In the teeth of the storm, the Tesla‘s automatic driving system was once again pushed to the cusp.
Recently, the U.S. Court announced a case, which attracted market attention. A Tesla Model S driver was charged with manslaughter because of the death of 2 people in a traffic accident after the L2 automatic driving system was opened. This is the first case in the United States that was charged with felony because of using L2 autopilot system to cause death.
Not long ago, Tesla just announced that it would raise the selling price of FSD (fully autonomous driving ability) in the U.S. market from $10000 to $12000.
In addition, Tesla CEO musk also got into trouble. On January 19, eastern US time, foreign media reported that some shareholders of Tesla took musk to court on the grounds that musk had coerced the company’s board of directors to reach a deal to acquire Cecep Solar Energy Co.Ltd(000591) power generation company SolarCity in 2016 and asked musk to repay us $13 billion (about RMB 83 billion).
2 people died. Is it the fault of automatic driving?
Local time on January 18th, The Associated Press reported that a local 27 year old Tesla Model S driver was accused of manslaughter because of improper use of L2 autopilot system causing traffic accidents and 2 deaths.
Foreign media commented that according to the current public information, the case was the first case in the United States that was charged with felony due to L2 autopilot system causing death, or it will provide a new idea for the global legislation of automatic driving.
According to the published case data, the accused driver was Kevin George Aziz Riad (hereinafter referred to as “Riad”), and his model s drove away from the high speed at a very fast speed. After running the red light, he directly hit a Honda Civic, killing two passengers on the spot. The female passengers on Riad and model s were injured and hospitalized, but they were not life-threatening.
After the accident, the families of the two dead sued Tesla and Riad respectively, alleging that due to Riad’s negligence and Tesla’s sales of defective vehicles, they suddenly accelerated and the automatic emergency brake failed to open, resulting in a serious accident.
The accident occurred on December 29, 2019. California prosecutors charged Riad with two counts of manslaughter in October 2021, but Riad pleaded not guilty.
Until recently, the details of the case were not released to the public. Riad became the first driver charged with a felony after a serious accident due to L2 automatic driving in American history.
According to the court’s prosecution schedule, the preliminary hearing of this case will be held on February 23 this year.
The national highway traffic safety administration, NHTSA, said that all States in the United States require human drivers to be responsible for their vehicle operation. Although the automatic driving system of the vehicle can avoid accidents to some extent, the driver must use the system responsibly.
Therefore, as the first special case in the United States, whether the defendant Riad and his lawyer will defend themselves with Tesla’s Autopilot automatic driving system will be one of the biggest points in this case. This will be the first time that the automatic driving technology that has been widely applied will be involved in criminal charges.
On whether Tesla needs to bear responsibility in the accident, some analysts said that Tesla may face criminal, civil or moral responsibility if it is determined to apply dangerous technologies to American roads.
dangerous automatic driving
At present, “automatic driving” is undoubtedly one of the hottest words in the automotive industry. Almost all released electric vehicles claim to have L2 level ADAS function (advanced driving assistance system), and automatic driving has been regarded as a “revolutionary” change in the travel industry.
However, when the automatic driving technology is not yet mature, the extensive promotion and publicity will inevitably lead to traffic accidents after making drivers fully trust the automatic driving technology.
In the United States, many accidents have occurred because Tesla’s autopilot autopilot function has been abused by drivers, and has been investigated by NHTSA, NTSB and other departments. The survey results show that almost all accidents are caused by drivers’ excessive trust in autopilot or inattention.
In 2018, a Tesla rear end fire truck accident occurred in California, USA. NTSB determined that Tesla drivers relied too much on autopilot system, resulting in failure to take over in time. Fortunately, no one was injured in the accident.
In May 2021, also in California, a man left the driver’s seat and sat in the rear seat after opening autopilot. After being found by the police, the man was arrested.
According to statistics, since 2016, NHTSA has investigated 26 autopilot related accidents, of which at least 11 people died.
Even in China, there have been many tragedies about automatic driving.
