Tesla fans using the “4-second disengagement” as a gotcha are missing the forest for the trees. Yes, the driver was technically in control of the vehicle at the moment of impact. But she was in control because FSD was already failing by driving too fast ahead of this sharp turn — it was heading straight into a concrete barrier at highway speed with no sign of correcting.
Everyone who has frequently used FSD or Autopilot and paints this 4-second disengagement as a “gotcha” moment is being disengenous, and that includes Elon Musk.
I have tens of thousands of miles on FSD, and I’ve experienced the system coming too fast into a turn at least half a dozen times.
We’ve said this before and we’ll keep saying it: the problem with FSD isn’t what happens when the driver is paying attention and the system works. The problem is what happens when the system gives you every reason to trust it, and then suddenly doesn’t work. The driver has to recognize the failure, assess the situation, decide on a correction, and physically execute it, all in less time than the system needs to create the danger.
Musk and Tesla’s propagandists can point to the logs all they want. The video shows what actually matters: FSD approaching a standard highway curve at full speed with zero indication it was going to navigate it. That’s the failure. Everything that happened after, including the panicked disengagement, is a consequence of that failure.
The framing that this was “manual driving, not FSD” is technically true for the final 4 seconds and deeply dishonest about the full sequence of events. It’s exactly the kind of liability shell game that courts are increasingly rejecting, as that $243 million verdict makes clear. Tesla created the system, sold it as “Full Self-Driving,” and profits from the ambiguity. At some point, it has to own the consequences.
Electrek.co@ElectrekCo
Tesla says FSD was off before Cybertruck crash — but the video tells a different story electrek.co/2026/03/18/tes… by @fredlambert
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