Tesla Killing Customers to Find Flaws in Their Software

Tesla just took a page out of Microcrap's play book.

Unfortunately Tesla's system crashes have much more permanent consequences.

Exactly.

I wish you'd rethink this post and alter it, you can make your point in a way that's less offensive

What i find offensive is Tesla using customers to find the flaws in their software, in this instance killing the customer because they admit their software is "experimental".

That's wilful criminal incompetence.

Is common knowledge that a large corporation can sacrifice a certain number of lives for profit.

of course then there's a tipping number, where a recall actually takes place.

So this post is offensive but a trivialized sketch of the atom bomb trajectory isn't?
Del

trivial? it was the actual drawing from a crew member on the flight from that mission

(Groan) Your ignorance of the English language is breathtaking...
Try parsing the sentence in my post.
The sketch was trivialized... NOT the sketch was trivial.
EG. Your use of it was trivial.... the sketch isn't trivial.
Del

Bloody Hell - we've totally obliterated the language on this side the big pond, so take it easy on him.

Listen there are people that defy the rules by drinking and driving, and everybody pays the price($44bil per year)...I'd say the loss of one rule breaking guinea pig vs 10,000 rule breaking drunk drivers puts this in perspective....We need autonomous cars, and the sooner the better....

http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Impaired_Driving/index.html

You make a good argument, except in the case of the Ethan Couch's/OJ Simpson's of the world.

Their crimes are much more obscene than this thread.

Referring to the deceased as a rule breaking Guinea Pig is rather crass.

So according to your logic, Tesla still has 9,999 wilful killings in hand before it becomes an issue for you?

Would the same go with gun control as to drunk drivers?

are is it pick and choose time again.

I know I am powerless to stop this insanity of autopiloted vehicles so I am volunteering for the jury that hears the civil case where the little 6 year old boy ran out into the road chasing his ball and got run over by the autopiloted vehicle that didn't have the sensors or algorithm to detect and respond to little boys-chasing-balls.

The sky's the limit for the award and hopefully that'll quash the entire industry, but until then we're all in danger of always-beta firmware and drivers who think they're passengers because an autopilot is driving.

Re: "Tesla Killing Customers to Find Flaws in Their Software"?

Give me a break, They knew damn ur over your head) and should not put yourself in that situation

well the auto-pilot was in "Beta Mode", unlike aircraft auto-pilot, that has a fairly good track record. But, shit can still go South on the pilot diver.

If you can not stay on top of things happening around you then (you), need to turn the controls over to someone that can .... Drive/Fly Safely

Distracted driving is what I would call this instance.

I call it incompetence .... to drive/ fly anything and rely on it (with/without the understanding of the systems) is plain ignorance, in another words; If you can not handle the vehicle, then get a bicycle. ‘At least you won't kill an innocent ‘by-stander’! Other than yourself

It was Tesla that named it Autopilot with a capital A.

Marketing a system as Autopilot that isn't an autopilot is at the root of the problem because autopilot implies hands free to the majority of people who relate it to the aviation world where it literally means hands free.

Putting out subsequent press releases denying it's an actual autopilot only reveals their intended double speak.

Are you sure it wasn't Otto Pilot?

I think you have a valid point here. Certainly the name was an overreach and it can be reasonably argued that it could lead to a misunderstanding regarding what it does and doesn't do. Tesla should have to change the name of the drive to something less suggestive.

Even flying aircraft with "autopilot", you still have to stay vigilant with whats going on around you. Here's a list of aircraft crash caused by autopilot.

Yes, it's not "auto pilot" at all. Instead it is an assistant. They state that a driver needs to pay attention so he/she can take over quickly. Watching a DVD is paying attention!!??

The early news article I saw said it sheared the top off the car. They did not say the obvious--that it also sheared the driver's head off. Nothing I have seen said that, so maybe they're avoiding the gory.

Okay?

How many millions have been killed in auto related accidents in the last 100 or so years while auto manufacturers figured things out and how many still die each year now while they figure out how to make things as cheaply as possible and still legally get away with it?

