Comment by kjksf
16 hours ago
Because that's the law of the land currently.
The product you buy is called "FSD Supervised". It clearly states you're liable and must supervise the system.
I don't think there's law that would allow Tesla (or anyone else) to sell a passenger car with unsupervised system.
If you take Waymo or Tesla Robotaxi in Austin, you are not liable for accidents, Google or Tesla is.
That's because they operate on limited state laws that allow them to provide such service but the law doesn't allow selling such cars to people.
That's changing. Quite likely this year we will have federal law that will allow selling cars with fully unsupervised self-driving, in which case the insurance/liability will obviously land on the maker of the system, not person present in the car.
You raise an important point here. Is it economically feasible for system makers to bear the responsibility of self-driving car accidents? It seems impossible, unless the cars are much more expensive to cover the potential future costs. I'm very curious how Waymo insures their cars today. I assume they have a bespoke insurance contract negotiated with a major insurer. Also, do we know the initial cost of each Waymo car (to say nothing of ongoing costs from compute/mapping/etc.)? It must be very high (2x?) given all of the special navigation equipment that is added to each car.
Tacking "Supervised" on the end of "Full Self Driving" is just contradictory. Perhaps if it was "Partial Self Driving" then it wouldn't be so confusing.
Its only to differentiate it from their "Unsupervised FSD" which is what they call it now.
I imagine insurance would be split in two in that case. Carmakers would not want to be liable for e.g. someone striking you in a hit-and-run.
If the car that did a hit-and-run was operated autonomously the insurance of the maker of that car should pay. Otherwise it's a human and the situation falls into the bucket of what we already have today.
So yes, carmakers would pay in a hit-and-run.
> If the car that did a hit-and-run was operated autonomously the insurance of the maker of that car should pay
Why? That's not their fault. If a car hits and runs my uninsured bicycle, the manufacturer isn't liable. (My personal umbrella or other insurance, on the other hand, may cover it.)
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You can sell autonomous vehicles to consumers all day long. There's no US federal law prohibiting that, as long as they're compliant with FMVSS as all consumer vehicles are required to be.
Waymo is also a livery service which you normally aren’t liable for as a passenger of taxi or limousine unless you have deep pockets. /IANAL
> Quite likely this year we will have federal law that will allow selling cars with fully unsupervised self-driving, in which case the insurance/liability will obviously land on the maker of the system, not person present in the car.
This is news to me. This context seems important to understanding Tesla's decision to stop selling FSD. If they're on the hook for insurance, then they will need to dynamically adjust what they charge to reflect insurance costs.
I see. So not Tesla's product they are using to sell insurance around isn't "Full Self-Driving" or "Autonomous" like the page says.
My current FSD usage is 90% over ~2000 miles (since v14.x). Besides driving everywhere, everyday with FSD, I have driven 4 hours garage to hotel valet without intervention. It is absolutely "Full Self-Driving" and "Autonomous".
FSD isn't perfect, but it is everyday amazing and useful.
> My current FSD usage is 90% over ~2000 miles
I'd guess my Subaru's lane-keeping utilisation is in the same ballpark. (By miles, not minutes. And yes, I'm safer when it and I are watching the road than when I'm watching the road alone.)
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If it was full self driving, wouldn't your usage be 100%?
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Yet still on relying you to cover it with your insurance. Again, clearly not autonomous.
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Without LIDAR and/or additional sensors, Tesla will never be able to provide "real" FSD, no matter how wonderful their software controlling the car is.
Also, self driving is a feature of a vehicle someone owns, I don't understand how that should exempt anyone from insuring their property.
Waymo and others are providing a taxi service where the driver is not a human. You don't pay insurance when you ride Uber or Bolt or any other regular taxi service.
> Also, self driving is a feature of a vehicle someone owns, I don't understand how that should exempt anyone from insuring their property.
Well practically speaking, there’s nothing stopping anyone from voluntarily assuming liability for arbitrary things. If Tesla assumes the liability for my car, then even if I still require my “own” insurance for legal purposes, the marginal cost of covering the remaining risk is going to be close to zero.
Never say never—it’s not physically impossible. But yes, as it stands, it seems that Tesla will not be self driving any time soon (if ever).
They literally just (in the last few days) started unsupervised robotaxis in Austin.
They are as self-driving as a car can be.
This is different than the one where they had a human supervisor in passenger seat (which they still do elsewhere).
And different than the one where they didn't have human supervisor but did have a follow car.
Now they have a few robotaxis that are self driving.
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