Interesting, this should be followed up on the trial outcome to see if Tesla jumps in on this . Because when arrested and if he was not in the drivers seat that prosecution cannot claim he was operating that vehicle.
In this state you can be passed out drunk in the back seat of your car, parked in a private parking lot, with the keys out, and be convicted of DWI.
From the first sentence of the excerpt:
“...while sleeping behind the wheel of his Tesla Model S.”
After working a tough night shift, you are very tired and are struggling to stay awake. You get into your (non-self-driving) car, start it, put a brick on the gas pedal, put in drive, hop into the passenger seat, and hope that the car gets you home. You immediately fall asleep. The car blindly speeds off, hoping to find its garage. Instead, it smashes into a crowd of kids in a school playground, killing a baker's dozen of them. The brick is jarred off the gas, bounces around, and ends up under the driver's seat. Not guilty.
Hopefully, their body cams were on.