Cars don't kill people, people in cars kill people....

Definitely in a downtrend....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

"Cars don't kill people, people in cars kill people...." Neither do guns"! Like everything else ..... If you can not control it, then don't buy it. Plain and simple!!

Whilst a fine mantra the problem is that you can NOT stop people (in the US) purchasing

fire-arms

vehicles

and then operating them as they see fit.

I see a father managed to shoot his son at a firing range when a hot casing landed on him got caught up in his shirt and as he tried to shake it out he squeezed the trigger. This is an awful accident but any movement of the pistol (in this case) from strictly down the range should trigger ejection from the range. I got such a row from my instructor when learning to shoot on an archery range when i turned to ask a question and the bow moved to only 45 degrees from the shooting line (ie still down range)

We all jump if something hot lands on us and the shot that killed his son was an unlucky ricochet but these things are lethal, clearly he doesn't understand how to control that lethality.

The difference is Tesla is deliberately and knowingly foisting an untested inadequate system on their customers expecting the customers to find the flaws for them.

That's straight out of Silicon Valley's playbook where Musk came from.

Microsoft, Apple et al do it all the time but the consequences of expecting their customers to do their beta testing in those cases are some monetary losses and some keyboard rage.

In this case the customer doing unpaid testing for Tesla found the Tesla cameras can't even see a broadsided tractor trailer, there was no radar backup and he died for his contributions to Tesla's bottom line.

It sounds like you are applying a different standard to Tesla than to the other automotive companies because the part that failed was software rather than a brake or airbag. I don't hear you demanding all cars be taken off the road because defective parts exist. You could just as easily categorize defective parts as "companies testing the effectiveness of their manufacturing process".

They don't do to deliberately - Tesla does.

Neither does Tesla. When did Tesla ever suggest that they were using deaths as a way of debugging their software. All they said was they are using the additional data obtained by thousands of drivers using their software to further analyze and improve the software. That seems like an admirable approach. That's exactly what causes recalls to happen with regular cars. Same thing.

I think the real problem here is Tesla named something 'autopilot' and then told people "don't treat it like an autopilot". That is irresponsible.

i didn't say they suggested that.

This death was a side effect of their approach of using customers to test their systems.

How much air do you gulp to enable speech via your nether orifice

Why don't you just go somewhere else to have your tantrum?

So what? Other transport systems do it from time to time. There is risk in all human endeavour.

Name one.

Name one transport system that has deliberately foisted untested unproven unsafe products on their customers in the expectation that their customers will find their flaws for them, thus saving them billions in R&D costs while the paying customers get sweet nothing for their efforts, in this case pointing out the flaws in Tesla's cameras and radar and losing his life for his contribution.

Of course. That's the best way to find the worst flaws. Voice of experience, so long as it is someone else's experience.

Dudes, there is a disclaimer of the semi auto that nobody mentions here, you just bash tesla over and over again: keep your hands on the stearing wheel at all times ! They state this and it is an acknowledgement of the limitations of the feature. The good thing is finally the talk about who would be to blame / liability in an autonomus car accident, with a real case.

That's been said before in this very same thread.

imo, its human nature that pushes the limit on what they can get away with... In Tesla's case, it was imperative to listen to some tunes.

But that may be a little premature...

dude

This is what I found. I don't own a Tesla, so I can't tell you if it's true, but knowing how Subaru's system works, I think it is.

"In a statement, Tesla said that Autopilot "is by far the most advanced driver assistance system on the road, but it does not turn a Tesla into an autonomous vehicle and does not allow the driver to abdicate responsibility."
Legally, Tesla may have a solid defense under Florida law, with safeguards, telling drivers they cannot cede control every time they engage Autopilot.
Tesla itself rolled back some features in January, including reducing the speed at which Autopilot can operate on residential streets.
If the system senses a driver is not paying attention, it makes visual and auditory warnings to place their hands on the wheel or take over immediately. The car can sense whether a driver has hands on the wheel."

