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Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

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131–140 of 348 posts

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#131

One of the things you learn in flying is not to force it. If conditions are not safe. Just forget about it. It almost seems the same type of judgement needs to be made for auto-pilot. If your auto-pilot acts up at all. Just turn it off and don't use it till it's resolved. All you need is one incident to be dead, so if you get a chance to observe any abnormalities, consider it a blessing. Something that will also be g…

> If at any time your car does something unsafe, you can hit that button. Tesla actually has that, it's not widely documented but you can do a voice command of "Report bug" followed by a brief audio description and it's uploaded to Tesla. No idea how it gets triaged but I wish more products had a similar feature.

I have reported using that and also emailed their feedback list but of course they don't follow up that anything was ever updated to fix it. For e.g. It's still unsafe on car pool lanes with bikers and lane-splitting which is legal in CA.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah! Isn't it obvious that a feature named "autopilot" means you have to watch it like a hawk, keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel?

Yes, it is obvious. What do you think a plane pilot does when autopilot is on? He watches to make sure everything is alright, and intervenes when necessary.

Not really. He sure isn't expected to be able to jump in with less than a second's notice to override what autopilot is doing. And he typically isn't there to make sure the autopilot isn't doing something stupid. He's there to watch for conditions that the autopilot can't handle...and those typically have plenty of warning time in a plane. And a pilot is a trained professional.

The expectation that the driver will jump in to prevent a car's autopilot from steering the car off the road into an obstruction is ridiculous. It's one thing to expect the driver to stop for on-the-actual-road dangers. This wasn't.

We don't really know what happened yet, but if it was the autopilot and it did steer into the barrier, this is at least 95% Tesla's fault.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#133
post #128
post #9

It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of the issue with the already-collapsed crash barrier and what CalTrans says about it. That sort of thing is there for a reason, and to be left in a crushed state for any period of time is bad.

i didn't understand that part of the article. Does the road have a crumple zone in it, and it was already consumed in a previous incident, and then in this incident the car collided with the already-crumpled zone?

That is correct.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something that will also be great will be a sort of "crash dump/bug report" button for these cars. Good point, and it isn't just vehicles with auto-pilot perhaps all vehicles. The 2017 and 2018 Chrysler Pacifica Minivan kept on randomly shutting off[0] and loosing all electrical power at freeway speeds. You had to put the vehicle back into park, on the freeway, to restart it. There are several stories of near death…

Various sources put the current SLOC count in modern vehicles in the hundred-million range: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/39559/does-the-... A lot of that is for the infotainment systems, but regardless, we're probably going to be seeing automakers struggle more and more with all of the problems that have plagued the software industry for its entire history. On the one hand, I want to say that situatio…

As many of the comments (but none of the top-level answers) in that Stack Exchange thread note, most of the code in critical control systems like ECUs isn't written, it's generated from verifiable models. While this doesn't lend complete confidence by any means, I think it can be expected that the defects/SLOC will be much lower and of a very different variety in this type of code than code that's written.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#135

One of the things you learn in flying is not to force it. If conditions are not safe. Just forget about it. It almost seems the same type of judgement needs to be made for auto-pilot. If your auto-pilot acts up at all. Just turn it off and don't use it till it's resolved. All you need is one incident to be dead, so if you get a chance to observe any abnormalities, consider it a blessing. Something that will also be g…

>> One of the things you learn in flying is not to force it. If conditions are not safe. Just forget about it.

I wonder if we would have had safe planes if that was the mentality when they were first invented.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah! Isn't it obvious that a feature named "autopilot" means you have to watch it like a hawk, keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel?

Yes, it is obvious. What do you think a plane pilot does when autopilot is on? He watches to make sure everything is alright, and intervenes when necessary.

>What do you think a plane pilot does when autopilot is on?

In a commercial jet - Goes to the toilet? Eats lunch? Chats to the co-pilot?

Sure none of those might be right but I'd warrant that a lot of people would answer with things that move the pilots concentration away from piloting, "because the auto-pilot is doing the flying". Honestly I'd assume they do any of these answers; but with the proviso that the co-pilot stays in the cockpit when the pilot leaves.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#137
post #94
post #90

Am I the only one that thinks that drivers with auto-pilot and back-up drivers for driver-less cars should be ready to drive at any instant? As an engineer, I'm seeing these features as beta at best.

The problem is that that's not how human cognition works. If the auto-pilot is working well your brain will inevitably become accustom to the lack of stimulus. Ironically I think that these systems have a kind of uncanny valley type area where they are probably safest when the auto-pilot is poor or great, but not in the middle.

I understand that ... and that's another problem we've yet to solve. What you've described is what led to the crash of the Korean Airliner that undershot the runway at SFO a few years ago. In that case, they would have been better off letting the plane land itself but that's not SOP.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#138
post #61

"Our data shows that Tesla owners have driven this same stretch of highway with Autopilot engaged roughly 85,000 times since Autopilot was first rolled out in 2015. ... There are over 200 successful Autopilot trips per day on this exact stretch of road." Who wrote this statement does not understand software. If there is some kind of Heisenbug, those numbers are too small to prove that the software is ok, and actually…

That person is likely Elon Musk who is well-known for his obstinate and even idiotic defense of Tesla against legitimate and thoughtful criticism. He has the defensiveness of Donald Trump, while even Zuckerberg admitted fault.

Didn't he sue Top Gear and lost over a bit Jeremy Clarkson did?

EDIT:

Yes he did and lost[0].

Jeremy Clarkson did another bit in The Grand Tour about the new Tesla and it was quite British[1].

[0]http://www.thedrive.com/sheetmetal/12536/remember-when-top-g...

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DiGQRaaHvg

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#139

Why call something "auto-pilot" when it is clearly not remotely ready to do what its name implies ?

because it implies something regardless of the products ability to actually deliver. the connotations were so strong I found it bizarre they went with it and didn't just hold it until the product matured. however it really comes down to the simple fact it has not costed them enough money in penalties and lawsuits to force a name change. they are in essence bluffing their way through this and have yet to get called on it.

Re: Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location

#140
post #37
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in the United States. Rail coverage is terrible. If you can get to your destination, good luck doing that without switching trains.

To be fair. I used trains on any continent other than America. My comment is a passive critique to any system who aren't able to build such a transport system yet.

The US was able (and had) a passenger train network. It didn’t stay updated because cargo is a much more profitable business with professional customers. There is not one aspect of passenger travel that is a bonus over cargo for rail companies. As others have pointed out, you get to optimize the rails for either cargo or passengers.
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