A passenger cannot cause deaths as a passenger cannot drive.

The Tesla autopilot controls the throttle, brake, and steering. That meets my definition of "driving."

I'm sorry, but everything that you said in relation to Tesla there is wrong. My Nissan with ProPilot can also control the throttle, brake, and steering, but that doesn't make me a mere passenger any more than cruise control does.

It routinely false positives on frontal collisions and occasionally does things that would be dangerous if I weren't driving.

The driver in a Tesla is not a mere passenger, regardless of whether or not they have enabled autopilot. The initial warnings on enabling autopilot as well as the attention nags on the steering wheel all make this perfectly clear to the driver.

Weird, given Tesla's claim that with Autopilot "the person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself." [1]

[1] https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tesla-autopilot-claim...

The words that you quote are from a demonstration video from 3 years ago. The features demonstrated were not available to the public and still aren't.

Tesla's has never claimed that a current vehicle can drive itself without the driver being responsible for the vehicle at all times.

The video was posted directly to the Autopilot page on Tesla's website. The video is also only 2 years old, not 3.

> Tesla's has never claimed that a current vehicle can drive itself without the driver being responsible for the vehicle at all times.

Yes, they did. Hence why the NHTSA and other groups went after Tesla for their claims about Autopilot.