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A Tragic Loss

teslamotors.com

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Re: A Tragic Loss

#41

Post by krschultz »

petercooper wrote: post #16

Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, I'm intrigued that the color is relevant in the car's case - wouldn't it be using some sort of radar to detect and map objects rather than vision? I appreciate I am probably missing something.

Autopilot uses a forward facing camera & radar. It sounds like the truck came in at a perpendicular angle. It may have been in the cone of sight for the camera but not the radar depending on how those are setup.

The 360 degree sensors on the Tesla are for parking only (Personally when I worked on a self driving car we were going with 360 degree camera and doing path planning based on that, but Tesla has opted not to do that.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#42

Post by vkou »

Is this the new motto for autonomous vehicles? Move fast and break bones?

With these minor bugs, Tesla seems to be doing a solid job of poisoning the well for self-driving cars. I'd like to see them explain how their competitors should not be tarred with the same brush, once the political backlash hits.

It doesn't matter how many disclaimers you give before you turn on autopilot - a driver who focused on driving the car (As opposed to letting autopilot cruise) would have probably noticed a tractor driving across the road on a bright, sunny day.

It's a dangerous system. Instead of arguing about the trolley problem, I'd first like to see a car be good at making decisions that save its passengers.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#44

Post by etangent »

petercooper wrote: post #16

Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, I'm intrigued that the color is relevant in the car's case - wouldn't it be using some sort of radar to detect and map objects rather than vision? I appreciate I am probably missing something.

You can use a radar, a laser, or even a regular camera (which is what Teslas have I believe).

Re: A Tragic Loss

#45

Post by mikeash »

petercooper wrote: post #16

Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, I'm intrigued that the color is relevant in the car's case - wouldn't it be using some sort of radar to detect and map objects rather than vision? I appreciate I am probably missing something.

Tesla's Autopilot uses a radar unit, a front-facing camera, and twelve ultrasonic sensors on the front and back bumper. The ultrasonic sensors are short range and are for detecting adjacent cars and obstacles while parking, the camera is used for detecting lanes, and the camera and radar work together to detect cars.

The radar is low to the ground and probably doesn't pick up a trailer that's high off the ground. The camera could, but not if contrast is too low. (And I'm not sure if the software is able to recognize the side of a trailer anyway.)

Re: A Tragic Loss

#47

Post by gohrt »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #21

I mean I understand Tesla has to make a statement here and I understand they want to ensure everyone that it's not really their fault but to title a post "A Tragic Loss" and then spend the majority of the post discussing all of your car's safety features and how it wasn't your fault just seems tone deaf and distasteful to me. Maybe they had to do it for legal reasons I don't know (I'm certainly not a lawyer) and I'd…

They could have titled it "Tesla Safety" -- which is what the article is about, and opened with an acknowledgement of the tragedy, instead of the tacky bait-and-switch headline.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#48

Post by loceng »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #21

I mean I understand Tesla has to make a statement here and I understand they want to ensure everyone that it's not really their fault but to title a post "A Tragic Loss" and then spend the majority of the post discussing all of your car's safety features and how it wasn't your fault just seems tone deaf and distasteful to me. Maybe they had to do it for legal reasons I don't know (I'm certainly not a lawyer) and I'd…

I feel 'A Tragic Loss' sets the tone for the remaining highly technical overview, instead of the technical breakdown seeming tone-deaf, it added tone until getting to the concluding paragraph.

Unfortunately, fortunately, Tesla is having to educate people and being very clear to not allow room for panic and unwarranted fear mongering.

I would say it is as to the point as it can be, and that it is heartfelt.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#49

Post by johngalt »

The thing about self driving cars is that every accident will have a wealth of information in regards to how it occurred and the decision making that went into it. Once we understand and correct the problem every subsequent car will be safer. This is not the case with humans whom regularly fail to learn from consequences to other humans.

Imagine if the first time someone fell asleep at the wheel and crashed, you could just tell everyone "hey don't fall asleep at the wheel". And it just never happened again.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#50

Post by hluska »

hueving wrote: post #23
Pxtl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound like what happened. "The driver didn't notice" well, that's why they're using autopilot. No matter how many messages people throw at users, any autopilot that doesn't detect that the driver is awake and operating the vehicle is going to be used by sleeping or otherwise unattentive drivers. It's just human nature. So what likely happened was the driver was screwing around and the autopilot completel…

>detect that the driver is awake and operating the vehicle RTFA. It mentions explicitly that autopilot checks for hands on the wheel.

This is a very weak response.
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