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

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

#431

Post by tedsanders »

slg wrote: post #246
tedsanders wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point me to a source for the billion Autopilot miles? This is something I've been trying to track down without any luck so far. The best source I've been able to find so far is a tweet by Elon Musk in 2016 saying "Cumulative Tesla Autopilot miles now at 222 million". [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/784487348562198529?ref_s...

I wish Tesla would update those numbers more frequently, but it looks like they stopped doing that in 2016. However they did enough updates in 2016 that allow us to estimate a trend of something on the order of 1 million miles per day. 4/9/2016 - 47 [1] 5/24/2016 - 100 [2] 6/30/2016 - 130 [3] 10/7/2016 - 222 [4] 11/13/2016 - 300 [5] This rate continuing linearly would put us at roughly 900 million today. A linear acc…

Fantastic, thank you!

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

#432

Post by metafunctor »

panopticon wrote: post #127
zo1 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. The start of that concrete lane-divider looks incredibly dangerous for a highway. It pretty-much just "starts", with only some sort of object that they call a "crash attenuator" in front of it. I would imagine its purpose is to dampen/dissipate kinetic energy and maybe deflect oncoming objects from hitting the concrete slab directly. I don't even see any sort of road-bumps to warn drivers of this dangerous obsta…

Out of curiosity, are you not in the U.S.? These types of lane dividers are incredibly common throughout the country. Note that I'm not defending the safety of them; I'm just surprised to see someone call them out as a hazard as they're such a common sight.

I'm in the EU. This road does look a little bit hazardous to me; like it was designed 60 years ago and never updated.

- The area one is not supposed to drive in doesn't appear to be marked. Where I live, it would be painted with yellow diagonal stripes.

- On a high-speed road, there would be grooves on the road to generate noise if you are driving too close to the edge of the lane.

- Paint on the road is rarely the only signal to the driver (because of snow or other conditions that may obscure road markings). There would be ample overhead signs.

- Unusual obstacles would always be clearly visible: painted with reflective paint or using actual warning lights.

- We rarely use concrete lane dividers here. Usually these areas consist of open space and a shallow ditch, so you don't necessarily crash hard if you end up driving in there. There's usually grass, bushes, etc. There are occasional lane dividers, of course, when there's no space to put in an open area. However, the dividers are made of metal and they are not hard obstacles and fold or turn your vehicle away if you hit them (and people rarely do because of the above).

I'm sure there are some dangerous roads here, too, but a fatal concrete obstacle like this, with highway speeds, with almost no warning signs whatsoever, is almost unheard of.

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

#433

Post by ckastner »

stetrain wrote: post #98
ckastner wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It must also never be worse than humans. In this case, it very clearly was.

So human drivers wouldn't crash here? Or a good, attentive, best-case human driver wouldn't crash here? Because those are not the same set, and it seems the former set has crashed into this particular barrier multiple times. I don't think it's acceptible that a vehicle with adaptive cruise, lane keeping, and emergency braking would hit this barrier without any mitigating braking or action, but the actual state of dri…

> So human drivers wouldn't crash here? Or a good, attentive, best-case human driver wouldn't crash here?

I'd argue that a Reasonable Person [1] wouldn't crash here.

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

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

#434

Post by tigershark »

blub wrote: post #417
JoshCole wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There haven't even been five deaths yet in the entire history of Tesla autopilot car accidents, but there are more than three thousand deaths a day due to car accidents. Tesla's safety record actually is such that if scaled up, their would be a massive drop in the number of deaths per day. Their marketing reflects this. So does their communication on the topic. I know it can sound offensive when they say that a drive…

"Tesla's safety record" is misleading: * every update to the software makes the record irrelevant, because one is no longer driving the same car which set the previous record. Lane centering for instance was introduced in an OTA update and it likely contributed to this accident. * most of the safe miles driven by Teslas are not with autopilot on. The NTSB explicitly said they did not test autopilot. * finally, some H…

Your first point is absolutely misleading. You can apply the same logic to the other cars saying that they are all different because of the different tyres, the different conditions of the tyres, of the brakes, the different degree of care and so on. You can’t just say that they are not the same cars because of the different variables.

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

#435

Post by JimmyAustin »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #401
slg wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't an issue specific to Tesla as all automakers are now making cars that are more and more dependent on software. So what is the right way to handle these updates? You mentioned a clear flaw with OTA updates, but there are also numerous advantages. For example, the recent Tesla brake software issue was fixed with an OTA update. That immediately made cars safer. Toyota had a similar problem a few years ago and…

> So what is the right way to handle these updates? Avoid doing them in the first place? It's not like bit rot is - or should be - a problem for cars. It's a problem specific to the Internet-connected software ecosystem, which a car shouldn't be a part of. So basically: develop software, test the shit out of it, then release. If you happen to find some critical problem later on that is fixable with software, by all m…

Tesla does test the shit out of it before they release a patch. The problem is that users expectations of the systems performance suddenly get out of sync with what the car is going to do.