I vote for carry on Tesla. I would note that road maps and GPS have been perfected to the point that the system can know of every single uncontrolled crossing ( like this fatal one) and can make a hands-on and sound alert so the driver is made more aware of the impending risk zone.

So even if one was just killed, implementation of the Tesla system should proceed through beta, gradually making improvements as there will be net life saving.

Yes, the silence of the thousands of people saved by Tesla type of autonomous vehicles is thunderingly loud...

I have said this before - these are very dangerous vehicles until ALL potential failures are located. Tesla tells you to hang onto the steering wheel and monitor the road ahead. It can be very difficult at times to do that when one is actually driving, as a number of accidents are caused by distracted drivers and drivers who are asleep behind the wheel. Now, add to that the fact that all you are doing is watching mileposts go by. How alert can a driver (passenger by default) stay when his/her input is not required for hundreds of miles? What do many frustrated parents do with a fussy baby? Put them in a car and the gentle motion rocks them to sleep. That should tell us something about how alert a driver (passenger by default) can remain in an autonomous car. Wake up people!

Very well said! GA to you!

Everyone is allowed their opinion in this country, no matter how poorly research or fallacy based it may be. Statistically and factually your argument is lacking, but feel free to make it. Those who know the facts will ignore you and those who just like to hate on anything new will adore you. Choose your audience and play to the house my friend.

one thing I don't care for is this....

"Everyone is allowed their opinion in this country, no matter how poorly research or fallacy based it may be. Statistically and factually your argument is lacking, but feel free to make it. Those who know the facts will ignore you and those who just like to hate on anything new will adore you. Choose your audience and play to the house my friend."

The reason why is its just your opinion... a condescending one, but an opinion none the less of which also applies to yourself.

If you don't know, or can't refute it,...move along.

Or it is not worth refuting my friend. I find that attempting to enlighten certain people is a fools errand. And yes, opinions are like ...... Some produce solid results, others have diarrhea. Both are serving their function. One is simply easier to deal with and the other is best avoided. IMHO

How I see it, this is technology being applied in a new and difficult process. And to get it correct, it will evolve. The path of evolution of this improvements are the ones we are talking about.

And I look at the history even to minor improvements.

They're are a few examples, but I'll use the Ford Pinto as an example.

I like to point out the Cost/Benefit (aka the Pinto Memo)

An excerpt:

The analysis compared the cost of repairs to the societal costs for injuries and deaths related to fires in cases of vehicle roll overs for all cars sold in the US by all manufactures. The values assigned to serious burn injuries and loss of life were based on values calculated by NHTSA in 1972.^[68] In the memo Ford estimated the cost of fuel system modifications to reduce fire risks in roll over events to be $11 per car across 12.5 million cars and light trucks (all manufactures), for a total of $137 million. The design changes were estimated to save 180 burn deaths and 180 serious injuries per year, a cost to society of $49.5 million.

So really, this has always existed. and the Pinto memo was extreme, but it continues today on a smaller scale where they weight the tort liability costs rather than the generalized cost to society.

Ok, now this is a discussion. And your point is valid and well documented. You could have just as easily used the GM ignition switch where there is evidence of intentional cover up as well as the actuarial cost benefit issue. This is where Tesla is outstanding. We, as shareholders know no more about this than any good Google search can turn up. The reason is simple, Tesla is stepping back and allowing the Feds to do their job without having an army of lawyers and lobbyists involved or launching a major PR ad campaign designed to sway public opinion which is very common when major companies get caught doing something wrong. AS for what actually happened in Williston that day, all we actually "know" is someone died in a car crash like 1.3 million do each year. It appears from the data given to the FHP that the car was on autopilot and that the driver was not in control of the vehicle and neither the driver or the autopilot made an effort to stop the car before impact. The actual facts and details will be made known when the investigation is finished and the appropriate actions will be taken. I am fine with that since Tesla is not a megacorp that can spend millions to influence the outcome. We can postulate, hypothesize, and debate the maybes and what ifs all day, and that is fine. But to state that we know something that cannot be verified is bad form.

