• chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    This is an interesting one. The jury actually only faulted Tesla for 33% of the total blame, but since the driver wasn’t a defendant in the suit, he doesn’t have to pay the remaining 2/3rds. I really struggled with this one because to me it felt like Tesla was being attacked, but looking at it in the full light of day it ended up being pretty fair. The driver completely ignored the road while looking for their cellphone which had dropped to the floor, and then blamed the Tesla for not alerting him of the intersection. That leans pretty hard on the driver being irresponsible to me, and the jury felt the same way, which is why they said that Tesla was only 33% to blame. So, Tesla trying to overturn this verdict is them trying to absolve themselves of all fault, which I don’t agree with, and I think the judge did the right thing. Tesla advertised a feature of a car that failed to work in the way it was described. Should the driver have been more present? Yep. Should Tesla still be partially responsible for the fault in their machinery? Yep, again.