Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#311

Post by Jonnerz » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 11:47 AM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #154

PeterisP wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so simple - you can't simply follow the highway as you have done hundreds of thousands of times, because if the paint stripes have changed since Monday, then these might also be new (or temporary) stripes painted by a road construction crew overnight and you now must follow the new stripes.

Now imagine all people have Tesla, and someone makes a prank on the middle of a bridge, they paint a line that makes all traffic plunge down, imagine now that they are so confident they removed the driver seat, you have all those passengers looking on the windows on how their cars are driving them to their deaths and there is nothing they can do. So should this cars follow some line blindly? I think that this tech sh…

You could say the same for trains though - they follow a track in a similar sense to Tesla's autopilot. Someone could perform a "prank" by putting something on the track in order to derail a train. How often do you see that happen? Painting a line on the road is obviously easier to do, and could also happen by accident, but I think the chances of any danger are extremely low.

Hopefully when we start removing the driver from cars with autopilot, they will be following some sort of under-road NFC-like guidance system rather than painted lines.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#312

Post by mozumder » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 11:48 AM UTC

davej wrote: post #274

smoyer wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what Tesla says but that's not how people are using it - and as people grow more comfortable with the autopilot, the less vigilant they'll become. I have this picture in my head where people are trying to recoup their commute time as though they're using public transport. I suspect we'll get there some day but today is not that day. While the Tesla spokespeople are good at saying it's driver assist, their mark…

"All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver." This is perhaps a case of purposely confusing marketing. All vehicles have the hardware for full self-driving capability but not yet the software . The full self-driving is to be enabled later on through an over-the-air software…

They don't even have the hardware equivalent of a human driver.

People's eyes can detect individual photons, at much higher resolution and dynamic range than a typical camera.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#313

Post by Piskvorrr » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 11:49 AM UTC

jonathankoren wrote: post #30

pen2l wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy shit that’s a good idea, we should just fucking do it ourselves . This reminds me when I was living in the Midwest and there was this one spot where I had to do a u turn in my commute which was very dangerous because of some tree branches obstructing view of oncoming traffic. One day I almost got into an accident and since it shook me quite a lot, I wrote an email to the city that the tree branch needed to be tr…

Back in 2001, Richard Ankrom[0], installed his own Interstate 5 exit sign to an existing official Caltrans sign in Los Angeles, in order to better inform drivers of where the exit was. The sticker, was made to Caltrans and DOT specifications, and affixed in broad daylight. Since the initial installation, Caltrans replaced the sign, but now adds the I-5 signage themselves. Guerrilla public service can work people. ;)…

Sorry, this doesn't scale. Yes, this was a benevolent alteration, and sort-of-approved ex post; once this would become a widespread modus operandi, most edits would be neutral at best, but likely to be malevolent - "I want my ad on the sign!" "I don't want the X-bound traffic to go by my street, let's move them over to the next exit!" "your edit is worse than my previous edit!" The traffic signage is not Wikipedia, for multiple reasons.`

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#314

Post by mannykannot » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 11:50 AM UTC

antirez wrote: post #200

What is happening was clear to many since the start: Tesla incarnates the behavior of his founder, exaggerating the technology that is really available right now, and selling it as a product without the premise for it to be safe. A product that kinda drives your car but sometimes fails, and requires you to pay attention, is simply a crash that we are waiting to happen. And don't get trapped by the "data driven" analy…

Everyone talking about statistical evidence should take a look at this NHTSA report [1]. For example, "Figure 11. Crash Rates in MY 2014-16 Tesla Model S and 2016 Model X vehicles Before and After Autosteer Installation", where they are 1.3 and 0.8 per million miles respectively.

Unfortunately, this report seems to have shot itself in the foot by apparently using 'Autopilot' and 'Autosteer' interchangeably, so it leaves open the possibility that the Autopilot software improves or adds features to the performance of fairly basic mitigation methods, such as in emergency braking, while having unacceptable flaws in the area of steering and obstacle detection at speed. In addition, no information is given on the distribution of accident severity. It is unfortunate that this report leaves these questions open.

Even if these claims are sustained, there are two specific matters in which I think the NHTSA has been too passive: As this is beta software, it should not be on the on the public roads in what amounts to an unsupervised test that potentially puts other road users at risk. Secondly, as this system requires constant supervision by an alert driver, hands-on-the-wheel is not an acceptable test that this constraint is being satisfied.

[1] https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2016/INCLA-PE16007-7876.PDF

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#315

Post by vatueil » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 11:50 AM UTC

mozumder wrote: post #260

teppix wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statistics also includes all the cases where drivers are not paying attention as they should, and it's still safer than the average car (at least according to Tesla).

