If I were running a car company, I may decide to stop development on assistive features and remove any that exist from future models. The way people are using them, and the courts are punishing the companies for adding these safety features, is it worth it to them? Not having them would also bring down the base price on vehicles, which seems to be the primary complaint from people right now.
It's not assistive features in general that are the problem. It's that level 3 self-drive (which is what Tesla purports to have) should not be permitted to exist.
Things which simply help the driver, fine. Lane assist, adaptive cruise control and other such things that remove some of the workload but still leave the driver with the full responsibility of control. That's level 2.
Level 3 can generally run the car but is not capable of dealing with everything it might encounter. That's where you get danger--this guy thought he could pick up his dropped phone, his car didn't even manage to stay in it's lane. And the jury quite correctly said that's totally unacceptable.
The next step above level 2 should be skipping to level 4--a car that is capable of making a safe choice in all circumstances. That's Waymo, not Tesla. A Waymo will refuse to leave the area with the sufficiently detailed mapping it needs. A Waymo might encounter something on the road that it can't figure out--if that happens it will stop and wait for human help. Waymos can ask their control center for guidance (the remote operators do not actually drive, they tell the car what to do about what it doesn't understand) and can turn control over to a local first responder.
The only level 3 autonomous vehicles available for purchase in the U.S. are certain Mercedes-Benz models, and it only works on select roads in California and Nevada.
> Mercedes-Benz Drive Pilot: California and Nevada are currently the only states with roads approved for the Mercedes-Benz Drive Pilot. For 2025, only the EQS and S-Class offer Level 3 and then it’s by subscription.
Tesla hid evidence and was probably punished by the jury and I hardly feel sorry for Tesla. Maybe next time they will not do that, but I doubt it. Transparency was never a thing baked into the Tesla Musk DNA.
