Featured Autopilot lawsuit

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by bwilson4web, Aug 15, 2025 at 6:01 PM.

  1. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Source: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/tesla-ordered-by-florida-jury-pay-243-million-fatal-autopilot-crash-2025-08-01/

    Aug 1 (Reuters) - A Florida jury on Friday found Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab liable to pay $243 million to victims of a 2019 fatal crash of an Autopilot-equipped Model S, a verdict that could encourage more legal action against Elon Musk's electric vehicle company.
    . . .

    In April 2019, AutoPilot saved me, my wife, and our dog from a crash when I had a medical emergency. Traveling to Decatur, I had five, "micro-sleep" events and the car stayed in the lane instead of going off the road, down a ditch, and hitting a power or fence post. Yes, AutoPilot had bugs which I was mapping at the time that were eventually resolved but it was +90-99% of the time safe with some "Oh Merde!" bugs.

    Since November of 2024, there has been a significant improvement in Full Self Driving, probably in AutoPilot too since they share similar code. But even between 2019 and last year, there had been incremental improvements. On my short list, the only residual problems are with weak lane markers corrupted by peel-out rubber marks (two instances in Michigan.) Undocumented, there are better ways to drive with Full Self Driving.

    Full Self Driving is tightly coupled with the navigation system and the screen interface. There is a style of driving that minimizes how much time needed to get to where you want to go. Part of it is creative "disengagement."

    So I don't fault the lawsuit because in 2019, AutoPilot was a work in progress. So the lawyers will get 2/3ds of the $243 m or about $160 m. The family will get the rest, $80 m. Tesla can probably find that in the couch cushions Elon used to sleep on. .... Did I mention I am no longer a TSLA stock holder?

    Bob Wilson
     
  2. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    I'm sure your wife would of wanted you to pull over immediately after the first micro-sleep event. The fact Tesla enabled you / allowed something that dangerous 4 more times without your wife knowing and without you pulling over because it was no longer safe for you to drive is way more important than how great it is that Tesla is keeping people on the road who shouldn't be.
     
  3. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    Don't these systems also detect when eyes are closed or closing or distracted into another direction? I suppose you could always use a pair of these;

    Screenshot_20250816_110804_Chrome.jpg

    But sure, worry about the one person who acknowledges a condition, not the 99 other that go about their drives never saying anything to anybody about the same condition w/out Autopilot . just priceless
    .
     
  4. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    My late wife was narcoleptic. That the car handled the micro-sleeps without a problem was a relief to both of us. In her case, she could tell when she had to stop at a rest stop ... usually by driving faster. Once parked, she would 'nod out' and after 30 minutes, we could continue the trip. But this brings up something that still bothers me.

    When I read of middle of the night, one car accidents, especially with older drivers, I suspect sleep apnea. But there is no universal or wide spread knowledge about how to detect this in ordinary folks. Narcolepsy also often first occurs in teenage years, another potential source of one car accidents.

    As for:
    A safety system worked and you blame Tesla?

    What about seat belts; air bags; crush zones; safety glass, and; other modern safety systems. Do you blame them too?

    I once got a ride with a coworker whose passenger side seat belt was stuff between the back and seat cushion along with crayons and candy wrappers. As I dug it out and asked her about it and she claimed "seat belts trap people in car fires and drown them in rivers." I didn't say another word as she smoked her cigarette.

    Bob Wilson
     
    #4 bwilson4web, Aug 16, 2025 at 1:28 PM
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2025 at 1:36 PM
  5. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    happy to see full autonomous systems improving. i would like more regulation though
     
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  6. mikefocke

    mikefocke Prius v Three 2012, Avalon 2011

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    I got a sleep study done where they monitor you overnight and can pinpoint how many times apnea occurs. I now sleep with a night guard that displaces my lower jaw forward. Have for 20 years. Never had an incident like you describe your wife having.
     
  7. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    That's because sleep apnea drop offs and narcolepsy drop offs or by no means the same condition.
     
  8. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Exactly! If someone falls asleep while driving it should be illegal for them to continue driving. And thank god for safety features that protect people from serious injury or death, but for the car to continue to allow the driver to fall asleep 4 more times without safely parking and disabling the vehicle is precisely why so many people have lost their lives abusing the system and thinking its ok for them to take a nap while they're driving.
     
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  9. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    or play video games
     
  10. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    So how many times is acceptable?

    This is the version I am running.
    upload_2025-8-16_15-4-9.jpeg

    Bob Wilson
     
    #10 bwilson4web, Aug 16, 2025 at 3:55 PM
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2025 at 4:04 PM
  11. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    I think the family members of loved ones who died while they were sleeping in their Tesla while it drove itself would probably be able to come up with a fair number.
     
  12. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    There was a trial and a jury selected award. Not being part of it, I really don’t have a dog in that fight.

    I can only relate to driving since March 26, 2019 in a Model 3 that I paid $1,200 for Autopilot. A month later, it handled 5 micro-sleeps perfectly. Somehow I get the impression you think it should have done something else. Perhaps I’m not understanding what?

    I did trade-in a 2017 Prius Prime. Would that have handled my micro-sleeps better? Would having my narcoleptic wife been better?

    I don’t know what that other trial was all about other than the award seems high. I’d have to read the particulars. Usually awards that high get challenged with an appeal. So that case continues.

    Perhaps the semi-trailer involvement played a part?

    Bob Wilson
     
  13. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    5 seems a bit excessive... Once or twice is understandable, but it's dangerous behavior to have it happen more often, especially because being that tired, even when you aren't physically asleep, is equivalent to drunk driving in terms of your reaction time.

