A Florida judge found "reasonable evidence" that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk and other managers knew the automaker's vehicles had a defective Autopilot system but still allowed the cars to be driven unsafely, according to a ruling.
A Florida judge found "reasonable evidence" that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk and other managers knew the automaker's vehicles had a defective Autopilot system but still allowed the cars to be driven unsafely, according to a ruling.
It's a textbook case of what could trigger the depraved heart homicide rule.
The idea is that, in the case of someone knowingly and intentionally doing or allowing something extremely likely to cause serious injury or death, the "depraved indifference" to human life can be treated as intent to kill and elevate a negligent manslaughter charge to murder.
I don't know if that's the reasoning that will hold up in court. Would a judge say a 1 in a billion chance is "extremely likely? That reasoning would apply to all cars in general wouldn't it? Driving is potentially dangerous no matter what car you drive. People are guaranteed to die in car accidents everyday just by sheer volume and that would be true if Tesla didn't exist.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not apologizing for them. I'm just dubious of getting a conviction.
It's not that people die crashing them, or even that a manufacturing/software defect causes the deaths.
It's that Tesla knew that there was a software error that would almost certainly cause somebody to die, and intentionally chose not to address the issues for financial reasons. That's textbook depraved indifference.
What he has done was described in the headline. I am not living in your country and don't know your judicial system in detail, so I can't tell you how you'd call the crime.