In Munich, Germany, the court has ordered Tesla to reimburse a woman $101,000. She complained that Tesla’s autopilot has problems. In December 2016 the woman brought the car for 112,640 Euros ($114,500). The car was delivered in March 2017, and the owner paid an extra 5,500 Euros ($5,580) for the autopilot feature.
According to the owner, she started having problems as far back as November 2017. The court held that the woman was having problems with autopilot. According to the judgment, the autopilot was unreliable in identifying obstacles and brakes would activate suddenly without any reason. The sudden braking posed a massive danger in city traffic, as per the court.
On the contrary, Tesla’s lawyer argued that the Autopilot was not designed to function in city traffic. But the court did not accept the argument. Where the judgment stated that the manual toggling of Autopilot on and off would be a distraction for the driver for various traffics. But, Tesla doesn’t list city traffic as a limitation, and there are many videos where users have used it on traffic roads.
In addition to that, the woman also stated that the car had other problems. The doors didn’t open and shut properly, which was upheld by the court. In a final decision, the court ordered Tesla to pay the woman 99,420 Euros ($101,000) and the 5% interest. Also, Tesla should pay 80% of the legal fees and the woman will pay 20%.
Autopilot feature
The case sets an uncomfortable precedent for Tesla, which is under close regulatory scrutiny over its Autopilot feature.
Autopilot is a driving assistance feature which allows the car to drive and brake automatically. Tesla’s website says Autopilot does not make vehicles fully autonomous and requires “active driver supervision.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is also conducting a broader probe into the effectiveness and safety of Autopilot which it launched after finding 11 instances of Tesla cars crashing into first responder vehicles while using Autopilot.
The US NHTSA launched an investigation into so-called “phantom braking”, when Teslas on Autopilot slam on the brakes for no apparent reason in February. It told Tesla in May it had received complaints about phantom braking from over 750 Tesla drivers. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has lauded the company’s self-driving technology and said in December 2021 it is unfairly criticized.
“I think it’s one of those things where you’re not going to get rewarded necessarily for the lives that you save, but you will definitely be blamed for lives that you don’t save,” Musk told TIME. Musk has repeatedly promised fully autonomous cars would arrive in the near future, but the company has yet to realize this goal.
