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NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

arstechnica.com

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Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#81

Post by Someone1234 »

baconmania wrote: post #61
Animats wrote: post #42

NTSB: • At 8 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was following a lead vehicle and was traveling about 65 mph. • At 7 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla began a left steering movement while following a lead vehicle. • At 4 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was no longer following a lead vehicle. • At 3 seconds prior to the crash and up to the time of impact with the crash attenuator, the Tesla’s speed increas…

What's your source for the claim that Tesla's system "doesn't detect stationary objects"? From the reference frame of a moving Tesla, both globally stationary and globally moving objects will appear to be in motion.

The NTSB report said that the system didn't apply the automatic emergency braking. That either means it didn't detect the stationary object or did it on purpose.

You can argue something between those two options, but ultimately it is just a semantic argument (e.g. "it just chose to ignore it" which is effectively the same as a non-detection, since the response is identical).

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#82

Post by ckastner »

d0lph wrote: post #65
ebikelaw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deficiency of Tesla AP has been abundantly clear to anyone with eyes, for a long time. Only fingers-in-ears Musk fans cannot see that.

Or perhaps us fingers-in-ears Musk fans don't expect the AP to be perfect. Especially considering how new the fields are. Autopilot doesn't need to be perfect, just better than humans.

It must also never be worse than humans.

In this case, it very clearly was.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#83

Post by TheLoneAdmin »

Animats wrote: post #42

NTSB: • At 8 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was following a lead vehicle and was traveling about 65 mph. • At 7 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla began a left steering movement while following a lead vehicle. • At 4 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was no longer following a lead vehicle. • At 3 seconds prior to the crash and up to the time of impact with the crash attenuator, the Tesla’s speed increas…

Makes me wonder about the future of self-driving cars. I would think that the first thing that should be programmed in is to not run into objects that are not moving.

IMO, maybe the roads need to be certified for self-driving. Dangerous areas would be properly painted to prevent recognition errors. Every self-driving system would need to query some database to see if a road is certified. If not, the self-driving system safely disengages.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#85

Post by ocdtrekkie »

d0lph wrote: post #65
ebikelaw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deficiency of Tesla AP has been abundantly clear to anyone with eyes, for a long time. Only fingers-in-ears Musk fans cannot see that.

Or perhaps us fingers-in-ears Musk fans don't expect the AP to be perfect. Especially considering how new the fields are. Autopilot doesn't need to be perfect, just better than humans.

I think the issue is, if you read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17256900 is that Autopilot is not better than humans.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#86

Post by TheForumTroll »

d0lph wrote: post #65
ebikelaw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deficiency of Tesla AP has been abundantly clear to anyone with eyes, for a long time. Only fingers-in-ears Musk fans cannot see that.

Or perhaps us fingers-in-ears Musk fans don't expect the AP to be perfect. Especially considering how new the fields are. Autopilot doesn't need to be perfect, just better than humans.

The thing is that the problem isn't just the Autopilot driving over white lines. Even cheap VW Up's and other micro cars would have applied the brakes automatically when an object was in the way. It is a huge failure that a Tesla can do both without stopping. Two huge fails.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#87

Post by MBCook »

stetrain wrote: post #78
MBCook wrote: post #70

So people are asking why the barrier wasn’t detected, and that’s fair. Here’s another question: why wasn’t the ‘gore’ zone detected? Why did the car thing it was safe to drive over and area with striped white lines covering the pavement? It saw the white line on the side of that area and decided that was a land market but ignored the striped area you’re not supposed to drive on? If you’re reading the lines on the pav…

This gore zone did not have a striped area, just solid lines on each side. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5582461/Tesla... Edit: Google street view of the location: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.410912,-122.0757037,3a,75y,2...

Ah. I wonder if they do recognize the stripes then.

BTW does anyone know why it’s called a ‘gore’ zone? I can see it being a (brutal) nickname but I’m hoping there is some better reason.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#88

Post by stetrain »

27182818284 wrote: post #13

The NTSB report confirms that. The crash attenuator—an accordion-like barrier that's supposed to cushion a vehicle when it crashes into the lane separator—had been damaged the previous week when a Toyota Prius crashed at the same location. The resulting damage made the attenuator ineffective and likely contributed to Huang's death. kinda sounds like maybe that part of the road isn't well designed or marked too.

It isn't:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5582461/Tesla...

I do think that an "Autopilot" / "ProPilot" / "SuperCruise" type system that does adaptive cruise + lane following + emergency braking should do a better job at detecting and reacting to that kind of barrier, but there is also evidence that this is a problematic location that has seen crashes by plenty of non-computer-assisted vehicles.

Edit: Google street view of the location: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.410912,-122.0757037,3a,75y,2...

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#89

Post by jumelles »

Maybestring wrote: post #25
MBCook wrote: post #3

“[Driver’s] hands were not detected on the steering wheel for the final six seconds prior to the crash. Tesla has said that Huang received warnings to put his hands on the wheel, but according to the NTSB, these warnings came more than 15 minutes before the crash.” This kind of stuff is why I’ve lost all faith in Tesla’s public statements. What they said here was, for all intents and purposes, a flat out lie. Clearly…

>This kind of stuff is why I’ve lost all faith in Tesla’s public statements. I don't understand why they would issue any statement other than, 'condolences, we're committed to safety, we're working with the NTSB to understand what happened'

It's hubris.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#90

Post by giarc »

Animats wrote: post #42

NTSB: • At 8 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was following a lead vehicle and was traveling about 65 mph. • At 7 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla began a left steering movement while following a lead vehicle. • At 4 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was no longer following a lead vehicle. • At 3 seconds prior to the crash and up to the time of impact with the crash attenuator, the Tesla’s speed increas…

>That's the fundamental problem here. These vehicles will run into stationary obstacles at full speed with no warning or emergency braking at all. That is by design

I wouldn't say it's by design or expected behaviour because if a Tesla approached a stopped vehicle, the expectation would be the car would stop.

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