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U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#41

Post by KronisLV »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #27

I drive a lot across Europe: as in, really a lot, long trip across several countries, several times a year. I drive enough on the highways to know a few scary situations, like the truck driver in a big curve slightly deviating out of his lane and "pushing" me dangerously close to the median strip for example. To me driving requires paying constant attention to the road and being always ready to act swiftly: I just do…

> But how can you react promptly if you're not ready? I just don't get this.

You cannot, that's the simple truth. You're supposed to focus on the road anyways and should be able to take over once any sort of autopilot or assist system starts working erroneously, yet in practice many people simply assume that those systems being there in the first place mean that you can simply stop focusing on the road altogether.

It feels like the claim of "fully self driving vehicle" is at odds with actual safety, or at least will remain so until the technology actually progresses far enough to be on average safer than human drivers, moral issues aside. Whether that will take 15, 50 or 500 years, i cannot say, however.

That said, currently such functionality could be good enough for the driver to take a sip from a drink, or fiddle around with a message on their phone, or even mess around on the navigation system or the radio - things that would get done regardless because people are irresponsible, but making which a little bit safer is feasible.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#42

Post by antattack »

NHTSA is lumping TACC with Autopilot to increase number of incidents and make the case sound more serious:

"The involved subject vehicles were all confirmed to have been engaged in either Autopilot or Traffic Aware Cruise Control during the approach to the crashes," NHTSA said in a document opening the investigation.

TACC is very different from Autopilot.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#43

Post by tmountain »

> In one of the cases, a doctor was watching a movie on a phone when his vehicle rammed into a state trooper in North Carolina.

Doesn't autopilot require you to put your hands on the wheel fairly regularly? Are these incidents just a matter of people using this feature outside of its intended use case?

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#44

Post by rmckayfleming »

tapoxi wrote: post #24
cmpb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. One feature my car has is to pull me back into the lane when I veer out of it (Subaru's lane keep assist). That is still incremental improvement towards "full self driving". I agree, however, that Tesla's Autopilot is not functional enough, and any tool designed to allow humans to remove their hands from the wheel should not require their immediate attention in any way.

I think people just assume Tesla's Autopilot is more capable than it really is. My car has adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist, but I'm not relying on either for anything more complex than sipping a drink while on the highway.

Yep, if anything they’re just a way to make long drives or stop and go highway traffic more tolerable. When I got my first car with those features it seemed like a gimmick, but they really help to reduce fatigue.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#45

Post by jdavis703 »

mrfusion wrote: post #18
gundmc wrote: post #3

This is why I believe the approach of incremental improvement towards full self driving is fundamentally flawed. These advanced driver assist tools are good enough to lull users into a false sense of security. No amount of "but our terms and conditions say you need to always pay attention!" will overcome human nature building that trust and dependence.

I’d be curious if there are studies out there on how to do automated assists in machines that require vigilance that don’t have this problem.

Both airplanes and trains have automated “assist.” At least in the case of WMATA they give up on automatic train control after a fatal crash.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#46

Post by Robotbeat »

jdavis703 wrote: post #39
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends. As long as the resulting package (flawed self driving system + the average driver) isn't significantly more dangerous than the average unassisted human driver, I don't consider it irresponsible to deploy it. "The average driver" includes everyone, ranging from drivers using it as intended with close supervision, drivers who become inattentive because nothing is happening, and drivers who think it's a reas…

The average driver breaks multiple laws on every trip. Most of the time no one gets hurt. But calibrating performance against folks violating traffic and criminal laws sets the bar too low for an automated system. We should be aiming for standards that either match European safety levels or the safety of modes of air travel or rail travel.

Yes, I agree. We should hold automated systems to a higher standard. Unless you’re proposing we ban automated systems until they’re effectively perfect because that would perversely result in a worse outcome: being stuck with unassisted driving forever.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#47

Post by rvz »

phoe18 wrote: post #4

> "The involved subject vehicles were all confirmed to have been engaged in either Autopilot or Traffic Aware Cruise Control during the approach to the crashes," No mention of the deceptive marketing name "Full Self Driving" in the article.

Exactly. Some of these cars do not even have 'Driver Monitoring', which means the car doesn't even track if the driver has their eyes on the road at all times, which puts many other drivers at risk.

On top of that, FSD is still admittedly Level 2; Not exactly 'Full Self Driving'? And the controls can easily be tricked to think that the driver has their 'hands on the wheel' which is not enough to determine driver attentiveness while FSD is switched on.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#48

Post by bathtub365 »

mshumi wrote: post #6

Judging by the lack of a market reaction this morning, this is mostly immaterial.

The NASDAQ wasn’t open at the time of your comment, so how can you even make that determination?

TSLA is down almost 2% in pre-market trading at the time of this comment, though.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#50

Post by jdavis703 »

antattack wrote: post #42

NHTSA is lumping TACC with Autopilot to increase number of incidents and make the case sound more serious: "The involved subject vehicles were all confirmed to have been engaged in either Autopilot or Traffic Aware Cruise Control during the approach to the crashes," NHTSA said in a document opening the investigation. TACC is very different from Autopilot.

NHTSA reports are usually very neutral. I’d be very surprised if they were out to get Tesla, or really any other corporation or individual.
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