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Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

jalopnik.com

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Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#181
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every customer complaint about unintended acceleration of Teslas was proven in court to be the fault of the customer confusing the pedals. The accelerator pedal has two independent sensors measuring input - they both have to agree, and no input on the brake pedal must be detected for the vehicle to accelerate. They go a step further. They use their cameras to detect the environment and significantly slow down acceler…

Would you have a link to that? I'd be interested to look. As a side note, I've never heard of confusing the pedals as an issue for ANY car, so if Telsa's get people to confuse them enough to bring them to court, it's probably bad design. Edit: The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates 16,000 accidents per year in the United States occur when drivers intend to apply the brake but mistakenly apply…

It was famously a problem for Audi in the 1980’s and almost destroyed the brand. I thought everyone had heard of that.

But it is one of the most common if not the most common cause of unintended acceleration in any car.

I’ve even had it happen to me one time. The typical scenario is that you’re traveling at low (“creep”) speed with your foot on (but not pressing) the gas pedal. You think your foot is on the brake, so you push to slow down… whoops you’re starting to accelerate.

The probable reason that it happens more often with Teslas is that they have less lag between pressing the accelerator and getting juice. So by the time you realize you messed up, you’re already going fast.

In most gas cars, firmly pressing the accelerator results in milquetoast acceleration and a lot of noise for a second while the transmission downshifts and the engine revs up. In an EV, you just… go.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#182
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to statistics that Tesla publish. I would like to see mercedes publish their own statistics on their FSD. Given the tight constraints where they allow self driving, they could easily claim 100% safety record and thus infinitive more safe than any other manufacturer. It would be misleading, but statistically it would be the truth (any accidents could be said to be outside the constraint and thus will not cou…

Can someone present evidence that Teslas are more expensive to insured than other comparable vehicles? Along with evidence that the difference is because of safety rather than cost of repairs?

Tesla has their own insurance because people were complaining about high rates. Why else would they come up with their own insurance?

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#183
post #30
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you loitering beside other cars? This is a good safety practice regardless of the car’s make and model.

It's a shame this is getting downvoted because it's true. In any level of traffic except stop-and-go--and even then to a large extent--you should be doing everything within your power to either pass the cars on your right, and/or move over to let cars pass you on the left. It is a vanishingly small number of scenarios where you are keeping pace with a car next to you and you're not in the wrong. This isn't just at hi…

> It is a vanishingly small number of scenarios where you are keeping pace with a car next to you and you're not in the wrong.

I think it really depends on where/when you're driving. I find this to be a common scenario on interstates during rush hour:

I'm in the right lane, doing approximately the speed limit. There is a safe distance between me and the cars in front and back of me, but only just. If many more cars enter the road, traffic would need to slow down to maintain safe distances. In the left lane is the same situation, except they're averaging about 1 or 2 mph faster. In this situation, there are cars in the left lane passing very slowly, spending a lot of time alongside me. I could slow down below the speed limit every time a car passed on the left, to reduce reduce that loiter time. But this would make my driving less predictable to the drivers behind me (and waste a lot of mileage too...)

So normally, when the other cars are my size, I maintain my present course and speed, driving as predictably as possible to help the other drivers anticipate my course. Changing position in traffic is inherently risky, so I avoid making changes unless doing so is necessary to avoid something I judge to be more dangerous than the average. If a truck passes me on the left, I'll slow down to make the passing faster even if that means a car behind me has to brake. But if in that moment I judge the guy behind me to be even more dangerous, then maybe I won't. It's the kind of decision that needs to be made on the spot in a case-by-case basis. On interstates that are flowing fast near capacity, you need to be constantly evaluating the relative threat of the traffic around you.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#184
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla self-driving is better than a bad human driver. There are loads of bad human drivers on the road. Someone has to be liable, but I don't really care if it falls to Musk or a Musk simp. I do care if we kick yet another key technology out of the US only to have to rent it back years later when someone else picks up the torch. Let's not do that.

> Tesla self-driving is better than a bad human driver. Genuine question: what evidence is there of this?

[deleted]

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#185
post #6

Gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss The official policy to deprive customers and victims of information as much as possible is shocking from the standpoint of being flagrantly, cynically customer-hostile to the point of probable illegality, but it's right out of both Musk's normal playbook and that of his erstwhile colleagues at e.g. Paypal For me, cars cross a very key danger threshold, which I express like this: "I am tru…

[flagged]

We don’t trust the drum on the washing machine. That’s why organizations like Underwriters Laboratory exist.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you keep driving it? I had a car that did this to me twice and got rid of it, the first time could have been a glitch but twice is simply broken and dangerous. The dealer said the car was fine.

All car brands ADAS are imperfect. If it phantom brakes you just push the accelerator, or simply don't use the ADAS. You can drive the car normally, you aren't forced to use ADAS if you don't like it.

Yeah just gotta turn it off every single time you get in the car.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the software. They are trying to make due without the kind of sensors that are required to properly sense the immediate environment (LIDAR)

This may surprise, but LIDAR is a very recent innovation and virtually zero percent of cars (particularly historically) are LIDAR equipped. Binocular vision has a pretty impressive track record.

They decided to forgo LIDAR specifically though, it's not that it hasn't been out very long and they haven't adopted it yet. Other car makers have been using it for a while, just as long as Tesla could have if they truly want to be cutting edge.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#188
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every customer complaint about unintended acceleration of Teslas was proven in court to be the fault of the customer confusing the pedals. The accelerator pedal has two independent sensors measuring input - they both have to agree, and no input on the brake pedal must be detected for the vehicle to accelerate. They go a step further. They use their cameras to detect the environment and significantly slow down acceler…

No such thing was proven in court. Instead, what was shown in court was that Toyota had a culture of firmware engineering that produced code impossible to consistently QC, debug, test or verify. And as a result, they quietly fired the directors of that department, rebuilt it from scratch, and replaced every TCU from that era with a re-engineered unit in a series of about a dozen recalls spanning a decade and millions…

I think you confused toyota with tesla

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elons point on cars being worth 5x as much with self driving shouldn’t be dismissed. If a car that costs $25,000 to manufacture all of a sudden can be driven 40-50 hours a week automatically, how much is that car now worth? So I totally disagree on that end, as do most investors given teslas enormous valuation.

Is there a big market for $125,000 cars? Who needs a car 40 hours a week?

Uber

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#190
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should treat Tesla the same as VW during the emissions scandal. Look forward to a criminal fraud investigation, billions in fines, Musk resigning etc.

Did you look at the diesel emission scandal Wiki page? Everyone was 'cheating'; VW was a mid-level 'cheater' which took the brunt of the heat for it.

So you're blaming the regulators here for making an example of VW? Perhaps that may be valid, but if VW made the conscious decision to not follow government regulations, than that's on VW, not the regulators.

Example making can be rather distasteful, but it can also be an effective deterrent preventing similar things happening again.

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