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.

-- Please read before commenting. This is taken from Fred's take in the article and auto posted on X by Fred's agent. See pinned post in profile for details --

There will be people who lose their lives because of self-driving cars, and the cars will undoubtedly be blamed for it. But the question is: Will self-driving cars be safer than humans, who cause over 40,000 traffic fatalities in the U.S. every year? I believe we’ve already reached that point. Just look at the countless videos of near-misses where self-driving cars have prevented serious accidents.

@FredLambert I disagree. 4 seconds are a lot during driving unless she got distracted. My video shows FSD max mode got too close. But I grabbed it under 1 second.

@FredLambert She disengaged 4 seconds prior to impact. She could have VERY EASILY came for a complete stop in 4 seconds. She didn’t even attempt to slow down after disengaging.

If you were actually a frequent FSD user, then you would realize that drivers have the ability to control the speed offset. It doesn’t go that fast on its own. You can choose to go the relative speed of traffic or you can choose to go the actual speed limit. You can then select the MPH speed offset of either one of those settings. This is an obvious fact for anyone who has owned an FSD Tesla vehicle. If the vehicle was going over the speed limit, it’s because the driver chose that setting and therefore the driver was clearly at-fault.

@FredLambert Why not wait for the trial where all the evidence will be investigated? Any reason Tesla fans should believe Fred Lambert or Elextrek.co? are either going to be called in as expert witnesses. Maybe?

I agree about the 4 seconds, that looked like it was going wrong for > 4 seconds, it does not look like she grabbed the wheel though the car stayed going forward. With that said, FSD is 8x safer than humans driving. Is it perfect? no but neither are people. FSD has already saved dozens of lives compared to people driving.

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@FredLambert Genuine question: does the design of the steering wheel make the hand-over-hand turn necessary to make such a tough turn at excessive speed (like in this instance) more difficult (than a conventional steering wheel)?

@FredLambert So if you disengage by hitting the accelerator pedal while it is trying to slow down it is the fault of the software?

@FredLambert Why are people assuming she disengaged fsd, there are documented cases of the cars doing it themselves before a crash (thats part of the liability shell mentioned)

@FredLambert The “4 second disengagement” is why she’s at fault. She was fucking driving, you liar. So not only did she fuck herself up and her truck, she was so negligent that she did that with her kid in the car.

@FredLambert I did the math. It was 2s from the start of the turn to the impact. Meaning FSD was doing 60 MPH 2s before the start of the turn. x.com/ChadMoran/stat…

@FredLambert Seems like hitting the breaks would have been a start. Tesla fans are not the ones doing the “gotcha”. Every time a Tesla has any issue, the media jump on it as a “gotcha” and almost 100% of the time are lying because they hate Elon.

@FredLambert One thousand one One thousand two One thousand three One thousand four hit the brakes already!! @grok how much can you slow a car down on 4 seconds?

Ok. So the driver took that 4 seconds to do nothing evasive and slam straight into the wall? Mostly my FSD will slow down unnecessarily more than it speeds up but I have disengaged due to feeling the car was too fast for conditions and didn’t then crash into a wall. Driver’s fault

@FredLambert @grok, based on camera view at the first frame of this video (exactly 4 seconds before impact, when FSD was disengaged), distance to the section of barrier that was struck? Use frame-to-frame analysis to estimate speed of vehicle at start and end of video. Braking distance?

@FredLambert @PandaScottish x.com/jcchristopher/…

If you disengage FSD anywhere at anytime going highway speeds and you don’t know that you did it because you were asleep or distracted 4 seconds later it’s going to be bad. How do you even know FSD “gave up”? You don’t. I don’t. You know there was a crash and you have 4 seconds of video that was being “manually driven” because Elon said FSD was disengaged 4 seconds before the crash. That’s it. There is not gotcha.

@FredLambert The foundation of your argument is an assumption. Everything else crumbles when the foundation is weak. In 4 seconds she could have literally come to a complete stop.

@FredLambert If it was coming in too hot I can see a scenario where the driver started to hover over the brake but wanted to let the car keep driving and accidentally disengaged but was so focused on the turn they didn't hear the disengagement sound and realize they needed to take over.

@FredLambert She was on a ramp to a park and ride. Yellow sign showed 15mph. She was speeding way before crash. She could have gone straight over white separator sticks and cones vs trying to turn. That’s a 90 deg into a park and ride. Drivers fault way before crash

@FredLambert You absolutely nailed it....they should be liable...for not being truthfull...they claim it's level 5 it's level 3 at best and they claim full self driving which not true but marketing terms they use on purpose to make it vague to try to protect themselves

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@FredLambert The entire video is about 4 seconds long. FSD was disengaged nearly the whole time. Had she not disengaged it, likely it would have simply turned the corner, just like every other FSD Cybertruck does every day.

Your statements make no sense, when you disconnnet you are immediately ready to take over. Not 5 seconds later. And you have no idea who fast it was going before or during. I can see that the person could have inadvertently disengaged FSD by touching the brake, for example and not be ready to take over.

@FredLambert This case is not as strong as the FL case but yes, the fundamental is the same. Tesla and FSD fans have convinced many Tesla drivers to trust AP, so much so many are complacent and don't know how to react when AP fails.

@FredLambert Autopilot, not FSD. If you can’t even get the basics right, how can we believe anything you say

@FredLambert 4 seconds at 50mph equals to length of a football field. If the driver is unable to control the vehicle over such a generous distance, license needs to be revoked

Fred, there are already videos out of FSD handling that very spot with ease, so you are wrong on both counts. 1 - FSD could have easily handled that exact spot. 2 - 4 seconds is a lifetime once she took FSD off. Plenty of time to easily stop, although there was no need to stop at all. I think she didn’t realize she had disengaged, because she was fumbling around and hit the steering wheel with her knee. Like you, she will distort reality to fit what she wants to believe.

@FredLambert Way to project what happened when none of us actually know the real facts. Maybe the car was accelerating too quickly but she should have recognized that and disengaged earlier. It's called Supervised FSD for a reason.

@FredLambert If FSD was disengaged due to driver intervention at the very moment it was trying to reduce speed, unfortunately, it means the driver failed to properly control the situation after the intervention.

@FredLambert Didn’t Tesla get called out for designing FSD to automatically disengage seconds before a likely crash? I seem to remember this same defense from Emu that FSD was disengaged by driver before crash when it turned out is was disengaged by Tesla software.

@FredLambert @adamscochran So Tesla fans want that if a person in one of those death boxes see that they’re going to crash to wait until that happens otherwise if they intervene any time before the crash it’s their fault? 🤯🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

When I'm in heavy traffic or approaching any point that could be a problem, my left foot is almost touching the brake and my right hand is up by the stalk so you can disengage quickly. Any driver can sense if the car is not decelerating normally. If there wasn't time to take over without causing a problem, you weren't doing your job. My opinion: she possibly accidentally either touched the brakes or the stalk. If so, she probably didn't realize it was disengaged so she hadn't even thought about braking . The slowing down may have just been regen. I certainly saw no evidence of hard braking at all before impact.

@FredLambert @brandenflasch The problem with this argument is you're saying she trusted the system. Are you saying she might not have been paying proper attention to the driving task with a child in the car? Anyone who crashes on cruise control is at fault, same thing here.

@FredLambert This doesn't make sense. Car slows down very fast and doesn't turn after it disengages. Because the car didn't slowed down and somewhat turned it means the person was driving, just driving very badly.

Very well put! FSD is solved when we can buy cars without steering wheel and with cheap insurance. Let the system sort things out. It usually does.