That was one of the latest.... or the GM tailgate cable,... or the..... But these was well documented.

And that is where the earlier posts is basing their 'opinions' on. Statistically, there's a good chance they are right... with that said, they could be wrong also.

That's true... all the facts aren't in with the Tesla mishap, and its too bad that some of it got leaked out...

And the problem I have with your statement;

The reason is simple, Tesla is stepping back and allowing the Feds to do their job without having an army of lawyers and lobbyists involved or launching a major PR ad campaign designed to sway public opinion which is very common when major companies get caught doing something wrong.

Is the trust in depending on the federal government to actually do their job has diminished greatly.

You're wrong.

Tesla is not "stepping back and allowing the Feds to do their job without having an army of lawyers and lobbyists involved or launching a major PR ad campaign designed to sway public opinion"

Tesla told regulators about Autopilot crash 9 days after accident.

http://www.autonews.com/article/20160705/OEM11/160709944/tesla-told-regulators-about-autopilot-crash-9-days-after-accident?cciid=email-autonews-daily

Um, did you read that piece? It doesn't back up your assertion very well at all. In fact, it is a rewrite of a poison pill piece by Fortune and not an objective review of the facts.

If Tesla acknowledges it took them 9 days to report the accident to the Feds then who are we to argue with them?

I guess they forgot the cost of an outraged society, damage to reputation, resulting in loss of market share...Enter honda and Toyota....

"In 1964 and 1966, public pressure grew in the U.S. to increase the safety of cars, culminating with the publishing of Unsafe at Any Speed, by Ralph Nader, an activist lawyer, and "Accidental Death and Disability—The Neglected Disease of Modern Society" by the National Academy of Sciences.

In 1966, Congress held a series of highly publicized hearings regarding highway safety, passed legislation to make installation of seat belts mandatory, and enacted Pub.L. 89–563,Pub.L. 89–564, and Pub.L. 89–670 which created the U.S. Department of Transportation on October 15, 1966."

..."NHTSA was officially established in 1970 by the Highway Safety Act of 1970 (Title II of Pub.L. 91–605, 84 Stat. 1713, enacted December 31, 1970, at 84 Stat. 1739). In 1972, the Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act (Pub.L. 92–513, 86 Stat. 947, enacted October 20, 1972) expanded NHTSA's scope to include consumer information programs. Since then, automobiles have become far better in protecting their occupants in vehicle impacts. The number of deaths on American highways hovers around 33,000 annually,^[7] a lower death rate per vehicle-mile traveled than in the 1960s.

NHTSA has conducted numerous high-profile investigations of automotive safety issues, including the Audi 5000/60 Minutes affair, the Ford Explorer rollover problem and the Toyota: Sticky accelerator pedal problem. The agency has introduced a proposal to mandate Electronic Stability Control on all passenger vehicles by the 2012 model year. This technology was first brought to public attention in 1997, with the Swedish moose test."...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Highway_Traffic_Safety_Administration

Too focused on cost, and less on public opinion... if I understand it correctly, there was also a public misconception also with this (from my link)

"The public understanding of the cost benefit analysis has contributed to the mythology of the Ford Pinto case. Time magazine said the memo was one of the automotive industry's "most notorious paper trails."^[39] A common misconception is that the document considered Ford's tort liability costs rather than the generalized cost to society and applied to the annual sales of all passenger cars, not just Ford vehicles. The general misunderstanding of the document as presented by Mother Jones gave it an operational significance it never had."

This is a little confusing for me... did the public feel Ford was too concern for the bottom line, and felt it cheaper to pay the victims or victims family off?

The public took this at face value...This started the backlash against the car manufacturers in the US, whipped into a frenzy by "Ralph's raiders" smack dab in the middle of the protest movement in America at that time, led to the development of the Nation Highway Traffic Safety Board and the forced march to safer vehicles...

I agree with that...