In January 2016, a Tesla car had a rear end collision in Handan section of Beijing Hong Kong Macao Expressway in Hebei, and the driver died. Subsequently, the driver’s family sued Tesla China sales company for traffic accident death using Tesla’s “automatic driving” system.
On August 12, 2021, Lin Wenqin, founder of Shangshan Ruoshui investment management company and meiyihao brand management company, drove Weilai es8 car to enable the automatic driving function (NOP pilot status), and died of a traffic accident in the Hanjiang section of Shenyang Haikou expressway.
According to the standards of the US Department of transport and the society of automotive engineers, automatic driving is divided into 5 levels. The L4 level is called the start of automatic driving, and the L4 level automatic driving vehicle can run on specific roads in the absence of human intervention. At present, the automatic driving of most electric vehicles on the market is basically at L1 or L2 level, that is, auxiliary driving, which needs to be taken over by the driver at any time.
Tesla’s future “gold mine”
At present, Tesla has launched different software packages for automatic driving. Among them, the basic standard function is called basic auxiliary driving function (i.e. AP), and the higher-order software package FSD is called full automatic driving.
In fact, FSD is called fully automatic driving, and its actual function is more L2 level automatic driving, plus some structured and scene L3 and L4 level automatic driving, which is still far from real automatic driving.
However, it does not seem to prevent Tesla from making profits by selling autonomous driving software packages. Tesla’s pricing strategy for autonomous driving software is to increase the price gradually with the gradual improvement of functions. Since its release in 2019, the price of autonomous driving software has risen from US $5000 to US $12000, and the latest price increase is on January 17, 2022.
In China, the optional price of FSD function is 64000 yuan, and the price has not been adjusted.
According to the previous experience of synchronizing the rise in overseas markets, it is expected that the FSD function will rise by 8000 yuan to 72000 yuan.
While announcing the price increase, Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed that the vehicles involved in the project had not had any accidents since the launch of the full automatic driving (FSD) beta software in October 2020.
According to the data of troyteslike, in 2020, the optional rate of FSD in model s / X is more than 60%, and that in model y is more than 40%. Western Securities Co.Ltd(002673) it is estimated that in 2025, the overall option rate of Tesla FSD is expected to increase to 50%, and the gross profit contribution to the whole vehicle is about 30%.
Musk once said that FSD may adopt subscription payment in the future, which is expected to further reduce the threshold of consumer acceptance and accelerate the improvement of FSD penetration.
As we all know, for software, when the sales volume is large enough, the marginal cost is about 0. Every additional set sold in the future is almost all profit. According to this strategy, in the near future, Tesla’s profit from selling a set of software may be higher than that from selling a model 3.
In addition to facing technical problems, the biggest obstacle to the promotion of automatic driving is still laws and regulations and industry safety standards.
Musk’s big trouble
On January 19, Eastern time, according to US media news, some shareholders of Tesla took CEO Elon Musk to court on the grounds that musk had coerced the company’s board of directors to reach a deal to acquire Cecep Solar Energy Co.Ltd(000591) power generation company SolarCity in 2016, and some shareholders asked musk to repay us $13 billion (about 83 billion yuan).
According to public information, Tesla acquired SolarCity at a price of $2.6 billion by issuing shares in 2016, and musk is the major shareholder of SolarCity.
Therefore, some shareholders believe that musk put pressure on Tesla’s board of directors to force them to agree to Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity, which was short of funds at that time, which was a “carefully planned financial distress rescue”. The plaintiff requested the court to order musk to return the Tesla shares acquired due to the acquisition, which is about $13 billion at the current price.
In this regard, musk said through his lawyer that the acquisition of SolarCity is part of the long-term plan to build a vertically integrated company. The transaction is not to rescue SolarCity. The company’s financial situation is similar to that of most high growth technology companies and is not on the verge of bankruptcy.
In addition, musk told the court that the acquisition of SolarCity was mainly handled by Tesla’s board of directors. He himself avoided price negotiations and specific acquisition details.