Part of me wonders if there should be a very quick, unskipable, animated, easy to understand explanation of the patch notes before you can drive when they make material changes to core driving functionality.

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

#436

Post by jacquesm »

metafunctor wrote: post #426
raldi wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The paint on the right edge of the gore marking, as seen in Google Maps, is worn Indeed; here's a close-up of the critical area. Note that the darker stripe on the bottom of the photo is NOT the crucial one; the one that the car was supposed to follow is the much more faded one above that that you can barely see: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.410912,-122.0757037,3a,75y,2... (Note that I'm not blaming the faded pa…

Are these kinds of lane-dividers not painted with heavy yellow diagonal stripes in the US? Is the divider equipped with reflective material and/or lights to make sure drivers notice it? Is the divider actually necessary, or could it be replaced with gravel so people don't need to hit a concrete wall when they make a mistake? I don't think a road like this would be possible in most of the EU. Autopilot needs to be fix…

> I don't think a road like this would be possible in most of the EU.

I've driven in almost all countries in the union and I'm sure that and worse is readily available in multiple EU countries. While it's true that the EU subsidizes a lot of road construction local conditions (materials quality, theft, sloppy contractors) have a huge impact on road and markings quality.

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

#437

Post by buvanshak »

JoshCole wrote: post #394
buvanshak wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not the crash that makes the evil. It is how they handle it. And how they put blatantly misleading marketing out there, along with poorly researched features that may or may not have lead to overconfidence from the drivers along with half baked tech, that resulted in crashes such as these.

There haven't even been five deaths yet in the entire history of Tesla autopilot car accidents, but there are more than three thousand deaths a day due to car accidents. Tesla's safety record actually is such that if scaled up, their would be a massive drop in the number of deaths per day. Their marketing reflects this. So does their communication on the topic. I know it can sound offensive when they say that a drive…

>Tesla's safety record actually is such that if scaled up, their would be a massive drop in the number of deaths per day...

There is not enough data to do this "scaling up". So doing so would be incredibly misleading (But doesn't stop tesla's PR from doing the same).

>Tesla is also a leading player in moving away from destroying our planet.

The actions of this company and the persons behind this somehow does not feel compatible with such a goal. I am sorry. I am just not buying it. It is more probable that this "saving the planet" narrative is something that is meant to differentiate from the competition and to attract investors. Do you think Elon Musk could have created a company that builds ICE cars and emerged as a major player? It is "save the planet" for tesla and "save humanity by going to mars" for spacex..

I mean, is this so hard to see?

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

#438

Post by tinus_hn »

falcolas wrote: post #97
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…

One more thing to note - anecdotal evidence indicates that Tesla cars did not attempt to center within a lane prior to an OTA update, after which multiple cars exhibited this "centering" action into gore sections (and thus required manual input to avoid an incident) on video. To me, that this behavior was added via an update makes it even harder to predict - your car can pass a particular section of road without inci…

The behavior should change every day. Never changing is impossible, especially with a new product like this.

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

#439

Post by zaarn »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #355
AmVess wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying in an airplane is safe because of direct intervention by the government. Cars have been made safe for us also by direct intervention by the government. From important things like mandating seat belts and crash safety to smaller things like forcing the recall of tens of millions of faulty air bag inflators. These are just a few of the many things Uncle Sam has done to make things safer for us.

Isn’t flying mostly safe because of post hoc safety analysis followed by operating requirements? I don’t think the FAA tests every change made to aircraft before they can fly?

If I, as an engineer, sign of on changing the screws on the flaps for cheaper ones and the plane crashes because the flaps go loose due to the screws being unable to handle the stress, my career can be assumed over if I have no good explanation.

If an engineer signs off a change they sign that they have validated all the constraints and that for all they know the machine will work within the specs with no faults.

If a software engineer commits code we may run some tests over it, look a bit over it. That's fine. But if the software ends up killing anyone, the software engineer is not responsible.

And yes, to my knowledge, every change to an aircraft is tested before flight or atleast validated by an engineer that understands what was just changed.

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

#440

Post by oldgradstudent »

JeffL wrote: post #380
ckastner wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It must also never be worse than humans. In this case, it very clearly was.

A human driver crashed in that same exact spot one week earlier, so you can't really say AP is necessarily worse because of this accident.

Teslas are a tiny minority of the cars driving on the road.

Even if a car crashed into that barrier once a week (it's way less than that), a single Tesla crash in all of Tesla's history so far is an order of magnitude worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16720848

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