The Audi Unintended Acceleration problem wasn't really a problem with the car or a defective design. Audi was taking away a large share of business in the mid 80's. Their 5000 was a nice driving, very good looking car and I remember seeing lots and lots of them. After the media got done with them, they almost left the US market. It took NHTSA over three years to find out that it was the driver who was pushing the wrong pedal.

Toyota's recent run in with NHTSA wound up not being Toyota's fault. NHTSA found the problem to be driver error - pushing the wrong pedal. I did a lot of research when it first happened and I found that Toyota had plenty of redundant security engineered in. NHTSA blew it again.

I've heard some people claim that NHTSA is a gov't agency who saves the domestics at just the right time. Is it true? I don't know, but it is a coincidence that Audi got crushed, just when they were selling a lot of cars. When Toyota was beating the big three and soon to be #1 in the US, they got hit with the unintended acceleration.

The reason I'm very upset about this is that Honda and Toyota previously were very good about backing their cars. Thousands of Toyota pick ups were fixed under warranty, after the warranty ended (V-6 head gasket problems). Honda gave owners a free 7 year/100,000 mile warranty on the transmission of early 2000 Honda V-6 cars, vans and SUV's.

Cruise control has been around for years but no one blames Ford if some driver rams back into the back of another car because they weren't ready to disengage cruise control when the situation dictated it. Tesla was pretty clear to their drivers that their drive feature wasn't an autopilot. That the driver needed to be prepared to take over if the situation required it.

Also, data has demonstrated that the Tesla drive has saved many lives. People die in car accidents every day due to human error, and make no mistake, this Tesla death also was human error (using the drive in a way it was not intended).

Tesla has stated their cameras couldn't see a broadsided tractor trailer.

How do you turn that into driver error?

Like I said, the autopilot is not meant to be used all the time, just like you wouldn't use cruise control all the time. This was clearly a complicated situation where the driver should have taken control of the car rather than blindly trust autopilot. Again, you wouldn't use cruise control in bumper to bumper traffic and act surprised when you hit another car.

The problem here is that Tesla named something "autopilot" and turned around and warned people it "wasn't an autopilot". That seems a bit irresponsible.

Here is a nice, objective, fact based write up. Who would have expected VanityFair to be a factual source. http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/how-the-media-screwed-up-the-fatal-tesla-accident I still do not understand how people have become so vested in Gas powered cars to point of irrational hating, but that is not unusual in America these days sadly.

That article completely ignored and failed to mention the fact that Tesla's cameras failed to see a broadsided truck completely blocking the car's view of the road.

Instead of blaming Tesla's cameras or Tesla's "let them suck it and we'll see what happens" approach to R&D being done for them by their customers, the writer blames the media.

Fact based write-up?

Not on your life.

It's an opinion, based on "facts" contorted by the reporter for the sake of sensationalism.

Case in point:

Reporter said, "The Department of Transportation notes that 94 percent of car accidents are caused by human error."

"NHTSA report says, " NHTSA is using all of its available tools to accelerate the deployment of technologies that can eliminate 94 percent of fatal crashes involving human error,”

Nowhere does it say that 94% of all crashes are caused by human error.

So much for fact based reporting.

"Why are their cameras looking at the sky and not the road?"

Their cameras look at the sky instead of the road. If you are in your car, your visual sensors (eyes) are looking ahead (and to the sides and to the rear via mirrors) to know what you may run into. When one looks ahead one may see the horizon (especially in Florida). Looking ahead, what's in view is what's below the horizon and what's above. If the sensors are not able to distinguish the difference between bright sky and a particular color vehicle, the brain of the autopilot won't stop the vehicle. Just as if your sensors (eyes) are not able to distinguish something in front of you, you may neglect to avoid a collision. This happens when it rains heavily

Fault Tesla for not having "good enough" visual sensors, don't criticize them for looking the sensors looking at the sky instead of the road, as that's not what the sensors are doing.

The cameras rely on the lane markings to keep the car in its lane.

How is that not looking at the road?

