Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

fuelarc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 449 posts

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#61

Post by marcusb »

ReptileMan wrote: post #25
Mistletoe wrote: post #4

Visual detection only doesn’t work and the man that forced Tesla to use it is now in control of government “efficiency”. This decade’s very dark humor just keeps getting worse.

We have more than 100 years of proof that visual detection works quite well. The problem is that we don't have certification process before a tech is deployed on the streets - your AV must pass this and this tests before you are allowed to use it. We don't care how you got there lidar, gps/astrology, camera/ai are all ok as long as you pass

I think we have a lot of proof that human visual detection works well enough to “only” kill around 40k people/year in the US from traffic accidents.

I have had a Tesla for several years now. The visual object detection display very frequently misidentifies objects. Just the other day, it detected my garage (which the car was parked next to) as a semi truck.

I have never, with my wildly imperfect human vision, mistaken a building for a semi truck.

More to the point of the OP, sometimes objects show up and disappear repeatedly.

As I’ve said in other comments, I think EVs and autonomous driving will eventually improve the lot of humanity greatly, but there’s a lot to be desired in the current tech and not any point in trying to pretend it is better than it really is.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#62

Post by daemonologist »

whiplash451 wrote: post #31
fsh wrote: post #20

This problem has been solved more than a decade ago by radar sensors (standard on many mid-range cars at the time). They detect imminent collisions with almost perfect accuracy and very little false positives. Having better sensor data is always going to beat trying to massage crappy data into something useful.

Are we sure Teslas dont have radars? We know they don’t have lidars, but that’s irrelevant.

Yes, they removed radar from their vehicles in 2021: https://www.tesla.com/support/transitioning-tesla-vision

(Also I wouldn't say it's _irrelevant_ that they don't have lidar, as if they did it would cover some of the same weaknesses as radar.)

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#63

Post by lukeschlather »

xbmcuser wrote: post #22

The point I soured on Musk was when he ditched radar/lidar and tried to go with camera's alone. This made me realize he is not the genius he is made out to be but instead he is a fraud/charlatan and over the years his statements on different topics have only hardened that belief. Why the fuck would you want ai cars to be the same as humans you should want them to be many times better and radarr/lidar sonarr type tech…

I drive a beater used car, I've contemplated installing aftermarket lidar on it, i don't want to drive as a human only relying on being able to see everything by turning my head.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#64

Post by tyree731 »

redox99 wrote: post #24
only-one1701 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not relevant to what? Those people are still dead.

The shortcomings of 2 year old software is not relevant, because that's not what the cars run now.

By this argument, since Tesla regularly updates the software, no one can discuss the weaknesses in their self driving software.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#65

Post by [deleted] »

whiplash451 wrote: post #31
fsh wrote: post #20

This problem has been solved more than a decade ago by radar sensors (standard on many mid-range cars at the time). They detect imminent collisions with almost perfect accuracy and very little false positives. Having better sensor data is always going to beat trying to massage crappy data into something useful.

Are we sure Teslas dont have radars? We know they don’t have lidars, but that’s irrelevant.

[deleted]

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#66

Post by audunw »

dagw wrote: post #23
erikpukinskis wrote: post #5

I’m normally quite skeptical of these kinds of “Tesla More Dangerous Than Other Brands” headlines since they tend to be B.S. But this seems like a pretty legitimate accusation, and certainly a well researched write-up at the very least.

Without knowing how many FSD miles Teslas have done compared to other brands, it's hard to judge. It could just be that Tesla owners are far more likely to trust and use their cars FSD capabilities, and thus end up in more FSD accidents. Other brands might have so bad FSD that people simply not trust it and basically never use it, and thus never get into an FSD accident.

I don’t see any way you can spin this in a positive light. Yeah, there may be many more FSD miles on Tesla, but if that leads to a bunch of motorcyclists getting hit, then maybe that’s exactly the problem.

We know this is one of the core issues of Tesla FSD: its capabilities have been hyped and over promised time and time again. We have countless examples of drivers trusting it far more than they should. And who’s to blame for that? In large part the driver, sure. But Elon has to take a lot of that blame as well. Many of those drivers would not have trusted it as much if it wasn’t for his statements and the media image he has crafted for Tesla.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#67

Post by fallingknife »

whiplash451 wrote: post #35
siilats wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so if the other cars have 5x less miles on autopilot compared to tesla you expect to see 0 crashes even though the probability of a crash is the same

Why are we moving the goal posts to « other manufacturers drive less miles so statistically it’s still OK to kill people »?

Because currently 40,000 people die every year in the US from car crashes, so it has been decided that it's ok to kill a certain amount of people with cars for a long time.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#68

Post by para_parolu »

christophilus wrote: post #14
lynndotpy wrote: post #6

I don't like Tesla and the premature "FSD" announcement was a huge set back AV research. An AV without lidar killing motorcyclists is not surprising, to say the least. And this is a damning report. That said -- and I might have missed this if it was in the linked sources, I'm on mobile -- what is the breakdown of other (supposed) AVs adoption currently? What other types of crashes are there? Are these 5+ fatalities s…

I’m in the same camp. I think self driving shouldn’t be allowed as it currently stands. But, this is probably the XKCD heatmap phenomenon. How many other self-driving vehicles are on the road vs Tesla? What percentage of traffic consists of motorcycles in the place where those other brands have deployed bs in Florida, etc. https://www.xkcd.com/1138/

Would also be interesting to see: what % of rear end crashes caused by AV vs human driver

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#69

Post by alesso_x »

The article gives a pretty misleading impression of where FSD stands today. It treats highway behavior as if nothing has changed, but that’s not accurate.

Before October 2024, the highway stack was still running on Tesla’s older software. A major shift happened with version 12.5.6, which brought the end-to-end neural network to highways for the first time.

Then in December, version 13.2.2 pushed things even further by scaling the model specifically for HW4/AI4. It’s a major step up from earlier versions like 12.3.x from April.

I absolutely feel for anyone who’s been involved in an accident while using FSD. But at the end of the day, the system still requires driver supervision. It’s not autonomous, and the responsibility ultimately falls on the person behind the wheel.

If you’re going to evaluate how FSD performs today, you really need to be looking at version 13 or greater. Anything older just doesn’t reflect what the system is capable of now.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#70

Post by [deleted] »

ReptileMan wrote: post #25
Mistletoe wrote: post #4

Visual detection only doesn’t work and the man that forced Tesla to use it is now in control of government “efficiency”. This decade’s very dark humor just keeps getting worse.

We have more than 100 years of proof that visual detection works quite well. The problem is that we don't have certification process before a tech is deployed on the streets - your AV must pass this and this tests before you are allowed to use it. We don't care how you got there lidar, gps/astrology, camera/ai are all ok as long as you pass

[deleted]
Post reply on HN