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A Tragic Loss
171–180 of 511 posts
Re: A Tragic Loss
#172This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles.
Given that Autopilot is generally activated under safer, more routine driving scenarios -- decent weather, regular suburban traffic and so on; for which we can naturally expect significantly lower fatality rates -- it doesn't sound like it's off to a particularly good "batting average" so far. Especially since we've been promised until now that self-driving cars will ultimately be not just incrementally safer, but categorically safer than human-piloted vehicles.
Re: A Tragic Loss
#173I 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 half expected the final paragraph offering condolences to end with "but remember, this really wasn't Tesla's fault!" The third paragraph reads like Tesla is trying to wash their hands as much as possible. "Remember, he clicked all these buttons. He knew what he was getting into!"
Re: A Tragic Loss
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
In addition it had important information for how other Tesla drivers can use the auto-pilot feature more safely. The article combines condolences and helpful safety information to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. Also, you don't see GM making a blog post every time someone passes away in a car they make.
Then again, GM sells more vehicles in a week than Tesla has sold in its entire history.
This.
Notice how quick they are to bring up "this is the first fatality in 130 million miles", but AFAICT, traffic fatalities in the US occur at a frequency of around 10 per billion miles [1], which is the same.
So even though this is just one data point, it's spot on the current average for fatality frequency in normal cars.
Furthermore, to gather enough statistics to be able to say with confidence "semi-autonomous Teslas are/aren't safer than normal cars", Tesla either needs to increase their sales volume by several orders of magnitude, or we'll have to wait for ten years.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...
Re: A Tragic Loss
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How long to they plan to keep doing this? So long as every Tesla accident makes the homepage of CNBC, unlike the millions that occur in other makers' vehicles. Tesla puts out an immediate PR, and the breaking news that went up on all the financial sites included quotes from it nearly as fast. http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/30/us-regulators-investigating-t...
Yeah no kidding, thousands of people die every year in Fords and no one gives a shit, 1 guy dies in a Tesla and "these cars are unsafe, run for your lives, hide yo kids and yo wife, sell your stock, return your car!". I fucking hate modern media.
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Re: A Tragic Loss
#176I 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…
It's not just about Tesla though. They have to defend autopilot not only to protect the brand but to protect the public's perception of autonomous vehicles in general. Self driving tech is poised to save many many lives. So from a utilitarian perspective, it's probably justified to take extraordinary measures to make sure reactionary media and public whim doesn't kill it off, however uncomfortable that might seem in…
> It's not just about Tesla though.
> They have to defend autopilot not only to protect the brand but to protect the public's perception of autonomous vehicles in general.
They could have done that in two separate posts. This was tone deaf at best.
Re: A Tragic Loss
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
The autopilot doesn't drive the car, the driver does. The autopilot is a help just like cruise control. Tesla are very clear (apart from the naming of the feature) that the driver must still drive the car. The autopilot will avoid obstacles it can detect and the driver is expected to avoid others (since he has eyes on the wheel and eyes on the road the whole time). I think they misleading thing about Teslas Autopilot…
That's some PR firm-level explaining. First, autopilot is not just lane assist, it's lane assist + adaptive cruise control + additional features (it can change lanes if you tell it to). Other OEMs have purposely shied away from enabling an autopilot-like feature set together, even though it's technically possible, because they are absolutely terrified of something exactly like this situation happening. Second, you're…
This autopilot is very new and fairly experimental technology. You're basically demanding that this not be true somehow.
Re: A Tragic Loss
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just about Tesla though. They have to defend autopilot not only to protect the brand but to protect the public's perception of autonomous vehicles in general. Self driving tech is poised to save many many lives. So from a utilitarian perspective, it's probably justified to take extraordinary measures to make sure reactionary media and public whim doesn't kill it off, however uncomfortable that might seem in…
They could defend the public's perception of autonomous vehicles in general by not rushing to market a beta that is less technically capable then other autonomous systems being worked on by their competitors.
Are you saying that just based on the fact that they've been developing it for less time than Google, or is there a more in depth case for that somewhere? I would be very interested to read about that if there is.
Re: A Tragic Loss
#179[deleted]
Re: A Tragic Loss
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
The autopilot doesn't drive the car, the driver does. The autopilot is a help just like cruise control. Tesla are very clear (apart from the naming of the feature) that the driver must still drive the car. The autopilot will avoid obstacles it can detect and the driver is expected to avoid others (since he has eyes on the wheel and eyes on the road the whole time). I think they misleading thing about Teslas Autopilot…
That's some PR firm-level explaining. First, autopilot is not just lane assist, it's lane assist + adaptive cruise control + additional features (it can change lanes if you tell it to). Other OEMs have purposely shied away from enabling an autopilot-like feature set together, even though it's technically possible, because they are absolutely terrified of something exactly like this situation happening. Second, you're…
Much like if you make a car that does 0-60mph in 3 seconds or does 200mph you encourage doing that. The fact that the autopilot is so good that it "almost" works as a driver is an issue for Tesla as we can see here. I realize autopilot has a nice ring to it, but it's not a chauffeur...
Tesla sure has balls to pick the name "Autopilot" when it really should be called "CoPilot" and that would have saved a lot of trouble.