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Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

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Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#61

Post by raverbashing »

supreme_sublime wrote: post #21
exotree wrote: post #10

This is a very upsetting response. Yes, the driver could have paid more attention, and yes, he shouldn't have activated Autopilot in an area where he knew Tesla's autopilot was not working correctly. However, Tesla calling it "Autopilot" should be no longer allowed. It's clear that it is most certainly not that, and customers are not treating this feature in a careful and cautious fashion, and I do believe that's due…

I see your point on calling it "Autopilot", but if you think about the application of the term in terms of aviation, I think it makes more sense. Autopilot in planes won't land the plane for you. It basically will just keep you at a certain elevation and direction. I think that Tesla's Autopilot function is comparable to planes. That's probably how they will justify it. However there might be a legitimate point in th…

Well, people in aviation are more aware (hopefully) of the limitations of the systems and even then gets on snags.

I agree, Tesla shouldn't call it autopilot, call it Highway Assistance or something.

Or even, at this point, I don't see why it should even exist, if it fails on basic situations.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#62

Post by jhall1468 »

joering2 wrote: post #53

Autopilot means it will pilot itself.. automatically. Tesla is using "guidance assistant". Huge difference. Their terminology is either very confusing at the best, or bluntly deceiving at the worst.

Twice now people using absolutely stupid arguments to defend the driver here. He knew what Autopilot was and STILL took his hands off the wheel.

Autopilot is a name in the same way Amazon.com isn't a damn rain forest. It's a term taken from aviation, but "autopilot" in a plane and "Autopilot" in a Tesla aren't even remotely the same thing. And literally everyone understands that, yet any time this occurs we start blaming semantics.

This guy wasn't confused. He explicitly stated his car was having trouble with this section of the road and he trusted his car to handle it. It got him killed. The word "autopilot" did not get him killed.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#63

Post by freerobby »

brandon272 wrote: post #31
selectout wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of being allowed to take your hands off the wheel is probably "how do I detect the hands are on the wheel?". In current S/X with no interior camera the way autopilot works is you have to "yank" the wheel every now and then to prove you have your hands on. Requiring constant "yanking" wouldn't work, and there are often long stretches of roads on highways (where Autopilot is meant to work) that wouldn't requ…

Every time I learn about how these cars are handling things I end up disappointed and concerned because the actual implementation is way less impressive and seemingly less foolproof than I - and I'm sure many other people - are assuming they are. I would have never guessed "hands on wheel" is detected only if the driver yanks the wheel. I figured it was camera based or that the wheel had capacitive sensors.

The steering wheel detects torque. Generally if your hands are on the wheel, they exert enough torque through natural movements for the vehicle to detect them. In rare cases, where a road is straight and a driver's hands are perfectly balanced, the car will flash a warning, in effect telling the driver to provide some brief feedback. The slightest of forces on the wheel will quell the warning (much less force than is required to move the steering wheel).

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#64

Post by [deleted] »

cornholio wrote: post #55
tc wrote: post #18

Tesla probably shouldn't be saying anything about this at all, even just to avoid giving it more news cycles. But if they were going to say something, here's what they should have said the first time. ---- We take great care in building our cars to save lives. Forty thousands Americans die on the roads each year. That's a statistic. But even a single death of a Tesla driver or passenger is a tragedy. This has affecte…

The general sentiment is correct but the wording implies some degree of acceptance of liability: Autopilot was engaged... took no evasive action... engineers are investigating... failed to detect. They should have issued a single, very simple statement that they are investigating the crash and that any resulting improvements would be distributed to all Tesla vehicles, so that such accidents can no longer happen even…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#65

Post by snthd »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #4
mtgx wrote: post #3

This is why we need government investigators to look at crash/accident data (after the fact) and we need to ensure that the data hasn't been tampered with by anyone, including the car makers. We can't just rely on the company's words in a crash. Of course the company has all the incentive to lie or at least be as misleading as possible or try to minimize its blame as much as possible, to avoid liability or bad press.…

