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Tesla Recalls 2M Cars to Fix Autopilot Safety Flaws

bloomberg.com

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Re: Tesla Recalls 2M Cars to Fix Autopilot Safety Flaws

#191

Post by acdha »

multimoon wrote: post #148
MattRix wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like all of these are minor annoyances compared to the more serious safety issues they are trying to prevent. I feel like you are underestimating how stupid the average user is… and especially how stupid the most stupid users are.

We have a drivers exam in one form or another in nearly every country that is intended to certify and evaluate your ability to pilot a vehicle. While it doesn’t always, it should include all facets of driving and the car shouldn’t need to hold your hand. I strongly believe that this hand holding cars are required to do now just lowers the average skill of new drivers. A great example of this is an alarming amount of…

The United States has 43k fatalities caused by drivers every year, and millions of people suffer life-altering injuries and billions in property damages.

There are only two ways we’re going to improve that: letting fewer people drive or making cars harder to use unsafely. Since there’s intense political opposition to building bike/transit infrastructure, removing driving privileges or even ticketing unsafe drivers, we’re going to keep seeing attempts to solve the problem with technical measures.

Re: Tesla Recalls 2M Cars to Fix Autopilot Safety Flaws

#192

Post by acdha »

mavhc wrote: post #116
bxguff wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its not a malicious term its the NHTSA legal term, and what tesla will call it too when they mail out owner notification letters about the problem in February to anyone with a : model y (20-23) model x (16-23) model s (12-23) model 3 (17-23)

Pretty sure this is a government subsidy for the post office

The legal definition does not require them to use paper mail, and it’s a rounding error in the USPS budget.

Here’s what they’re required to do:

> In the case of a notification required to be sent by a motor vehicle manufacturer, by certified mail, verifiable electronic means such as receipts or logs from electronic mail or satellite distribution system, or other more expeditious and verifiable means to all dealers and distributors of the vehicles that contain the defect or noncompliance.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/577.7

Re: Tesla Recalls 2M Cars to Fix Autopilot Safety Flaws

#193

Post by alistairSH »

Closi wrote: post #180
alistairSH wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we don't expect drivers to be adequately trained and get a licence? In the US? No, we don't. Even ignoring that a driver's license is treated more as a right than a perk... Consumers are absolutely NOT trained on the nuances of any particular car's UI, systems, etc. An airline pilot absolutely IS trained on those nuances and can ONLY operate planes in which they've trained. And they get periodic check-rides from…

Well again, Autopilot probably is an accurate word then - because consumers should clearly know the limitations and nuances of Autopilot to safely operate it, and a failure to understand those limitations can clearly have deadly consequences. Is the argument "You can't call it Autopilot because Autopilot refers to a complex system that requires a skilled operator and needs people to pay constant attention"?

I don't really care what it's named. I care about the implications of the system in the real world. Humans are notoriously bad at paying attention to boring tasks. This applies to pilots as well as ordinary drivers (thus the massive amount of training, redundant operators, and very details operators manuals/procedures that apply to ATPs). Tesla released a system that encourages people to operate their car with less than 100% focus. That's bad.

I'm not aware of similar reports of crashes/deaths with systems like Subaru's EyeSight or Honda's SensingSuite. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, Mercedes's Drive Pilot.

Re: Tesla Recalls 2M Cars to Fix Autopilot Safety Flaws

#194

Post by acdha »

Kuinox wrote: post #39
mackman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the FCC mandated Apple deploy an update to reduce phones catching fire then yes, I would use the term recall. For bugs that don’t fall into the safety or regulatory compliance category I would not.

Except, no, since I have a very recent example that prove the opposite. iPhones 12 were banned for a short period in France because they emitted too much electromagnetic radiation. Now how did the media called this 'recall' ? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66795175 An update.

France is a different country with different laws. This is called a recall because that term is the legal mechanism under which the NHTSA has the authority to tell an automaker that they have to make sure all of the affected vehicles are safe to operate on public roads. This has a long history and is in no way unique to Tesla.

The French system for radio emissions uses different terminology for the same ideas. The English term they used was a “temporary withdrawal” with a full recall if Apple couldn’t update the devices:

https://www.anfr.fr/liste-actualites/actualite/temporary-wit...

This does mean that news coverage used the same language as the subject of the story, but that’s no more unfair than complaining that the BBC referred to a game as football even though you think they should have said soccer.

Re: Tesla Recalls 2M Cars to Fix Autopilot Safety Flaws

#195

Post by MattRix »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #172
MattRix wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like all of these are minor annoyances compared to the more serious safety issues they are trying to prevent. I feel like you are underestimating how stupid the average user is… and especially how stupid the most stupid users are.

What's wrong with letting people win darwin awards?

