Tesla autopilot car owners injured in a collision while using the driver-assistance feature Autopilot has sued Tesla Inc for the second time in 3 months.
According to the complaint, Jeremy Banner, 50, died in March after the Model 3 sedan he was driving failed to brake or maneuver to escape a semi-trailer that ran a traffic light on a Florida highway. The lawsuit also lists the semi’s driver as a defendant. Around 10 seconds before the crash, Banner activated the Autopilot system.
Banner is survived by his three children and parents. During a news conference, Trey Lytal, a spokesperson representing the Banner family, said, “We’re not only concerned about the implications of this defect to the Banner family, which are awful.” “These are faulty products.”
Here are some of the claims for Tesla autopilot:
- It is commonly argued that the Autopilot mechanism should have done enough to avoid an impending car collision and that if it did not, this would be seen by some as a fault or flaw in the given capabilities, therefore the automaker will bear some blame.
- Typically, it is claimed that the Autopilot feature caused the vehicle to crash or failed to properly steer the vehicle in a controlled way, resulting in a malfunction or deficiency.
- It is almost always claimed because once enabled, Autopilot has a tendency to unintentionally deceive human drivers into the mistaken assumption that the car is driving itself, causing them to become unobservant, which, while acknowledging the driver’s fault, the viewpoint is that the automaker probably knew of this proclivity for drivers to be lulled and still has taken inadequate steps to address it.
- It is often assumed that calling the device “Autopilot” is an example of misrepresenting the real capabilities of the driving-related system since drivers presumably feel that something that can be called an autopilot means that the car can drive it completely and that a human driver is not needed.
First before, it’s important to understand the different stages of car driving autonomy, such as the difference between full self-driving vehicles and semi-autonomous partly automated cars.
The Different Levels of Self-Driving Vehicles
True self-driving cars are those in which the AI drives the vehicle solely on its own, with no human assistance needed.
This self-driving car are classified as Levels 4 and 5, while a car that needs a human driver to share the driving effort is classified as Level 2 or 3. Cars that share the driving role are referred to as semi-autonomous, and they usually have a range of automatic add-ons such as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).
At Level 5, there is no absolute self-driving vehicle, and we don’t even know if it would be practical, let alone how long it would take to get there.
Tesla Litigation and Self-Driving Cars
In real self-driving cars at Levels 4 and 5, there would be no human driver involved in the driving task.
- Many of the people on board will be passengers.
- The AI is in charge of walking.
- Teslas on the road today are neither Level 4 nor Level
What’s the big deal with that?
There is no need for a human driver and no contact between the AI and the human driver if you have a genuine self-driving vehicle (Level 4 and Level 5), which is controlled entirely by the AI.
The driver is still of the driver’s seat in a Level 2 vehicle.
The twist is that the human driver and the Level 2 or Level 3 car are actually co-driving the vehicle, which may cause difficulty and problems during the driving attempt.
The human driver does not recognize the distinction between their need to drive and the driving system’s ability to drive, and this kind of inconsistency can lead to some unfavorable outcomes in the heat of the moment when making split-second decisions while behind the wheel.
Returning to the latest lawsuit, the following six suspected causes of action or counts were filed:
- Strict food liability (design flaws)
- Strict product liability (design flaws) (failure to warn)
- Negligence
- Wrongful death
- Loss of consortium
- Surviving intervention
The Situation on the Road
This depiction of the driving circumstances is based on the filed complaint and published news media reports, but bear in mind that as the litigation progresses, the facts will certainly be scrutinized more closely to determine what ultimately occurred.