    I had it happen to me once when I was 19 years old and once when I was 35 years old, but that was in my first couple hundred thousand miles... Now that I'm almost up to 1/2 million miles driven I won't allow that to happen.

    As someone who drives as much as 13 hours in one sitting the second I feel like I could doze off I pull over and take a 10-20minute nap and it makes a huge difference as long as I got enough sleep the night before.

    According to this website quoted below falling asleep while driving and killing yourself or someone else costs our country $109 billion a year:

    ------------------------------
    "Drowsy Driving Prevention Week, held every year during the first full week of November, is a good time to remember that drowsy driving is impaired driving.

    According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 25 adult drivers report having fallen asleep while driving, and many more admit to driving when they were sleep-deprived.

    These startling figures show how prevalent drowsy driving is. What drivers may not realize is how much drowsy driving puts them – and others – at risk. In fact, an estimated 6,400 people die annually in crashes involving drowsy driving, according to the National Sleep Foundation.

    Impact of Drowsiness on Driving
    Driving while drowsy is similar to driving under influence of alcohol:

    ● Drivers’ reaction times, awareness of hazards and ability to sustain attention all worsen the drowsier the driver
    ● Driving after going more than 20 hours without sleep is the equivalent of driving with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.08% – the U.S. legal limit

    A driver might not even know when he or she is fatigued because signs of fatigue are hard to identify. Some people may also experience micro-sleep – short, involuntary periods of inattention. In the 4 or 5 seconds a driver experiences micro-sleep, at highway speed, the vehicle will travel the length of a football field.

    Prevalence of Drowsy Driving Crashes
    It can be difficult to know how many drowsy-driving crashes occur each year, as it is difficult to determine whether a driver was drowsy at the time of a crash. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data shows that of the drowsy-driving crashes reported by police in 2022, 693 people died.

    A study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety estimated that 328,000 drowsy driving crashes occur annually, more than three times the police-reported number. The same study found that 109,000 of those drowsy driving crashes resulted in an injury and about 6,400 were fatal. The researchers suggest the prevalence of drowsy driving fatalities is more than 350% greater than reported.

    Beyond the human toll is the economic one. NHTSA estimates fatigue-related crashes resulting in injury or death cost society $109 billion annually, not including property damage." https://www.nsc.org/road/safety-topics/fatigued-driver?
     
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  14. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Modern, driver assistance systems work more than just once. They detect cars in blind spots and handled unexpected traffic events much faster and safer than humans. Tesla cameras see further at night, even detecting pedestrians dressed in black crossing the street.

    About your angst: https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-EDAD116F-3C73-40FA-A861-68112FF7961F.html

    upload_2025-8-16_21-51-6.png

    In April 2019, the earlier version worked by detecting driver inputs to the steering wheel. It was easily spoofed by those who didn't care for the "nags" (or seat belts.) But I'm not the only one: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/suffered-medical-emergency-while-driving.187350/

    upload_2025-8-16_22-1-43.png

    Stuff happens well beyond sleep apnea. There is a YouTube channel showing what Tesla does:


    Bob Wilson
     
    #14 bwilson4web, Aug 16, 2025 at 10:40 PM
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2025 at 11:03 PM
  15. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    ah yes - the "family members" of the loved ones that died. That all too familiar song & dance, "strain out the Flies yet they eat an elephant" ....
    funny - how people worry & ring their hands over the Tesla caused accident/sleeping person ..... rather than worry about the other 99. 39% that are killed by good old-fashioned inattentiveness, tiredness, drunkenness, slow reactions, people that are loaded, or texting, or reading, or phoning or disciplining/calming kids down - Etc.
    The bald fact is that ALL safety systems save lives. Save lives from what? All of the above actions of inattentive tiredness drunkenness slow reactions, people that are loaded or texting or reading or phoning or disciplining/calming kids down Etc.
    So why not do away with dynamic cruise control or Lane assist? Shouldn't people be in an alert enough condition to deal with those issues as well? But nooooooo, let's do away with Autopilot. What, until it's perfect 100% of the time? Well then why not do away with the other features like Dynamic cruise control that doesn't save all lives all the time. Yeah great solution except all that will do is increase accidents.
     
    #15 hill, Aug 17, 2025 at 8:46 AM
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2025 at 9:00 AM
  16. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Until they don't... One of the ways robots suck at driving safely is they can't differentiate the body language and eye contact of a pedestrian waiving the vehicle past before they cross the street versus a more urgent situation where they waive at the vehicle to stop so they can get across the street.

    Or even worse, the person who almost died by a self-driving Cruise taxi in San Francisco and got them banned from operating self-driving taxis in the state and CEO resigning and GM pulling all its VC funding because of an accident where a person was hit by a car and thrown in the path of a waymo vehicle which ran over them. And then rather than responding to everyone screaming and yelling at the Waymo car robot to stop it kept trying to pull over "to a safe spot" and dragged the seriously victim under the car 20 feet.

    Turns out the programmers of these self-driving cars never wrote any code for what to do when a person is trapped under their vehicle, nor did they ever think of the importance of having a camera under the vehicle or responding to a sense of panic on the faces of everyone trying to get the car to stop.

    And worst of all the arrogant hubris of all these young overpaid white guys, who exist from VC funding not actual real world competence, tried to cover up the dragging incident and didn't mention it to the state, but the city's police report did and Cruise taxis will never be licensed to run their self-driving taxis again in the state. The same is going to eventually happen once Elon's constantly delayed taxis hit the road.
     
  17. frodoz737

    frodoz737 Top Wrench

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