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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

#541

Post by Dylan16807 »

fmihaila wrote: post #110
jijojv wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla is extremely clear Oct'16 video on https://www.tesla.com/autopilot says Driver is only there for legal reasons https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/823632597284691969 " Yes, safety should improve significantly due to autonomy features, even if regs disallow no driver present 23 Jan 2017"

> Oct'16 video on https://www.tesla.com/autopilot says Driver is only there for legal reasons That may come back to haunt them. For those not clicking it, the above link goes to a video showing the Autopilot in action. The white-on-black, full-screen text prefacing the demo is not doing them any favours in the debate about their messaging (all-caps are in the original): "THE PERSON IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT IS ONLY THERE…

Car demos are almost always "do not attempt" and violating this or that, so when they say the driver wasn't necessary for the demo I don't personally extrapolate that to say anything about real life.

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

#542

Post by paulcole »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #535
paulcole wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be more like releasing a clone of Dropbox called "Dropbox for Backing Up Files" that made your files public and gave your credit card info to Russian hackers. Sure it might look neat to someone on the outside but it wouldn't take long to see it's nothing like the real thing made by someone who knows what they're doing.

It matters whether it functions correctly, not whether an expert can tell if it was made by an expert. This statement is fine.

The statement does not function correctly.

Do you honestly believe the statement, as written, aligns with the goals Tesla sets for themselves when releasing a statement?

If yes, then how wildly incompetent must Tesla be to release the statement they did.

If no, then this statement does not serve the function of a statement released by Tesla.

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

#543

Post by chrisper »

greglindahl wrote: post #356
chrisper wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autoland is also a safety feature for manned aircraft because it allows you to land in bad visibility or avoid accidents like the one at SFO a couple of years ago.

Excessive reliance on features like autoland was actually the cause of that SFO accident, according to the NTSB.

But ILS (the autoland system on ground) was disabled that day. Are we talking about two different incidents?

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

#545

Post by InternetOfStuff »

Unless they have other data to back up their claim of the hands not being on the wheel, such as camera images, Tesla isn't making a statement of fact. Rather they are recounting what imperfect sensors might be telling them (that's convenient in the upcoming lawsuit).

To give perspective: I have a car (BMW) with lane-keeping "autopilot", which often gets wrong whether I have my hands on the wheel.

It seems to me that it senses resistance to rotation to determine hands-onness. If my hands are very relaxed, just letting the steering wheel do its thing, apparently the sensor can't pick it up anymore.

I had my hands on the wheel, dammit car! Stop beeping and flashing at me all accusatory.

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

#546

Post by turtlebits »

Splines wrote: post #509
tedivm wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me beta testing should be a long period of time where the computer is running while humans are driving, with deviations between what the computer would do if it had control versus what the human actually does being recorded for future training. The value add is that the computer can still be used to alert to dangerous conditions, or potentially even overriding in certain circumstances (applying break when lidar se…

It's surprising that this isn't the standard right now. I'm certain the people at Tesla/Uber/Waymo have considered this - I'm curious why this approach isn't more common.

I'm sure it is the standard during testing. I doubt you can do this for the general population.

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

#547

Post by FireBeyond »

wstrange wrote: post #330
Phrodo_00 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it might imply otherwise, the message is clear about the _hardware_ being ready for self-driving. That doesn't mean the car is capable of self-driving in general.

At this point it is not even clear that the hardware is in fact capable of self-driving, ever. I think there is a reason everyone else is using Lidar.

And the reason Tesla is not is (among others) that it's unlikely to be economical on the Model 3.

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

#548

Post by modzu »

patcheudor wrote: post #107
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…

>t's a tool to help attentive drivers avoid accidents that might have otherwise occurred. This needs far more discussion. I just don't buy it. I don't believe that you can have a car engaged in auto-drive mode and remain attentive. I think our psychology won't allow it. When driving, I find that I must be engaged and on long trips I don't even enable cruise control because taking the accelerator input away from me is…

^^^ thanks for saying this, it is precisely the crux of the issue

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

#549

Post by AlexandrB »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #377
almost_usual wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have to preface my post to say that I think developing self-driving automobiles is so important that it's worth the implied cost of potentially tens of thousands of lives in order to perfect the technology, because that's what people do; make sacrifices to improve the world we live in so that future generations don't have to know the same problem. I generally agree with this philosophy but this is very optimistic…

Economic incentives and competition will eventually cause it to happen regardless of sentiment. First, insurance rates for manually driven cars will shoot through the roof as less risky drivers moving to self driving cars decimate that risk pool (like if gun owners were required insurance for misuse). Second, cities that go to self driving only will have a huge advantage in infrastructure utilization and costs as roa…

> First, insurance rates for manually driven cars will shoot through the roof as less risky drivers moving to self driving cars decimate that risk pool (like if gun owners were required insurance for misuse).

Why would the less-risky drivers move to self-driving cars first? Wouldn't some of the higher-risk demographics (e.g. the elderly) make the move first since they have more incentive to do so?

> Second, cities that go to self driving only will have a huge advantage in infrastructure utilization and costs as roads are used more efficiently (with smoother traffic) and parking lots/garages become a thing of the past. Residents will just push for it if it means not being stuck in traffic anymore.

I think self-driving cars will be really cool and reduce traffic accidents once they're perfected, but a lot of these assumptions don't make sense. Unless a critical mass switches to car-sharing, autonomous cars and no parking will make rush hour worse because now each car will make the round trip to work twice a day instead of just once. Also, what happens to the real-estate where the parking lots are now? The financially sound thing to do will probably be converting these lots to more offices/condos/malls. So urban density will increase - increasing traffic.

Even if autonomous cars radically improve traffic flow, I suspect we'll just get induced demand [1]. More people will take cars instead of public transit and urban density will increase until traffic sucks again.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

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

#550

Post by ScottBurson »

Twisell wrote: post #353
dewski wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on his complaints I don’t see how we can infer it gave him added security which would warrant continued use. If I knew a tool I used around the house wasn’t working completely as advertised I wouldn’t continue using the feature that wasn’t working for me. As a beta user of bank software where clicking transfer money ended up sending twice as much, wouldn’t it be my fault if I did it 7 more times when I acknowle…

As I see it it’s a minor bug with horrible consequences. What is shocking is not the bug itself, nor the lack of a quick bugfix, but inability to acknowledge the problem and lack of basic and sincere human empathy. To quote Tesla statement "We empathize with Mr. Huang's family,(...), but the false impression that Autopilot is unsafe will cause harm to others on the road." and the last sentence is by far the worst "Th…

> How can anybody in his right mind have vetted this last sentence?

Agreed. Unfortunately, Elon himself probably wrote that.

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