> it's still safer than the average car (at least according to Tesla). This is Tesla's big lie. In all their marketing, Tesla is comparing crash rates of their passenger cars to ALL vehicles, including trucks and motorcycles, which have higher fatality rates. Motorcycles are about 10x-50x more dangerous than cars. Not only that, they aren't controlling for variances in driver demographics - younger and old people hav…

I agree that the comparison with all motor vehicle deaths is misleading, and that we ought to be looking at accident rates for Tesla cars with Autopilot on versus off. That Tesla hasn't answered the latter despite having the data to do so is concerning.

However, I don't see the evidence for the claim that "Tesla's Autopilot is probably 100x more fatal than other cars". The flip side of the complaint that Tesla hasn't released information to know how safe Autopilot really is, is that we don't know how unsafe it really is either. If this is merely to say "I think Autopilot is likely very unsafe" then just say so, rather than giving a faux numerical value.

As for the claim that self-driving cars can't work without "fundamental infrastructure changes" and everybody working on self-driving cars should be fired, I think you're talking way beyond your domain of expertise.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#316

Post by emiliobumachar » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 11:51 AM UTC

carterehsmith wrote: post #138

toomuchtodo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.3 million people a year die in car crashes. Humans are woefully unqualified to pilot heavy machinery on a daily basis. Tesla’s Autopilot reduces crashes by 40% according to the NHTSA, so I can’t agree with your binary argument. Whether you trust others is immaterial; statistics will be the final arbitor. If Autopilot still causes fatal accidents, but fewer fatal accidents than humans alone, how could you argue agai…

>> Tesla’s Autopilot reduces crashes by 40% according to the NHTSA So does any car with automatic emergency braking and/or or forward collision warning (links below). The problem here is, this Tesla drove head-on into the gore point. And previously, it drove right into the side of a huge truck. So... can it be trusted? Your call. https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/automatic-emergen... " IIHS data show rear-en…

"drove head-on into the gore point" "drove right into the side of a huge truck"

A lot of human-led accidents sound just as silly when stated this simply, so it's not relevant to the comparison.

More to the point, I think each of the deaths would be exactly as tragic, no more no less, if the sequence of events was complicated.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#317

Post by Symmetry » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 11:52 AM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #47

dangero wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I fail to see how an obstacle as large as a divider is not seen in time. If this is the case, then the system is inadequate to see many types of debris that could be on the road.

Well, it also apparently can't detect stationary semi trailers or fire trucks. So expecting it to detect a little gore point is iffy. But why can't it?

To simplify, radars can see how far away objects are and how fast they're moving but only dimly in what direction they are. So if you don't want your car to brake every time you pass under an overhead sign or over a metal grate you need to filter out non-moving returns to some extent. At a certain distance the cone of the radar should only be intersecting things that are actually a danger and you can start braking. But it's really good at noticing if a moving object has changed speed, like the car in front of the car in front of you braking.

On Teslas theoretically the camera is there to prevent stuff like this but vision AI isn't all there yet.

Other companies use lidar which gives pretty accurate distance and direction but not object speed. Pretty useful for avoiding obstacles but current automotive grade lidars are very expensive. Much cheaper solid state lidars seem to be imminent.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#318

Post by hugh4life » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 11:55 AM UTC

Self driving cars have absolutely no business being any road/lanes that is not purposely made/reserved for self driving cars. Period. Self driving cars need an ecosystem made for self driving cars. It's frankly madness to think otherwise.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#319

Post by JustSomeNobody » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 11:55 AM UTC

blauditore wrote: post #280

ldesegur wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From https://www.tesla.com/autopilot : "All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver" Why do we keep referring to something that we understand should require human supervision as "auto"? Stop the marketing buzzfeed and let's be real.

I'm not sure whether it's intentionally been worded that way, but that sentence makes only a statement about hardware, not software. So technically, it's correct that the hardware is more capable than that of a human ("sees" and "hears" more), but it's the software that's not up to par.

People still use waterproof and water resistant interchangeably. People don't get the difference. Same with HW/SW, they won't know the difference. They read this web page and they think they are buying a self driving car.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#320

Post by Piskvorrr » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 11:58 AM UTC

qaq wrote: post #284

otalp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does Musk have to do for him to be investigated for misleading consumers or fraud?

Break the law? One surprising thing to me there is a ton of media attention on the SV right now (almost all negative) and that does not look like a coincidence. I disapprove of what FB is doing but on the scale of problems that Big Pharma, Health Insurance, big banks are causing thats not even a blip and yet most media attention and good amount of public outrage is fairly skillfully directed toward tech and SV.

Or perhaps that SV is vocal, excessively so: promises miracles, yesterday, at will, almost for free. In other words, massively overpromises, then underdelivers - that amounts to painting a huge sign "KICK ME" on its collective butt. While other enterprises might do that as well, even to a criminal extent, they do not brag about it. This might be all the explanation that's needed, no conspiracy necessary.