JohnEdwa , 7 months ago

It turns off so that it doesn’t do anything stupid after the cash as the sensors or systems might be damaged, it still gets counted as a crash where autopilot was active.

www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport

We also receive a crash alert anytime a crash is reported to us from the fleet, which may include data about whether Autopilot was active at the time of impact. To ensure our statistics are conservative, we count any crash in which Autopilot was deactivated within 5 seconds before impact, and we count all crashes in which the incident alert indicated an airbag or other active restraint deployed. <…> In practice, this correlates to nearly any crash at about 12 mph (20 kph) or above, depending on the crash forces generated. We do not differentiate based on the type of crash or fault

And if the time between the crash and autopilot disengaging is over 5 seconds, I think “your honor. I wasn’t driving when the car wrecked, it was the autopilot” doesn’t work either, especially as you are still always responsible for what the car does, autopilot or not.

Don’t get me wrong though, Musk is still an idiot and Tesla lies about the capability of the system in many ways which is partly the reason people think they can stop paying attention and let it do things on its own.