Elon Musk

[Thumpalumpacus]

"This Will Open the Floodgates": Tesla In Trouble as Jury Orders It to Pay $329 Million After Autopilot Death

On Friday, a Miami jury ruled that the Elon Musk-owned automaker's Autopilot driver assistance software was partially at fault for a horrendous collision that killed a 22-year-old woman in 2019 and severely injured her boyfriend.

In total, the jury ordered Tesla to pay $329 million to the surviving family of the victims, Naibel Benavides and Dillon Angulo.

The ruling could drastically impact Tesla's autonomous vehicle efforts — which it's been increasingly leaning into as its sales falter — and perhaps reshape the self-driving landscape at large. These are enormous damages, and the prospect of being on the hook anytime the experimental software kills or injures a bystander could dampen investor enthusiasm for the tech.

It also comes at a critical moment for Tesla, which launched a limited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in June, and expanded its driverless fleet this week to San Francisco. Musk is hoping that a pivot to robotaxis could rake in the company trillions of dollars. Prior to the launch, he estimated that Tesla could have a million robotaxis on American roads by the end of 2026. In light of the ruling, that's a lot expensive legal liabilities waiting to happen.

"This will open the floodgates," Miguel Custodio, a car crash lawyer not involved in the lawsuit, told the Associated Press after the ruling. "It will embolden a lot of people to come to court."

This may have been a long time coming for Tesla. Its self-driving software — which are actually driver assistance features, regardless of their overconfident brand names — have been involved in multiple deadly crashes. The automaker has frequently been criticized for exaggerating how autonomously its cars can operate and has been repeatedly investigated by federal regulators and sued by state authorities.

https://futurism.com/jury-tesla-autopilot-death

Schadenfreude level increases.

"Scotty, I'd like 1200 PSI on the target."
"M'capt'n, she can't take that!"
"I want what pressure you can give!"

I want to see this little cocksucker crack like that sub that visited Titanic a couple of years ago. I want to see Elon implode.