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Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

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Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#301

Post by dubyah »

sytelus wrote: post #254

Tesla's blog post: https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/blog/update-last-week’s-accident the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision. The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider Looks like sensors failed to see concrete divider in nice sunny weather and car slammed in to it at 70mph. Driver was obviously over confident on system's a…

The problem with the no hands-on-steering-wheel detection claim Tesla keeps bringing up is that it's quite fallible and not as conclusive as they insist. A light touch(like one might expect while driving a freeway with cruise control and lane-keep assist, for example) may not provide enough torque for the sensor to detect it. Plenty of people have complained about it in the past.

https://forums.teslarati.com/threads/hands-on-the-wheel-dete...

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/hands-on-steering-wh...

https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/tesla-autopilot-not-se...

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#302

Post by MertsA »

rasz wrote: post #88
zaroth wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His car increased speed because the adaptive cruise was set to a higher speed than his car was going, and for 4 seconds before impact there were no cars in front of him. The adaptive cruise increased speed to his set point when his car left the flow of traffic. The AEB will not trigger on a stationary object at highway speeds. I do not believe there exists any AEB that will emergency brake at highway speed, maybe exc…

>crash attenuator >this particular one is hit fairly frequently. Interesting way to build your road infrastructure

One way or another highways have portions where there has to be a solid, flat, vertical surface on the edges of barriers, exit ramps, etc. It's similar in many ways to the hairy ball theorem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem

You can't just round over the edge of the barrier, because that still leaves a portion where a car could collide perpendicular to it. You can't just slope it down to the ground, unless you want an impromptu Dukes of Hazzard reenactment. You can't have just an unguarded edge because that would just be a death sentence if you hit it at any appreciable speed. The solution is to place those crash attenuators so that it slows the vehicle down over a small distance rather than just over the length of the crush portion of the car.

https://megarentalsinc.com/sites/default/files/feature-image...

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#303

Post by janlaureys »

rory096 wrote: post #174
SteveNuts wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're forgetting (more than a few) important functions that an airliner autopilot can do. Off the top of my head there's auto-throttle, auto-trim, and of course, if the runway is equipped, land the plane. Also, if the pilots input a heading change, the plane will execute a 1G turn using all control surfaces so it's almost imperceptible to the passengers. I think you're oversimplifying airliner autopilot.. by…

>and of course, if the runway is equipped, land the plane. There is certainly no such thing as an auto-land system in which the pilots are not required to be ready to take full control of the aircraft at a moment's notice. It is Level 2 in the strictest sense.

My Tesla (or at least the one from my colleague I occasionally get to drive) blaring out "MINIMUMS" would definitely get my attention quicker than the soft chimes they have now when autopilot disengages.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#304

Post by _Microft »

cjhopman wrote: post #84
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #53

If the Tesla had a proximity sensor that slammed on the breaks in the last 2-3 meters, would he have survived? I ask because it's a common luxury car feature and would be easy for Tesla to implement. IIRC this crash and the semitruck crash had no evidence of the autopilot hitting the breaks according to the NTSB. Even if his velocity was only reduced by a fraction, the amount of power involved in the collision would…

> it's a common luxury car feature Almost all luxury cars implement this feature the same way that Tesla does, with radar that ignores stationary objects. I'm not aware of another company that implements the steer towards obstacles part of the problem, though.

Another interesting, and very unexpected, luxury feature is Pre-Safe Sound by Mercedes. In case of an imminent accident, a loud noise is played through the speakers of the car to cause a reaction in the ear which prepares and thereby protects it from the noise of an accident. It is a detail feature but an interesting one.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#305

Post by solveit »

sytelus wrote: post #254

Tesla's blog post: https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/blog/update-last-week’s-accident the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision. The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider Looks like sensors failed to see concrete divider in nice sunny weather and car slammed in to it at 70mph. Driver was obviously over confident on system's a…

> These stats don't help when you read the guy had two kids who will now grow up fatherless for rest of their lives.

PRwise, yes. But it could've been 7.4 kids who would grow up fatherless for the rest of their lives.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#306

Post by solveit »

areoform wrote: post #96

I would like to add over here that Tesla does indeed do sensor fusion in their cars. Their Autopilot combines radar and ultrasound with vision to decide where to drive. Commentators bringing up LIDAR are jumping the gun by assuming that this scenario isn't something that these sensors wouldn't have detected in either combination or individually to spot the anomaly. The problem over here is likely to be software due t…

> What if the neural net or the system used to detect obstacles didn't see it because the precise configuration of the data fooled it? And if that's the case then what's next? How do we decide when it is okay for safety-critical systems to be opaque? How do we deal with autonomous driving if the conclusion comes out to be a "no" for this case? How should broader society deal with a yes? And who decides all of this in the first place?

All good questions, but I will note that the exact same questions apply equally well or better to human drivers, yet people don't seem to be as concerned.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#307

Post by imtringued »

linsomniac wrote: post #176
areoform wrote: post #96

I would like to add over here that Tesla does indeed do sensor fusion in their cars. Their Autopilot combines radar and ultrasound with vision to decide where to drive. Commentators bringing up LIDAR are jumping the gun by assuming that this scenario isn't something that these sensors wouldn't have detected in either combination or individually to spot the anomaly. The problem over here is likely to be software due t…

One thing to remember here is that with RADAR it is, I have read, very hard to tell a soda can from a car from a above highway sign as you are cresting a hill. So they will often filter out anything that is stopped. I read this a few months ago and it blew my mind. Then I read about that LIDAR sensor burning a camera sensor and thought "how safe can that be?!?"

That LIDAR sensor you talk about destroyed camera sensors precisely because it is safe for human eyes. Conventional lidar uses wavelenghts that can harm human eyes but the power output is restricted to a much lower value to prevent damage to humans and cameras.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#308

Post by carlivar »

Simple_Guy wrote: post #216
carlivar wrote: post #58

I know the argument is always that autopilot is not intended by Tesla to be abused (never mind the CEO on national television abusing it). However, there's what you tell humans, and then there's pragmatism regarding human nature. We should consider the latter. It's possible to be both academically correct on the warnings/instructions given and also practically wrong on human psychology.

Your reasoning is that people are stupid and therefore you should manipulate them 'for their own good' because they have no self-agency and self-responsibility. Needless to say, people who think like this make terrible dictators when given the chance.

It's a good thing I did not propose that I become Supreme Dictator Strawman.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#309

Post by rightnow »

adrr wrote: post #290
sytelus wrote: post #254

Tesla's blog post: https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/blog/update-last-week’s-accident the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision. The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider Looks like sensors failed to see concrete divider in nice sunny weather and car slammed in to it at 70mph. Driver was obviously over confident on system's a…

Tesla hand detection doesn't indicate that the driver didn't have their hands on the wheel. It detects if you applying torque to the wheel in a direction. Also the Tesla fatality stat is them playing with numbers. Majority of fatalities happen where autopilot wouldn't be used. Only 15% of fatalities happen on the freeway and highways. I bet that number goes to single digits with pedestrian deaths. https://www.iihs.or…

You dont know this. The UI only displays when torque is applied in a direction, but you dont actually know if Tesla detects it earlier or not.

Re: Tesla sued in wrongful death lawsuit that alleges Autopilot caused crash

#310

Post by chewyland »

sytelus wrote: post #254

Tesla's blog post: https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/blog/update-last-week’s-accident the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision. The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider Looks like sensors failed to see concrete divider in nice sunny weather and car slammed in to it at 70mph. Driver was obviously over confident on system's a…

Was adding the "kid" part integral to the reply? Made me cringe a bit.
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