Bryant Walker Smith (U South Carolina Joseph F. Rice Law) has posted “”Self-Driving” Means Self-Driving” (Forthcoming in Drake Law Review) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Tesla uses the name “Full Self-Driving” to market a driver assistance system that still requires its user to pay attention to the road. And yet, as this article documents, there is a broad consensus among developers and regulators of motor vehicle technologies, including Tesla itself, that the term “self-driving” correctly refers only to a system whose user does not need to pay attention. This conclusion is foundational to multiple ongoing legal proceedings around the world.