Tesla's SMART Summon AIN'T So Smart, Leads To Alleged Crashes — Who Should Foot The Bill? Insurance? Tesla Owners?

The answer is simple, the owner.

Until the owner does not have to pay attention to what the car is doing, they'll be liable. When it crosses that bridge, Tesla will be on the hook for any mistakes where the car is at fault.

Over the weekend, Smart Summon was updated. It got much better, but probably only because of how much real-world data it collected. Seems more confident and turn signals are now being used whenever possible.

The next big feature update is in 1-2 months. Brace yourself if you thought this was pushing things... you'll be able to get out of your car and tell it to find a parking space. Even I'm apprehensive.

Yet, you say you don't work for them.

I don't, but I think I know more about their roadmap and cars than most people that work at the company.

Do you have a link? I don't think anyone including Waymo/Google were able to pull this off 15 years ago. It was probably hard-coded.

OMG, that is a completely different solution. That would require an extremely expensive system in every single parking lot that would remotely control each car. In addition, each car would have to receive a high-detail map of the parking lot which it uses instead of a vision system. That makes no sense, will cost a fortune and is not a complex programming challenge.

The Tesla system will work in any parking lot. It uses vision to understand the surroundings and make a dynamic plan in real-time using hardware the car already has and no external systems. It's like 1,000x the complexity if not more than what Nissan showed and actually is financially practical and something that can be used today.

And 17 cars catch on fire every hour in the US. Every single Tesla fire ever somehow makes it to the news.

How many of those 17 cars are relatively new, and not 15 year old beaters? Now compare that to the 6 month old Tesla catching on fire.

If there is a defect, for sure they should be held accountable. There was a recall early on with the S battery since it could be punctured in certain conditions from running over road debris.

Any car will still catch fire if severely damaged, that will take some fancy new tech to avoid (maybe solid state batteries or ultra-capacitors). The Model 3 has only have a few reported incidents of catching on fire, even in major accidents.. so at least the next gen tech is improving.

Simple answer. If you have the feature, the Issuance company should increase your policy to support it. Otherwise, I agree, the standard policy is not written for this type of “driving.”

Tesla is the one who is liable. They are deploying a technology in beta form--meaning not completely designed, nor adequately tested--to people who believe the feature will work as Tesla says it will.

Tesla is liable because the feature does not work as advertised.

But we know that Tesla does not waste time and money on fully engineering anything.

We also know that Tesla does not believe in rigorous testing before putting something out to the public.

Using the public as beta testers for autonomous features is morally reprehensible, but that is how Tesla does business.

Pushing the envelope with these technologies and selling them to the public definitely is raising a lot of questions that have not been answered definitively by law, by insurance companies etc... Will be interesting to see it play out. I think the insurance companies will have to start aggressively getting data on these features. Are there fewer parking lot incidents per parking attempts when using these self parking features or more incidents? How do the insurance companies make that determination? Are those self parking incidents typically more expensive to repair than human caused parking lot incidents? Will be interesting to watch this space and the automated driving space in general as these issues play out. A fatality from running a stop sign, or making a decision to go on a sidewalk to avoid a head on collision will really heat up this area of driving.

The insurance companies should send a message to Tesla by refusing to insure these unsafe-at-any-speed vehicles.

Insurance companies are likely to repeat what they did in the muscle car era. Dramatically jack up the rates on coverage for anyone owning a Tesla.

It is a BETA feature. If you wish to use it and put your pricey car at risk in a public space or a confined space, you have no one to blame but yourself. The only space to even attempt to play with this feature is an empty parking lot. Do it a few times to get your kicks and then forget it until the full version comes out.

Not so fast cha cha! The software isn't ready for reasonable safety in the public. The issue goes way beyond the owner of the Tesla.

@MD0- I am 100% sure Tesla's lawyers have them covered backwards and forwards. There will be no legal recourse if you use this Beta software and run your Tesla into a wall or a car or a person. Nor will your insurance company offer any coverage for any claim if it is found that the accident occured when using this Beta system. Lawyers are like that, they rarely miss a beat.

CC. You believe Elon listens to lawyers? Or anyone for that matter.

@CC This is laughably hubristic on your part: "I am 100% sure Tesla's lawyers have them covered backwards and forwards." PS the correct grammar is "backward" and "forward". The "s" is considered archaic.

Tesla's problem is that it has little to no money. Therefore it has to chase volume in order to survive. However what happens is that it's quality control and reliability end up going down the toilet. Technology is great but it has to work and has to be reliable. Tesla is unable to deliver on this. Further by not going through a typical dealer network they create further delays in customer service. This will not happen with Porsche and VW. When you buy a Porsche EV or VW you will have your local dealer be equipped to service your vehicle if it needs it. For Tesla the handwriting is on the wall if no one buys them out. I think the window is the to 4 years tops.

Tesla would be so much better off without Elon.

With Tesla betting its stock valuation on creating autonomous vehicles, why would it deliver vehicles that perform like this? Beta testing with customers vehicles? It's giving autonomy a bad reputation even before it gets started. Tesla is responsible for this situation.

The only question is if it is safer than a human driver today. If the answer is statistically yes, then beta or not it should be released asap instead of waiting for perfection, which is unlikely without real-world data. Waymo can do trillions of miles in simulations, yet that data will be less useful than what Tesla can collect today. 3 days after Smart Summon came out, it was already much better.

There not too far off from being feature complete. Stop signs, stoplights, and city driving are the last frontier... and city driving already works well with a lead car. Highway driving is exceptional now, perhaps even better than Waymo.

"statistically yes" by whose calculation, by what set of variables being considered, how many observations, what deviation to norm, etc etc

Summon... questionable,
Highway driving, definitely.

I've posted the same links over and over, statistically prove that it's not. % chance of death is lowest in Teslas.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/10/08/tesla-model-3-safest-car-ever-tested-by-nhtsa-how-did-tesla-pull-it-off/

The data is still there showing that it is the safest, regardless of whether the NHSTA wants that advertised or now. They put cars into buckets and don't stack rank them, probably for their own bureaucratic purposes.