At the end of the day autopilot is really just glorified cruise control. If I hit someone while using cruise control it's not the car's fault. It's not Tesla's fault. Same with autopilot. Tesla has no liability whatsoever in the event of such an accident. The driver is supposed to be paying attention.
That's not to say that people are actually going to pay attention. In my experience, people, in general, are stupid unfortunately and in this case are probably pretty likely to get distracted and not pay attention to the road like they should. Unfortunately it's still their fault when an accident happens. We're kidding ourselves if we think people are going to pay full attention while using autopilot. There are going to be accidents because of this, for sure. But I doubt it will be an *increase* in accidents vs pre-autopilot given the nature of the system.
The only way Tesla would be liable would be if some defect caused the car to override my actions, which is highly unlikely given the fact that the system disengages when any user action is taken and it is effortless to physically overpower the car's steering control.
That's not to say that people are actually going to pay attention. In my experience, people, in general, are stupid unfortunately and in this case are probably pretty likely to get distracted and not pay attention to the road like they should. Unfortunately it's still their fault when an accident happens. We're kidding ourselves if we think people are going to pay full attention while using autopilot. There are going to be accidents because of this, for sure. But I doubt it will be an *increase* in accidents vs pre-autopilot given the nature of the system.
The only way Tesla would be liable would be if some defect caused the car to override my actions, which is highly unlikely given the fact that the system disengages when any user action is taken and it is effortless to physically overpower the car's steering control.