Whatever happened to empathy? Those people don’t deserve to die despite making mistakes or being careless. Many of them probably have kids or other family that love and rely on them.

Re: Tesla Recalls 2M Cars to Fix Autopilot Safety Flaws

#196

Post by acdha »

_ea1k wrote: post #157
obtino wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla shouldn't call their driver assist system "Autopilot" either, but here we are.

Why do people never say this about Nissan and "ProPILOT"?

Does Nissan’s CEO have a history of grossly overstating what their system is capable of doing? Tesla has been aggressive about claiming their system can do a lot more, to the point that they charged people for features which never shipped over the time many people owned their vehicles.

If you were a prospective buyer in the past, the autopilot link would take you to a page which very prominently says this:

> Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars. All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.

Way down the page, you get this:

> Enhanced Autopilot adds these new capabilities to the Tesla Autopilot driving experience. Your Tesla will match speed to traffic conditions, keep within a lane, automatically change lanes without requiring driver input, transition from one freeway to another, exit the freeway when your destination is near, self-park when near a parking spot and be summoned to and from your garage.

Finally, you get a bit more realistic warning after a bit of misdirection intended to make you think the product was ready but government red tape was delaying availability:

> Tesla’s Enhanced Autopilot software has begun rolling out and features will continue to be introduced as validation is completed, subject to regulatory approval. Every driver is responsible for remaining alert and active when using Autopilot, and must be prepared to take action at any time.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190101050434/https://www.tesla...

Contrast with Nissan’s page which is very clear that it assists you in hands-on driving. There’s nothing on there which sounds like the vehicle can drive itself (e.g. who reads the smart summons description and thinks it can’t reliably stop or identify pedestrians?)

Re: Tesla Recalls 2M Cars to Fix Autopilot Safety Flaws

#197

Post by acdha »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #189
moolcool wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the delivery mechanism matter?

Because some recalls require a hassle of leaving your vehicle somewhere for some time.

… and many do not? Recall just refers to the mechanism that the NHTSA has to require confirmation of safety fixes. There’s nothing about leaving your vehicle in the shop, so if you’re confused about that it’s only a chance to learn how the car industry uses that word to refer to a specific legal process.

Re: Tesla Recalls 2M Cars to Fix Autopilot Safety Flaws

#198

Post by palemoonale »

sidlls wrote: post #137
palemoonale wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not. As pointed out, opening and re-closing isn't uncommon, especially in winter. Stop defending nannyfying conditioning.

Sorry, a person's right to be a complete moron (opening a door while a car is moving) doesn't trump everyone else's right to not be endangered by said moron.

Sorry, you seem to be quite young and life-inexperienced.

Re: Tesla Recalls 2M Cars to Fix Autopilot Safety Flaws

#199

Post by thehappypm »

rabbits_2002 wrote: post #41

unrelated, but does anyone else start to panic in autonomous vehicles? Every time I have been in a Tesla with autopilot on I immediately feel dread and and impending doom and I get very anxious.

I mean, half the drivers I see drifting out of the lane are SUVs with a driver on their phone. Autonomous cars make the road safer, not more dangerous, because humans are just so horrible at driving safely.

Re: Tesla Recalls 2M Cars to Fix Autopilot Safety Flaws

#200

Post by gamblor956 »

Closi wrote: post #14
obtino wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla shouldn't call their driver assist system "Autopilot" either, but here we are.

By the same logic you could say that airplanes shouldn't call their pilot assist system "Autopilot" either, because it requires monitoring and input from pilots who will need to disengage the system and intervene/fly manually in certain scenarios. Autopilot is probably actually quite a good term for it if you actually compare it to a plane Autopilot - you don't expect pilots to be inattentive or away from the control…

An airplane autopilot is fully capable of flying the plane from point A to B, including landing (but not takeoffs) while the pilots sleep or eat or read or do something other than paying attention. For most international flights, autopilot is flying the plane once the plane reaches cruising altitude up until final approach.

Airplane autopilots are usually disengaged for landing because the failure mechanism is to return control to the human pilots, but in the event of a failure during landing there is usually insufficient time for that.

Tesla "Autopilot" is basically the landing portion of a flight, all the time. It has the same failure window: seconds, or less, for the human to take over and prevent an accident. And Tesla's AP is uniquely bad compared to comparable advanced cruise control systems: Tesla has more than 17x as many crashes than the next crashiest automaker, and more than 60x as many crashes as the safest major automaker. Given that Tesla has far fewer cars on the road, scaled up for fleet size, Tesla's AP system is the most dangerous advanced cruise control system in the world. (And the fatalities bear that out; FSD alone has more fatalities than the combined fatality count of every other automaker in the world combined.)

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