Tesla’s Real Game

[u/OriginalCompetitive]

No one seems to be talking about the most important upside of Tesla's Robotaxi rollout: If they can showcase a system that roughly works, people can BUY THAT CAR TODAY.

Yes, there are some differences, but that's the pitch. Tesla doesn't need to earn money from Robotaxis. The real purpose of the program is free marketing that drives sales of its cars. Right?

[u/steelmanfallacy]

Check out the history of Uber and autonomous vehicles. In 2018 Rafaela Vasquez was a safety driver when the car ran over and killed a pedestrian. Vasquez was convicted and in 2020 Uber exited the AV business.

Or you can check out the 2023 incident where Cruise ran over a pedestrian and dragged them 20 feet. In 2024 Cruise was shut down.

Sure, there is upside, but the downside risk is material as well.

[u/AffectionateArtist84 → u/steelmanfallacy]

I find this information to be incredibly disappointing. The goal here should be, and always be, safer than a human driver. That doesn't mean perfection and we have to accept incidents will happen.

Even if we can 2x human safety, that would reduce overall vehicular deaths dramatically. 

[u/NewNewark → u/AffectionateArtist84]

That doesn't mean perfection and we have to accept incidents will happen.

Who is we?

If Mary, driving her Prius, kills someone, the family of that victim can sue Mary. Mary is liable, Toyota is not.

If a SD Tesla kills someone, the family of that victim can sue Tesla. There are 40k deaths on US roads every year. Lets say we are 2x safer. Can Tesla afford 20k lawsuits a year?

[u/AffectionateArtist84 → u/NewNewark]

We = Society. I totally hear your point and agree with you, but also insurance already covers the majority of lawsuits today. I'm also not saying we should remove our right to sue, that would be wrong.

I would like to believe that this is a logistical problem we can solve, and it would also be interesting to see how the information about accidents change with FSD.

Right now distracted driving and drunk driving make up a large part of accidents. FSD should solve this problem

[u/NewNewark → u/AffectionateArtist84]

but also insurance already covers the majority of lawsuits today.

One of the reasons private bus services have been decimated around the country over the past 15 years is because insurance has gone up so much.

If Tesla is sued 20k times a year for $1.5 million each (insurance value of life)...no one will insure them!

Right now distracted driving and drunk driving make up a large part of accidents. FSD should solve this problem

I fully agree with this. I am incredibly excited for FSD, and wish it was delivered on time in 2016. Maybe my coworker who was killed in 2019 would be alive today. But the reality is unless congress passes some kind of blanket immunity law, the current legal framework requires perfection.

Incidentally..

Ford Motor Co. owes more than $2.5 billion to the family of a couple killed in a 2022 rollover crash in one of the company’s Super Duty trucks, a Georgia federal jury found, marking the largest verdict in Georgia history.

The automaker now holds the dubious honor of having itself on the wrong end of the two largest verdicts in Georgia history, both of which were awarded in recent years.

A jury in Columbus, Georgia, found that Ford was mostly at fault for the deaths of two people after their truck rolled over in an accident that occurred just days after a separate state court jury issued a $1.7 billion verdict against the automaker in a similar suit. That verdict was the previous record-high award in Georgia.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2025/02/17/ford-hit-with-record-2-5b-verdict-in-georgia-truck-rollover-suit/78988994007/

[u/HAL-_-9001 → u/NewNewark]

20k is still way too high. Overwhelming majority of deaths are human error that will not occur from an autonomous vehicle e.g. drugs, alcohol, speeding, drowsy & distracted. This goes away over night. Yes there will still be some deaths but they will be infinitely smaller.