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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

#461

Post by jazzyjackson »

Vecr wrote: post #437
jazzyjackson wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as that goes if we want to save lives we can just regulate that semi-autonomous cars have to enforce the speed limit + 0 visibility from fog and heavy rain is an automatic pull over and wait for conditions to improve.

I don't think cars enforcing the law is a good idea at all. You have the moral and legally defensible right to break the law where not doing so would create substantial and immediate risk to yourself of others.

Ok so just log it and send the registered owner a bill, they can defend the action in court

Maybe Elon can add a prompt in the car: one time payment to unlock 100+ mph

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

#462

Post by pauljurczak »

elihu wrote: post #428
icelandicmoss wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like part of the problem with the kind of autopilot crashes you describe here is how inexplicable they are to humans. Whilst humans can be dangerous drivers, the incidents they cause generally have a narrative sequence of events that are comprehensible to us -- for instance, driver was distracted, or visibility was poor. But when a supposedly 'all-seeing always watching' autopilot drives straight into a large…

Another aspect of unpredictability is that drivers are expected to be alert and vigilant while using ADAS features, but I get the impression that Tesla's implementation sometimes does things that are completely unexpected. Sometimes you might have to react immediately to something you didn't see coming, because you didn't expect the car to suddenly try to steer into a concrete pillar or something. It's one thing to h…

> to have to deal with inexplicable behavior from your own car seems quite a bit more unnerving.

And yet, tens of thousands of drivers are working as unpaid beta testers for Tesla. Mind-boggling.

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

#463

Post by FireBeyond »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #433
Animats wrote: post #302

Right. As I've pointed out previously, Tesla seems to be unable to detect sizable stationary obstacles that are partly blocking a lane, especially if they don't look like the rear end of a car. In addition to emergency vehicles, Teslas on autopilot have plowed into freeway barriers and a street sweeper. That's the usual situation for first responders, who usually try to block as little of the road as possible but oft…

> That's the usual situation for first responders, who usually try to block as little of the road as possible but often don't have enough shoulder space. Actually, from talking with friends who are first responders, many times they will park fire trucks, etc so that they are blocking enough of the road to protect the first responders and the victims. The last thing you want is to have another car come and crash into…

Exactly this. We'll place the heaviest apparatus 'upstream' of the event and in a way that 'encourages' cars away from the incident.

Larger departments or those dealing with busier freeways have even started re-purposing older engines with water ballasts and attenuators as 'blocker' engines.

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

#464

Post by killjoywashere »

TeslaDeaths.com estimates Tesla at ~240M miles per death as of late 2019 (1). NHTSA puts the national rat for all vehicles in 2020 at ~90M miles per death. If we exclude motorcycles, the national rate is 104M miles per death in 2020.

(1) https://www.tesladeaths.com/miles.html (2) https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

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

#465

Post by FireBeyond »

ajross wrote: post #395
kube-system wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla does not offer a vehicle that does not require human drivers (not even momentarily). Tesla's autopilot and FSD systems are both SAE Level 2, which means the human is still in operation of the vehicle at all times . All of Tesla's driving assistance technologies require a human to monitor operation of the vehicle and intervene if necessary. The fact that they have given anyone an impression otherwise is problema…

> The fact that they have given anyone an impression otherwise is problematic. Good grief. This meme will not die. The car literally tells you to keep your hands on the wheel every time you engage autopilot, yells at you if you don't, will lock you out of the system as punishment if you don't comply, and if you really seem disabled will bring the car to a stop and turn the hazards on. It simply will not operate witho…

And there are Tesla materials that say, word for word, "The driver is only there for legal purposes. The car is driving itself."

It only yells at you now because Tesla had to be forced to make it do so. Previously it'd let you go for a quarter of an hour before checking in on you.

Good grief yourself.

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

#466

Post by harles »

jiggawatts wrote: post #457
harles wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure about newer models without radar, but the older ones explicitly discard stationary returns on their radar. As I understand it, without elevation data it can’t know if it’s a bridge you’ll pass under, a soda can in the road, or a stopped car - so just ignore it all. Of course the vision system is supposed to compensate for this, and it performs poorly on objects it doesn’t see often, like emergency vehicl…

The vision system is supposed to be able to determine an accurate depth map based on a combination of stereo vision and depth-from-defocus. I've seen demos of the real-time depth map, and it looks high-resolution and accurate to about 5-10cm. So, if they have the input data, why is it being ignored by autopilot?

Tesla’s website[0] states it’s monocular depth estimation. I haven’t heard of them doing any form of stereo.

[0] https://www.tesla.com/autopilotAI

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

#467

Post by FireBeyond »

filoleg wrote: post #201
treesknees wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Subsequent research suggests significant biases in the Solomon study, which may cast doubt on its findings With the logic presented in the theoretical foundation section, it seems that the safer move would actually be slow down and match the speed of all the trucks and other large vehicles... which won't happen. Matching speed sounds great, except there are always people willing to go faster and faster. In my state…

To address your last paragraph, everyone going 85-90 is less safe than everyone going 70-75, you are correct. However, you individually going 70-75 when everyone else is going 85-90 is less safe than you going 85-90 like everyone else in the exact same situation. >there are always people willing to go faster and faster That’s why no one says “go as fast as the fastest vehicle you see”, it is “go with the general spee…

> However, you individually going 70-75 when everyone else is going 85-90 is less safe than you going 85-90 like everyone else in the exact same situation.

And yet the roads are full of vehicles literally incapable of going 85. Many trucks cannot do more than 69mph.

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

#468

Post by FireBeyond »

Seanambers wrote: post #81
3pt14159 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I largely agree with you, but I just wish regulators would start by only allowing these assist programs for people that are already known to be poor drivers. The elderly and convicted drunk drivers, for example. That way we could have the best of both worlds.

Teslas Autopilot system is almost 10X safer than the average human driver already based on the latest 2021 Q1 numbers. https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/VehicleSafetyReport

Tesla's driving is skewed, hugely. There are plenty of situations where AP is turned off that are less safe in general.

AP has the luxury of being able to be turned off in less than ideal conditions. Human drivers can't do that.

It's the reason why only Tesla touts these numbers. They're inaccurate and misleading.

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

#469

Post by FireBeyond »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #22
Waterluvian wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Subaru Forester base model with lane keeping and adaptive cruise control. I need to be touching the wheel and applying some force to it or it begins yelling at me and eventually brings me slowly to a stop. I’ve had it for a year now and I cannot perceive of a way, without physically altering the system (like hanging a weight from the wheel maybe?) that would allow me to stop being an active participant. I th…

Tesla had a similar system, and > physically altering the system (like hanging a weight from the wheel maybe?) was exactly what people were doing. But it's also possible to be physically present, applying force, but being "zoned out", even without malicious intent.

It also previously required only 15 minutes between steering wheel contacts.

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

#470

Post by laichzeit0 »

marvin wrote: post #273
laichzeit0 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does TeslaVision work with stationary objects at night? Like say a big ass truck with its lights off? Do you just pray the vision system recognizes “something” is there? I know they want to pursue a pure-vision system with no radar input, but it seems like there will be some crazy low light / low visibility edge cases you’d have to deal with.

How does a human detect a big ass truck with its lights off at night? This is solvable with computer vision. Tesla's dataset is almost nothing but edge cases, and they keep adding more all the time. My money says they'll get there.

The thing is we don’t. Many people die from rear ending broke down trucks. I’m fine with that, I’m not so sure if regulators will be fine with a TSLA killing someone and going “welp, a human wouldn’t have seen it either, let’s just add this to our edge case dataset”.
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