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Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

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Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#351

Post by ilamont »

"It's a winding road going through a canyon, with no shoulder," Shope told CNNMoney. The driver told Shope the car was in Autopilot mode, traveling between 55 and 60 mph when it veered to the right and hit a series of wooden stakes on the side of the road.

Thank goodness no one was hurt.

But I have to ask, what was the driver thinking? Autopilot late at night on a winding mountain road with no shoulder?

A question for Tesla: Why isn't Autopilot disabled when it detects dangerous conditions? TFA said it alerted the driver to put hands on wheel. If there is no response, what is the protocol? At what point will the vehicle attempt to pull over and stop (for instance, in the event of a medical emergency or conditions are simply too dangerous)?

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#352

Post by Retric »

ssharp wrote: post #344
Animats wrote: post #109

With three accidents on "autopilot" in a short period, the defects in Tesla's design are becoming clear. 1. Tesla's "hands on wheel" enforcement is much weaker than their competitors. BMW, Volvo, and Mercedes have similar systems, but after a few seconds of hands-off-wheel, the vehicle will start to slow. Tesla allows minutes of hands-off time; one customer reports driving 50 miles without touching the wheel. Tesla i…

Tesla's spin control is backfiring. They tried to blame the driver. They're being sued by the family of the dead driver, and being investigated by the NHTSA (the recall people), and the NTSB. In comparison, when a Google self-driving car bumped a bus at 2mph, Google admitted fault, took the blame, and Urmson gave a talk at SXSW showing the data from the sensors and discussing how the self-driving car misjudged the li…

Damages from a single death have a relatively low cap unless the victim was making a lot of money. Lost sales is generally a much larger issue.

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#353

Post by Goronmon »

jacquesm wrote: post #200
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but actively steering a car while someone else is also actively steering it sounds pretty terrible. My passat has most assist systems and I like how it steers. It tries very hard to get my attention and get my hands back on the steering wheel. It barely lets me keep my hands 15 seconds of the wheel but this is perfect for what it's designed to do: keep you in the lane if you are being distracted by something (eg: b…

> keep you in the lane if you are being distracted by something (eg: baby). If you can't drive responsibly with a baby on board lane assist isn't going to save your ass. If something happens to your baby which distracts you ask someone else in the car to take care of it, if there is nobody to help pull over at the earliest opportunity. Lane assist will not save you from anything else but lane departure and there are…

If you can't drive responsibly with a baby on board lane assist isn't going to save your ass.

You seem really defensive about a pretty inoffensive remark. Maybe you need to reflect on why you are so angry about something so trivial.

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#354

Post by Goronmon »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #325
newjersey wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine the gymnastics involved in this feat either. A baby doesn't belong on the front seat without some modifications to the car as far as I know. I absolutely agree. There is absolutely no excuse for the driver to take their eyes off the road to assist a baby in the car. How would you assist a baby in the back seat while driving with a seat belt on anyway? As I read about people using these features, I'm c…

Who said anything about a) baby on a front seat (which is not permitted anyways) and b) assisting a baby. If you have ever driven with a baby or child in a car you will have learned that they can cry or make a tantrum. Assist systems are intended to supplement and assist the driver in situations of increased stress. The idea that one would actively take their hands off the wheel to do something with a child is so pre…

I wouldn't worry about it. Some people just feel a constant need to get up on that high horse whenever possible.

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#355

Post by toomanythings4 »

Animats wrote: post #109

With three accidents on "autopilot" in a short period, the defects in Tesla's design are becoming clear. 1. Tesla's "hands on wheel" enforcement is much weaker than their competitors. BMW, Volvo, and Mercedes have similar systems, but after a few seconds of hands-off-wheel, the vehicle will start to slow. Tesla allows minutes of hands-off time; one customer reports driving 50 miles without touching the wheel. Tesla i…

>Tesla allows minutes of hands-off time; one customer reports driving 50 miles without touching the wheel.

>They tried to blame the driver.

In this incident, the driver was using autopilot in a fashion that it should not be; twisting road at high speed. The driver IS at fault.

>They're being sued by the family of the dead driver

This is no proof of anything. You can find a lawyer to sue anybody over anything.

>and being investigated by the NHTSA (the recall people), and the NTSB

Well, of course they are. They're supposed to. Again, no proof of anything Tesla did wrong.

I'm not saying there isn't a problem with this. I'm saying your reasoning is wrong.

I'm also curious as to how many autopilot sessions take place every day. If there have been three crashes, such as this where the driver is at fault, out of a million then that's one thing not considered so far.

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#356

Post by qaq »

Animats wrote: post #109

With three accidents on "autopilot" in a short period, the defects in Tesla's design are becoming clear. 1. Tesla's "hands on wheel" enforcement is much weaker than their competitors. BMW, Volvo, and Mercedes have similar systems, but after a few seconds of hands-off-wheel, the vehicle will start to slow. Tesla allows minutes of hands-off time; one customer reports driving 50 miles without touching the wheel. Tesla i…

This would be very reasonable if the feature was not experimental. You specifically turn on experimental feature and then purposefully ignore instructions on using that experimental feature. This is obviously manufacturer's fault.

