After looking at the report it looks like Tesla ran into the same issue we did in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. The trailer was higher than the front facing sensors. We and most other teams had all assumed 'Ground Based Obstacles' meant that any obstacles on the test track would make contact with the ground in the lane of travel. DARPA decided to put a railroad bar across the street and expected cars to back up and do a U-Turn when they encountered it. The bar was too high off the ground for our forward LIDAR to see it so we collided with the bar at nearly full speed.[1] The sad part about this is that when we were drinking after dropping out of the challenge our team leader said something along the lines of 'At least we know no one will ever die now from the mistake we just made.'
NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction
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Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction
#212After looking at the report it looks like Tesla ran into the same issue we did in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. The trailer was higher than the front facing sensors. We and most other teams had all assumed 'Ground Based Obstacles' meant that any obstacles on the test track would make contact with the ground in the lane of travel. DARPA decided to put a railroad bar across the street and expected cars to back up and…
Predictions like that only work out if the lesson is sufficiently broadcast. Clearly, since this is still newsworthy here, that is not the case. (However this back channel is helping.)
Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction
#213Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
> wealthy (probably better educated) drivers. You mean drivers like the ones behind the wheel of all the BMWs and Audis that cut me off with no turn signals, speed, make aggressive lane changes, tailgate, and generally act like giant douches because a simple traffic ticket is nothing to their pocketbook while their time == money? Those people are going to be a hell of a lot safer behind the wheel of an autonomous (le…
Anecdotally I have a lot more near-incidents with 4WDs and little hatchback getabouts. In my experience the 4WDs have been distracted or drifting outside their lane, and the little getabouts have been tailgating and driving aggressively. Having "P" plates (1) also raises the chances massively . Could just be the numbers of those kinds of cars in my area though. Generally I feel that a douche can drive any type of car…
I find that drivers who fail to keep right except when passing are the leading cause of 'aggressive' and 'unusual' passing conditions.
Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction
#215I don't always like Gladwell, but his piece on the Ford Pinto and the NHTSA philosophy towards auto safety more generally is quite worth the read [1]. I hadn't considered the intersection of this and self-driving car tech, but I wonder if NHTSA will basically take the position that as long as self-driving tech saves lives overall, a few "bugs" where the car kills the driver are an acceptable trade-off.
[1] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/04/the-engineers-l...
Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
Varying insurance rates based on age and gender seem to indicate that, yes, demographics play a role in driving responsibility. A Tesla is not a cheap car. I kind of suspect the average Tesla driver is more responsible than the average driver. It may be the case that the average Tesla driver is very well off, and treat the cars as expensive toys though, so it's tough to say without numbers. If i had to bet right now,…
I suspect the average Tesla driver is more irresponsible than the average driver, simply because they're rich and are used to getting their way. If you study rich drivers I have no doubt that you would find that they cut people off more, overtake in more dangerous situations, use their indicators less, drive over the speed limit more, proceed through amber signals later, run red lights more often, and generally show…
In my own opinion:
This list is not strongly related to risk /of/ accident, but is correlated with severity (a small change is likely to have a small correlation with severity).
* over the speed limit
* overtake in (more) dangerous situations
* through amber signals later
All of these are very bad things that everyone should avoid doing, and signals should be given starting 5-10 seconds before the action.
* use indicators less
* cut people off
* run red lightsRe: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction
#217It's interesting how vague this is. There's an NTSB investigation still pending into a specific Tesla crash.[1] The goals are different. NHTSA asks "do we need to do a recall?" NTSB asks "exactly what, in detail, happened here?" NTSB mostly does air crashes, but occasionally they do an auto crash with unusual properties. Here's the NTSB report for the Midland, TX crash between a train and a parade float.[2] That has…
Yes, it does seem vague. Isn't the NHTSA investigation meant to be a non-biased root-cause-analysis about last year's trailer crash? Instead, this just seems to be a grading report on Tesla's autopilot compliance.
Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction
#218Tesla comes off extremely well in this report. For one thing, the 40% statistic cited in the headline appears to be well supported by the NHTSA report (section 5.4) and actually manages to frame the incident in a very positive light: ODI analyzed mileage and airbag deployment data supplied by Tesla for all MY 2014 through 2016 Model S and 2016 Model X vehicles equipped with the Autopilot Technology Package, either in…
A lot of people are asking what was in the October 2015 Autopilot 7.0 update. That was the introduction of autosteer. Automatic emergency braking (AEB) was initially released in 6.2, see https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/tesla_model_s_soft...
6.2 was announced in March, 2015.
Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction
#219For your reference, a level 4 automated car will look something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhUX8qWFGc4
Imagine you are too fucked up to drive. Your car will be able to pick you up. Do you need Pepto Bismol too? Your car will pick it up from a drive through billed through your license plate. I'd give roughly 15~20 years for this to take place.
Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just funny that the 40% from Autosteer seem to exactly match with the general AEB safety improvement rate also mentioned in the report... IIHS research shows that AEB systems meeting the commitment would reduce rear-end crashes[emphasis added] by 40 percent. IIHS estimates that by 2025 – the earliest NHTSA believes it could realistically implement a regulatory requirement for AEB – the commitment will prevent 28,000…
For those unaware, "AEB" stands for "Autonomous Emergency Braking". See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_avoidance_system Did Tesla cars have AEB prior to Autopilot installation? If not, then this suggests the 40% reduction in crashes may simply be due to the installation of an AEB system. What effect Autopilot's other features may have would remain uncertain.
Yes, Tesla cars had AEB since March 2015. Autopilot (with autosteer) came out in October 2015. Presumably Tesla's AEB gets improved a little with every firmware release.