Auto-park bashed our neighbour's car - should Tesla pay both repair bills?

[Jason71]

So basically we have a parking system with poor spacial awareness that takes no responsibility for any problems and leaves you having to foot the bill for any damage. They should re-name it "wife" mode at least that way you would know what you are getting!

I already have this system. It didn't cost me £6.5k ( so far) and its transferable from vehicle to vehicle ( unfortunately)

 

[Dilly]

The nub appears to be that the car made a sudden move in the wrong direction, in a confined space, leaving the driver insufficient time to react.
suggesting it was working as intended is a nonsense. But not quite as big a nonsense as ”try using autopilot” and see if that works!
one presumes that if the car ends up nose diving into a crash barrier, they’ll admit there’s a problem after all.

 

[Jez_GB]

So basically we have a parking system with poor spacial awareness that takes no responsibility for any problems and leaves you having to foot the bill for any damage. They should re-name it "wife" mode at least that way you would know what you are getting!

I already have this system. It didn't cost me £6.5k ( so far) and its transferable from vehicle to vehicle ( unfortunately)

Oooph....... I would not have gone there

 

[Adopado]

Tesla’s response is shocking.

That response is indeed breathtaking ... testing on the motorway if you think there might be a safety problem with the auto driving features!! ... but I think the problem is that this particular "ejitt" who happens to work at Tesla is saying stuff that another Tesla employee wouldn't necessarily say or recommend. We do tend to assume that what we are told by various staff is the official Tesla response but this isn't necessarily the case! (At least I most sincerely hope it's not!)

 

[K3v1n]

To be fair tho, the auto park feature could be tested on the M25 most normal work days

 

[Adopado]

Oooph....... I would not have gone there

he he ... klaxons going off alright ... ah, now, where's my handy book of Bernard Manning's favourite jokes ...

 

[Jason71]

That response is indeed breathtaking ... testing on the motorway if you think there might be a safety problem with the auto driving features!! ... but I think the problem is that this particular "ejitt" who happens to work at Tesla is saying stuff that another Tesla employee wouldn't necessarily say or recommend. We do tend to assume that what we are told by various staff is the official Tesla response but this isn't necessarily the case! (At least I most sincerely hope it's not!)

If Tesla don't recruit reliable people or don't train them properly then that is still on Tesla. Yes you can't legislate for the odd employee going rogue but this is hardly the first time we have heard rubbish or multiple contradictory statements from Tesla employees so at a certain point you have to assume its on the company not any one individual.
I used to work in automotive OEM part manufacture and supply. Try telling a car company that a an employee mistake is responsible for a problem and they would never accept it. always wanted to know why the system was not good enough to to stop that employee making that mistake or pick it up after the fact and how you were going to improve the system to stop it happening again

 

[Jason71]

he he ... klaxons going off alright ... ah, now, where's my handy book of Bernard Manning's favourite jokes ...

Just cos its a stereotype doesn't mean it isn't true

 

[Fraank]

Just cos its a stereotype doesn't mean it isn't true

There's also a stereotype that some men are particularly chauvinistic and enjoy mansplaining their cars to women. But maybe there's less truth in that one eh?

 

[Wol747]

Generally, if you lawyer up against Tesla, they lawyer up too. And then it's up to the lawyers to come to a solution.

This, just as anything else, is within spec: you, the driver, at at all times responsible for the driving of your car.


So, this can only work if you can produce forensic evidence that the owner/driver never intended the car to move, wasn't controlling the car and didn't activate any system that would have the car move, while under supervision of the owner/driver.

In many things I would agree, but we are slowly getting into the area of cars driving themselves and the consequential allocation of responsibility.
I think most people would agree that if in a car with level five the occupants can have no responsibility for what happens when it's driving - after all, how can they? A level five car need not have any accessible controls at all, although they will probably be there for a long time.
SOMEONE has to take insurable responsibility, and if not the occupants and the owner, who? The manufacturer / programmers must be held accountable for their product.
So at some point there's going to be a handover of liability from the driver's insurance to the suppliers of the vehicles and although self parking isn't fully in that category it's getting close and just to say that the T & Cs are there doesn't get us very far. I certainly know that when I try self parking the car gets VERY close to others - outside my mirrors' view and much closer than I would park myself so how can I effectively monitor other than to wait for the scraping noise?

 

[Jason71]

There's also a stereotype that some men are particularly chauvinistic and enjoy mansplaining their cars to women. But maybe there's less truth in that one eh?

No that's probably true as well

 

[wooter]

A very sexist opinion.