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#357

Post by tmptmp »

return0 wrote: post #333
tmptmp wrote: post #138

It's sad. I am a big fan of Tesla and had/still have very high hopes from them, but it's decreasing. It seems Tesla is hell-bent on committing suicide. This way, they don't need the fossil-fuel car lobby to destroy them. The BMW, Volkswgen and the likes of dirty-gas-guzzlers-producers would be chuckling now. Why the hell are they so bullish on auto-pilot? I cannot see any sense in it. They must just concentrate more…

> The BMW, Volkswgen and the likes of dirty-gas-guzzlers-producers would be chuckling now. Why? Autonomous cars =/= electric cars

With Tesla in the picture, there is a lot of pressure on the BMW, Volkswagen etc to invest in the EV technology. So they would be chuckling now because with Tesla getting out of the competition (or with Tesla becoming weaker), they would have an easier task pushing their dirty-gas-guzzlers and of getting loads of easy profits.

With Tesla out, they can even squash the entire electric car efforts altogether and will plunder the money thus "saved" in the form of fat bonuses to the higher-ups (ala Volkswagen style), which they would have to invest in EV research otherwise.

I may seem exaggerating, but with the recent Volkswagen pollution scandal, many will agree with this. Tesla is better, Elon Musk is better in terms of innovation and their direction seems more promising for the public good. They are disrupting the fossil fuel giants who are hellbent in garnering as much money as they can at whatever costs.

I know I may (turn out to) be a foolish naive believing too much in Tesla and Musk, but I find myself helpless here.

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#358

Post by dzhiurgis »

mirimir wrote: post #191
HNaTTY wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree; I think it's despicable that Tesla is acting in such a defensive manner. -- "No force was detected on the steering wheel for over two minutes after autosteer was engaged," said Tesla, which added that it can detect even a very small amount of force, such as one hand resting on the wheel. "As road conditions became increasingly uncertain, the vehicle again alerted the driver to put his hands on the wheel," sa…

Right. When the AP detected road conditions that it couldn't handle, it should have reduced vehicle speed as much as necessary for handling them. Yes, it was dumb to trust AP at 50-60 mph on a two-lane canyon road. But it was also dumb to ship AP that can't fail gracefully. I do admit, however, that slowing down properly can be hard. It can even be that hitting an inside post is the best option. Still, I doubt that c…

I think it also needs AP confidence indicator, so the driver could get ready to pick up the wheel.

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#359

Post by SamBam »

taf2 wrote: post #320
abalone wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It bugs me how quick Tesla is to blame their drivers. That autopark crash, for example, was clearly the result of a software design flaw. Tesla pushed an update where to activate autopark all you had to do was double tap the park button and exit the vehicle. That's it. No other positive confirmation. No holding the key fob required. The vehicle would start moving without a driver inside. You'd think someone would hav…

its a bit harder than a double tap... You press and hold. Count to three. Now wait for the car to start blinking and make a shifting noise. Press either the front of the key or back of the key to move forward. Definitely not easy to engage so I can understand tesla view on this one... I do this every morning/night to pull my car out of the tiny garage since I can't get my door open inside the garage

Wait, did you build your garage for the car? What were you doing before self-parking cars?

Re: Tesla confirms “Autopilot” crash in Montana

#360

Post by ams6110 »

toomanythings4 wrote: post #355
Animats wrote: post #109

With three accidents on "autopilot" in a short period, the defects in Tesla's design are becoming clear. 1. Tesla's "hands on wheel" enforcement is much weaker than their competitors. BMW, Volvo, and Mercedes have similar systems, but after a few seconds of hands-off-wheel, the vehicle will start to slow. Tesla allows minutes of hands-off time; one customer reports driving 50 miles without touching the wheel. Tesla i…

>Tesla allows minutes of hands-off time; one customer reports driving 50 miles without touching the wheel. >They tried to blame the driver. In this incident, the driver was using autopilot in a fashion that it should not be; twisting road at high speed. The driver IS at fault. >They're being sued by the family of the dead driver This is no proof of anything. You can find a lawyer to sue anybody over anything. >and be…

Tesla's "autopilot" system and implementation has serious problems. I think it's becoming clear that they did something wrong. Whether it rises to the standard of negligence I'm not sure, but it probably will if they don't make some changes.

With that said, I agree that ultimately the driver is at fault. It's his car, and he's the one that is operating it on a public road, he's the one not paying attention.

One of the laws of ship and air transport is that the captain is the ultimate authority and is responsible for the operation of the vehicle. There are many automated systems, but that does not relieve the captain of that responsibility. If an airplane flies into a mountain on autopilot, it's the captain's fault because he wasn't properly monitoring the situation.

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