There are no lane markings in the sky.

Of course the cameras look at the lanes. I did not say they don't look at the road. They should be looking at the exact same things as a human does, which includes the road, lanes, down the road in front of the vehicle, to the sides of the vehicle, and behind the vehicle.

It's not enough to stay in the lane, the car must also not drive into objects.

Let's experiment. Take a camera (most phones have one or use an old fashioned type), go stand in the road (making sure no cars are approaching), look to the horizon in the distance, aim the camera in that direction and take a picture. You will notice road and sky in the picture. The camera should be looking at both.

Looking ahead not only allows the car to avoid potential obstacles, the algorithms can use what it sees to detect changes in lane direction (curves and intersections), upcoming hills (reaching the peak or valley).

You said "Their cameras look at the sky instead of the road."

That's the point I was answering.

My mistake, that sentence should have read "Their cameras don't look at the sky instead of the road". It's not mutually exclusive. The visual sensors should have both in view depending on the landscape.

I lost the post where the poster asked to list one item where any other industry used the customer to test their product.

They're are plenty in various industry, but with this, it was unknowns that were revealed. And are actually used in training engineers. But it was the end user/customer that discovered them.

examples:

1.) The Window design of the De Havilland Comet which were square, that was later discovered to be stress concentrations. Since that discovery, they are now round. And is now a standard.

2.) The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, collapsed was later discover to be caused by because of aeroelastic flutter

3.) Now this is negligence. The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, this was a known problem that was ignored, just to satisfy Governmental Bureaucratic pressure from the agency's own Bureaucracy.

There are more. But this is enough for you to get the gist.

And that basically, there is a price to pay for progress, and that price was always there.

The first two of your examples were design mistakes, genuine design mistakes which are sometimes made in industry.

They were not deliberately done as a way for the customer to do the R&D instead of the manufacturer doing it.

The third example you gave had a lot of complicated factors affecting it and is not really comparable to Tesla's approach of expecting their customers to do their R&D.

If Tesla's autonomous technology is so good what is wrong with setting up situations at test tracks where they can exaggerate conditions to really put their technology through its paces instead of foisting it on their customers and expecting their customers to pay for the de-bugging of their systems?

Why couldn't they test their cameras against a broadsided trailer spread across the road on a sunny day, on a winter's day, in snow, on ice, in rain - without a human driving the test car?

They could test their cars driving towards it at 20 mph, 50 mph, 100 mph and 150 mph or any other speed to see if it actually stopped, and if it did they could be more certain it would work in the real world.

The reality is they don't want to spend the money to do it the hard way so they end up foisting their R&D on their customers - just like all Silicon Valley startups.

If they can't afford to do R&D on an important aspect like safety they need to get out of the business because safety R&D is a costly business.

Here's just one example of those high costs that traditional car manufacturers recognize needs to be undertaken if they want to preserve their reputations.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-04-07/in-swedens-frigid-north-car-testing-is-hot

So, your saying that Tesla knew about these mistakes and deliberately let these these mistakes slide?

They were not deliberately done as a way for the customer to do the R&D instead of the manufacturer doing it.

You are no longer making sense. Because these were unknowns, which R&D will reveal. So Yes, you can say that the end-user was used for R&D.

Also, if what you say is, Basically Tesla is sacrificing safety for profit by intentionally have the general public discover the short comings, And when an incident happens, that is called Punitive. And that is a case attorneys love, if it can be proved.

As far as the third example I gave, the launch was given as a go even if it went against recommended safety standards.

So? This proves that the general public has no ability to learn from past behaviors and events. I, for one, will no longer run out and buy that new product as soon as it is released. How many hover board accidents have there been? I think I heard they are ALL being recalled. First generation products of any type are going to have unforeseen flaws in them. As someone who tests process skids regularly, I can tell you that what works in the testing in the producers plant, will not definitely function properly in the real world. No testing can find everything that could possibly fail, because there are variables the engineer can not predict. You think that GM could ever envision that their defective switches were going to fail because consumers just had to load up keychains with as many trinkets as possible? No.