This is Silicon Valley. "move fast and break things"

Superfund Valley

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#66

Post by NickM »

eridius wrote: post #8

I have to wonder why Tesla keeps doubling down on victim-blaming. Is this a case of Elon Musk being insecure about criticism (since he's demonstrated a tendency in the past to react poorly to it)? Or is Tesla trying to actually lower their legal liability? Edit: To clarify, in most of these crashes, it's usually a combination of Tesla's fault and the driver's fault. Which is to say, the driver could have avoided the…

I think they're trying to hammer home the point that autopilot is very much not level 5 self-driving. The media is constantly referring to "self-driving" Teslas, so of course it's easy for members of the public to get confused, but this is very different from e.g. the Uber self-driving fatality that occurred recently, where the car was supposed to be able to drive 100% autonomously. Tesla is extremely clear that these are only driver assistance features, but people keep getting confused about it, so they keep doubling down on their message.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#67

Post by tshannon »

dragonwriter wrote: post #60
tshannon wrote: post #35

I agree that this statement seems cold, and blames the driver, but from a legal perspective, can it be anything else? They can't admit anything or publically take any responsibility, because it could be used against them in the court case right? Even in their statement they don't say "Autopilot is not perfect" they say "According to the family, Mr. Huang was well aware that Autopilot was not perfect". The only thing…

> I agree that this statement seems cold, and blames the driver, but from a legal perspective, can it be anything else? Yes. The law doesn't require, or even create an incentive, for them to make a statement at all. The law doesn't require, or create an incentive, for them include any attribution of blame or responsibility in any statement they do make. This is a hamfisted attempt at PR management by directing the pu…

Thanks, my comment was a genuine question. If that is the case, then their PR statement is indeed very cold.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#68

Post by dragonwriter »

berg01 wrote: post #27
otalp wrote: post #2

Full statement: "We are very sorry for the family's loss. According to the family, Mr. Huang was well aware that Autopilot was not perfect and, specifically, he told them it was not reliable in that exact location, yet he nonetheless engaged Autopilot at that location. The crash happened on a clear day with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, which means that the only way for this accident to have occurred is i…

So the crux here is the naming of the not-really-self-driving feature. This is not an Autopilot for cars. It "requires the driver to be alert and have hands on the wheel". That's a driving assist. Call it the world's best driving assist or whatever, but not Autopilot. (I have seen the usual reply from Tesla apologists that it's a good name because of its aircraft analogy. From a usability perspective that is just so.…

> So the crux here is the naming of the not-really-self-driving feature

It should be called, ”I’m Feeling Lucky.”

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#69

Post by josecurioso »

The reason tesla needs to make this kind of statements is very simple: Guy in a renault has this accident and it is just routine, renault won't see their shares fall and there will be next to no coverage of the incident. In the case of tesla any accident gets to the front page of reddit, trends in twitter, is shared in facebook, let alone printed on newspapers, these statements are needed to fight that amount of bad PR.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#70

Post by redial »

NickM wrote: post #66
eridius wrote: post #8

I have to wonder why Tesla keeps doubling down on victim-blaming. Is this a case of Elon Musk being insecure about criticism (since he's demonstrated a tendency in the past to react poorly to it)? Or is Tesla trying to actually lower their legal liability? Edit: To clarify, in most of these crashes, it's usually a combination of Tesla's fault and the driver's fault. Which is to say, the driver could have avoided the…

I think they're trying to hammer home the point that autopilot is very much not level 5 self-driving. The media is constantly referring to "self-driving" Teslas, so of course it's easy for members of the public to get confused, but this is very different from e.g. the Uber self-driving fatality that occurred recently, where the car was supposed to be able to drive 100% autonomously. Tesla is extremely clear that thes…

Jeez, that damned media again misinforming people. Who could have expected a feature called AUTOPILOT to mean self driving, who?!
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