In many things I would agree, but we are slowly getting into the area of cars driving themselves and the consequential allocation of responsibility.
I think most people would agree that if in a car with level five the occupants can have no responsibility for what happens when it's driving - after all, how can they? A level five car need not have any accessible controls at all, although they will probably be there for a long time.
SOMEONE has to take insurable responsibility, and if not the occupants and the owner, who? The manufacturer / programmers must be held accountable for their product.
So at some point there's going to be a handover of liability from the driver's insurance to the suppliers of the vehicles and although self parking isn't fully in that category it's getting close and just to say that the T & Cs are there doesn't get us very far. I certainly know that when I try self parking the car gets VERY close to others - outside my mirrors' view and much closer than I would park myself so how can I effectively monitor other than to wait for the scraping noise?

This is all not relevant at the moment, because Tesla communicates clearly multiple times in the manual and on the screen that the driving assistance features are level 2, and need to be monitored by the driver, who is always responsible.

Once we reach L3, L4 and L5, T&C's will change accordingly. But none of the products or services Tesla offers at this moment are anything higher than L2, according to the T&C's and multiple warnings in the manual and on-screen.

 

[MrBadger]

This is all not relevant at the moment, because Tesla communicates clearly multiple times in the manual and on the screen that the driving assistance features are level 2, and need to be monitored by the driver, who is always responsible.

Tesla can try and avert responsibility as much as they want, but its not up to Tesla, you, me or anyone else other than a judge to say where responsibility lies. Tesla are treading a very fine set of lines. If a product that is sold that is knowingly defective and that defect causes an issue, then there is a potential case for negligence. If a product is sold that cannot safely fulfil the purpose for which it is sold when used with reasonable care then there is a potential case for the item not being fit for the purpose. If a product is sold and used with reasonable care in a scenario that it should be reasonably expected to work, then there is a potential case for negligence in selling a product that is knowingly unfit to be used for the purposes for which it was sold.

Tesla can put as many disclaimers in the manual as they like, but if the driver is operating the vehicle within the limits set out in the manual and with reasonable care, those disclaimers do not count for anything.

I think if I was the OP and I could be sure of this, I certainly would be inclined to escalate matters based upon Tesla basically saying that is within normal behaviour. Possibly small claims court (keeps you in control) citing The Consumer Rights Act 2015, whether FSD is fit for the purpose for which it was sold, as described at point of sale and being of satisfactory quality. Then let a judge decide.

 

[btc1k]

Also : be wary of taking legal advice from armchair lawyers in a forum

If you want to go down a legal route of recourse, many home insurance policies offer a consumer protection advice and/or legal coverage. Worth checking.

Failing that, Citizens Advice / Trading Standards usually give pretty sound advice on ways to proceed.

Best of luck.

 

[Coloradogramps]

Dealing with people who constantly tell mistruths as part of my profession, are you entirely certain this wasn‘t user error?

HMM? You must work with politicians!

 

[Altes]

My wife has just used auto-park to park our Model 3, and while on auto-park it swung round way too early at speed damaging the left rear of the car in front and right front side of our car. It did it too quickly to have cancelled, and there were no obstacles and there was plenty of space so we've no idea why it would have misjudged so badly.

We've pulled the video which clearly shows the speed our car was going and how much it shook the other car on impact. Although the videos don't confirm it was on auto-park, it does show movements that would be familiar to those who have used auto-park, and Tesla should have the telematics data confirming it was on auto-park at the time of impact.

We'll take our car to Tesla and hope they'll repair our damage free of charge, but we have some unanswered questions:
- Who will pay for the repair to the damage to the other car, us or Tesla?
- How do we report to Tesla, because this sounds like some sort of bug that they should fix?
- Given the only thing we use "Full Self Driving" for is the auto-park, and we've lost confidence in auto-park now, is there any way to get the "Full Self Driving" package cost refunded?

Does anyone on this forum have any experience with this scenario?

Tesla will not pay as you are responsible. Auto park, summon, "autopilot", are all controlled by the owner/operator and all responsibility is yours

 

[init6]

I think people here are saying that UK Consumer law MAY be different to California law with respect to 'fit for purpose'.

 

[Fursty Ferret]

The other thing to bear in mind is that Tesla cannot "lawyer up" against you if you sue them in the Small Claims Court.

 

[candida]

The other thing to bear in mind is that Tesla cannot "lawyer up" against you if you sue them in the Small Claims Court.

Yes they can. But they wont be able to claim the full costs if they win.

 

[Durzel]

Their legal counsel will be on retainer and is therefore pretty much a sunk cost for them, so I doubt it even really factors in to their thought process when it comes to defending claims, etc.