If nothing else, safety aside, economics has to be considered. Time and time again we've seen products drop in cost significantly from introduction to second generation. Yes, I've been taken by this in the past. My first CD deck cost $900. My first scientific calculator cost $200. Come on people - we have to learn to wait to buy new products, unless we want to be guinea pigs, and economically plundered.

Now if you want to complain about abusing the customers, go after Takata -apparently they had a good idea of what could happen with their airbags. Or go after GM who did not admit failure when they saw it. That is criminal - Tesla is not.

Or the first I-Phone, it was later discovered it didn't have the required reception capability, was recalled for an additional antenna upgrade. I believe the update was a fractal antenna design.

Again, it was the end-user that discovered it.

It's the price of progress, its unfortunate, but I believe in todays world, there are just too many hyper-sensitive people that believe that it has to be someone else's fault for their own disparity.

The best reason is still an economic one. Correcting for inflation really points this out - in todays dollars, my first scientific calculator cost about $1000, and the CD deck about $2400. Don't buy first generation anything - ever.

(wow - how did I afford those things back then, on my pitiful salary???)

(wow - how did I afford those things back then, on my pitiful salary???)

Young, ambitious and foolish..... I wish I had the money from the first computer I bought.

In the auto business, it's highly recommended to NEVER buy one of the first 40,000 of a new car or one that's a significant update.

You may be able to get away with buying a Honda or Toyota (Acura or Lexus) in the first of a new model. I know many clients who bought a domestic or European import that fall into the first 40,000 unit count. Many have had numerous problems with their car.

Tesla Killing Customers to Find Flaws in Their Software

Here's the one that started it all.

https://www.youtube.

We need to go back to the mind set of the 1950's and 60's. If the product was obviously dangerous, or certainly could be - you were expected to have enough sense to use it with care and it was YOUR fault if you were stupid and got hurt.

I remember my Matel Vacuform with a few scars. Yes, it burned kids, but that was to be expected as it got hot enough to melt plastic. And, oh yes, (interject a mad scientist laugh here, as I terrorized the neighborhood with it) my Lionel chemistry set, with some very serious acids in it, and an alcohol fueled burner. Wonder how many kids lost eyes to this toy? Why I even recall a few deaths from plastic rockets that you filled with water and a carbon dioxide gas creating chemical. "Hey - don't stand next to that thing, kid. What happens if the shell was damaged in a previous flight and decides to fail catastrophically?" Yep - that's what happened to a few of them. Then the blame was placed on the parents for not supervising the kiddos. Dangers were expected and one, if sane, watched out for them.

Now we expect every commercial product to have been tested for 20 years in all conditions from the arctic ice sheets to the Sahara dessert, and every local in between. If we are stupid enough to totally trust a new commercial product, then the manufacturer is immediately held liable if it fails under some strange condition not seen in testing.

I had the Mattel Fright factory, I burned my fingers every time. Not to mention the wood burning set. Plus my brother's chemistry set, You would never see that today with the chemicals that came with it.

Also not to mention the ill fated BB gun will put your eye out.

Back to the subject matter...

Gullible people will jump at the latest fad/trend and take its word as gospel, no questions asked and just dive right in.

Excellent point. Even in the 70's, we kids were blamed for not being careful. We grew up learning that it does no good to blame others, because it was our fault.

So, our generation was taught that we're responsible for our actions. Then why do so many of us want to blame everyone else for our problems? Or do we know that deep down inside that it's our fault, but society has allowed us to blame others (and sue them)?

What have we done to our generation and what about the next!

Bottom line is, "Nothing is idiot proof'" Both parties are at fault, Tesla's marketing a system as an "Autopilot" when it isn't. And then the driver for not RTFM! Complacency will kill you every time, sad but true.

An added foot note to my #80 post, Darwin's Theory of Evolution shows that smarter idiots are born everyday. It's just a matter of time before they expel themselves from the gene pool.