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An Update on Last Week’s Accident

tesla.com

381–390 of 447 posts

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#382

To me there is a stunning lack of compassion and decency in the response to these incidents by both Tesla and Uber. Uber made sure to point out that the victim of their incident was homeless. Tesla is pointing out how the driver received unrelated cues earlier in the journey. None of this information is relevant. They’re trying to bamboozle the reader in an effort to improve their images at the expense of victims who…

>I don’t understand why it is so impossible for these companies to act humbly and with a sense of dignity around all this. Because humility requires you to admit wrongdoing, which from a legal standpoint is not advisable in a public statement.

[deleted]

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#383
post #161
post #159

I really hate the whole Tesla angle of "technically we are not lying but we know people are going to mis-remember and misrepresent what we are writing". Take for instance: > The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive... What this means is that during this incident there were No visual or audible clues that a crash was about to happen What they are saying is that while…

Yeah, it's pretty crafty PR. The CPC must be green with envy, while Uber is still ruing their reputation. Such a difference in conversation; so many people laying the blame squarely on the driver(he is ultimately the PIC tbh, but Tesla and particularly CalTrans messed up bad), however Uber is being raked through the coals when somebody literally walked in front of their car.. Just Say'n EDIT: While I believe Tesla an…

> Such a difference in conversation

in both the driver was supposed not to let the car drive itself unsupervised but only in one the driver was paid to do so

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#384
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup this also mean that Tesla's radar and camera systems had 5 seconds to realize it was driving straight into an unmoving concrete barrier and did nothing...

What's really odd is, in my Subaru which has eyesight, if I drove straight towards that barrier the breaks would engage. Eyesight uses two visual cameras, about two feet apart, and uses the parallax between them to judge depth/distance (in the same way human eyesight judges depth). So even if Tesla's autopilot steered the vehicle towards that divider, shouldn't the auto-braking system have engaged to avert the accide…

I've wondered about those Subaru's that seem to have two build in dash cams right at the top of the windshield.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#385
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably the worst part about driving a Tesla: Your car is going to testify against you. Because Tesla can and will make a statement like this, and they will always throw you under the bus. Which is a terrible way to treat a customer, as a general practice.

> Your car is going to testify against you. Presumably Tesla/the car is telling the truth as it saw it. I don't think you're suggesting they're falsifying the logs. > Which is a terrible way to treat a customer I'd assume that Tesla sells you a vehicle, not PR or legal services that protect you in case of an accident. Your expectation that Tesla should take the blame is unreasonable by any standard.

I'm not saying Tesla is lying. But I am saying that I could spend six figures on a car from a company that is ready and waiting to stab me in the back. Or, I could spend five figures on a Toyota, knowing that Toyota is not going to sell me out if my car crashes.

I mean, look, it makes sense Tesla has to defend itself, especially legally, but there's a big difference between pulling out the logs when you need to for the lawyers and the regulators... and making a public blog post blaming the customer.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#386
Is this going to be inherent and unavoidable for the machine learning based self driving cars? Perhaps self driving is never going to become a reality, just because of the problems like this (unless/until the road infrastructure supports them explicitly).

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#387
> “In the past, when we have brought up statistical safety points, we have been criticized for doing so, implying that we lack empathy for the tragedy that just occurred.”

I have to say that is exactly how I felt reading the piece and I’m by no means easily offended by these kind of stories. The whole piece reads like a story Uber would have published. Throwing all sorts of excuses why it isn’t their fault but the big bad world being in their way. No matter if it is true or not, this is not the kind of tone people want from you right now. They could have brought the same information and show some empathy; especially when criticized before.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#388

In keeping with the "Autopilot" terminology, this was "Controlled Flight info Terrain". Tesla demonstrates their usual abuse of statistics. 1.25 fatalities per 100 million miles is the average across all types of terrain, conditions, and cars. The death rate in rural roads is much higher than in urban areas. The death rate on highways is much lower than average. The death rate with new cars is much lower than average…

Note: Tesla is comparing the fatality rate of autopilot-equipped cars with the average accident rate. They are NOT only counting miles where autopilot is used, they are counting all miles driven by their cars. It could be that Tesla drivers are inherently safer than the general population, or that the cars themselves are much safer. What they are not doing (at least with the data) is making a statistical claim about…

That's a very good point. But it raises a new question, why didn't Tesla compare the safety record of Teslas with Autopilot against Teslas without Autopilot.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#389
post #175
post #159

I really hate the whole Tesla angle of "technically we are not lying but we know people are going to mis-remember and misrepresent what we are writing". Take for instance: > The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive... What this means is that during this incident there were No visual or audible clues that a crash was about to happen What they are saying is that while…

And no, you can't get out of culpability by claiming statistical superiority. Quite. Tesla is deliberately comparing their modern vehicle design & wealthy driver base (statistically one of the safest cohorts) with the entirety of the U.S. driving population. This is bad statistics: We expect Tesla vehicles to have far fewer accidents than the mean US vehicle per mile, because Tesla's are expensive modern vehicles wit…

They can be far more specific: just tell us how Model S drivers without (or not using) Autopilot do compared to those with and using it. This would control almost every variable except Autopilot. I find the fact that they don't release this number as extremely damning.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#390
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a True Scotsman in this context. The point is that humans tend to crash into things they're not fully aware of, short of self-harm. Either: A) The autopilot could not see a concrete barrier in its path. B) More likely, and as the story reports, it WAS aware of the danger but didn't do anything. Either case is at least worth discussing, no?

In which bucket would you put the possibility that the computer observed evidence of the barrier, but the evidence that there was no barrier -- the prior that barriers don't exist in lanes of traffic -- was too strong?

Bucket A. Which could be articulated more generally as: failure to capture the world as it really is.
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