fault for in a 2mph bump into a bus than it is for a case where someone died. I'd guess Tesla will ultimately settle the lawsuits against them but if they came out and admitted 100% fault, which it likely isn't, they'd have absolutely no ground to stand on and could get financially ruined at trial.

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Re:Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana by Retric on Wednesday July 13, 2016 @08:55AM (#12085753)
Damages from a single death have a relatively low cap unless the victim was making a lot of money. Lost sales is generally a much larger issue.
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Re:Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana by jessaustin on Wednesday July 13, 2016 @09:24AM (#12085923)
Tesla drivers do tend to be higher earners than average.
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Re:Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana by Retric on Wednesday July 13, 2016 @09:58AM (#12086151)
300k * 20x = 6 million. Not chump change, but not going to do much to Tesla.

A CEO making 15 million / year is another story.

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Re:Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana by cptskippy on Wednesday July 13, 2016 @09:56AM (#12086138)
The base Model S with no extras costs more than twice the average price of all new cars in 2016.
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