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An Update on Last Week’s Accident

tesla.com

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Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#441

Post by jacquesm »

ineedasername wrote: post #405
jacquesm wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simplest argument here is that Tesla's are new vehicles, the total US fleet average age is much older than any Tesla on the road today and driver/passenger fatalities tend to be higher in older cars because they have fewer safety features.

higher in older vehicles This seems intuitively that it would be true, but are there any stats on car age and accident frequency? Also where is the line on old? Vehicles made in the last 5-10 years will share most safety features, with all but a small minority of newer cars having some cutting edge. I'll admit I had been thinking of fleet age from the state of maintenance, but safety feature is a fascinating angle as…

For one there is the presence/absence of safety features (that one is obvious).

Then there is the actual design of the vehicles, cars that were made in the last couple of years fare much better in collisions with cars that are older because they are a lot stronger, and are better able to channel the energy of an impact to areas away from the passengers. Many newer vehicles will for instance shift the engine under the passenger compartment in a frontal impact.

Older airbags had 'best before' dates associated with the igniters being somewhat unstable and that reduced the certainty of them going off as they got older.

Then, finally, the bodies themselves, once cars start to rust you can patch them up but they won't be the same afterwards. There is quite a bit of redundancy in the body but it definitely doesn't help if there is significant corrosion.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#442

Post by chaboud »

ricardobeat wrote: post #406
Someone1234 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In the case of the truck, it was established that neither the driver nor the cameras would have identified the side of the trailer against the sky, and it's still ultimately the driver's responsibility to be alert and avoid such crashes. See the report here: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2016/INCLA-PE16007-7876.PDF

From the report “NHTSA’s crash reconstruction indicates that the tractor trailer should have been visible to the Tesla driver for at least seven seconds prior to impact.”

Unless someone is operating trucks with adaptive optical camouflage, I think that the driver would be expected to note the presence of a big rig. Binocular cameras and radar may be expected to do the same, too.

(Note: Tesla models, to the best of my knowledge, do not have binocular cameras)

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#443

Post by JimmaDaRustla »

jVinc wrote: 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…

> What they are saying is that while he was driving there was an earlier point at which the car did not crash, where the car gave a visual and audible clues. And you have to ask? Why the hell is that relevant? It isn't.

Vehicle notifies the driver it's having difficulty operating the driver elected auto pilot mode based on the conditions. Driver elects to continue using the failing operating mode despite being warned.

I fail to understand how "It isn't" relevant that the driver chose not to take manual control when warned that conditions were not ideal.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#444

Post by ScottBurson »

ScottBurson wrote: post #129
Robotbeat wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the answer is that the path into the barrier looks just like an actual lane, and that this was enough confusion that a human driver apparently had made the same exact mistake a week earlier. https://imgur.com/a/iMY1x https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/screen-sho...

I read that that driver was arrested for DUI.

Really, I did: http://abc7news.com/automotive/exclusive-i-team-investigates...

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#445

Post by Arnt »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #341
Arnt wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always someone who expects more. If you make a doodah that reduces (name something bad) by 30% someone will expect 40%, if it improves (name something good) by 50% someone will expect 60%, and by the way it costs too much, whatever it costs. Name your expectations up front, please.

The expectation is simple: value human life. Don't try to do beta tests and simultaneously market it as if it's production quality. Accidents happen, but own up to them; don't immediately and fervently insist that you were not at fault before the investigation even starts. It may be easy to casually update software and break builds, but when human lives are at risk a healthy dose of conservatism is appropriate. But y…

I thought about this over the weekend. About that you want, concretely.

Tesla says their cars have drive past that spot 85000 times so far. So you may be asking for some testing that's better at uncovering problems than 85000 whitenoise test instantiations are. Or you may be asking to test, and test, and improve until the software meets the developers' intentions: If their intention is to improve safety by 40% (or 400%, or 40000%) then you may be saying they shouldn't release a version that's improved over the baseline by 20% (or 200%, or 2000%) because that still doesn't realise the design.

Seems a bit absolutist to me. You could equally well make the opposite absolutist argument that having inhouse software that's better than the current released is putting people's lives in danger by inaction/negligence/whatever. That fixing a bug or improving a feature confers a moral obligation to release immediately, lest people's life be put in danger which would be avoided by the new code.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#446

Post by airstrike »

ricardobeat wrote: post #401
airstrike wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost every driver thinks they’re significantly better than average. Few are. Actually, about half of drivers are better than average.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median

Hence “about” and not exactly half, unless you can prove some weird distribution for drivers’ abilities. Go on, I’ll wait.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#447

Post by [deleted] »

yougotit wrote: post #438
kj65557 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need for ad hominem attacks. You make no rebuttals to the points made by the comment above and just dismiss it as PR. Just because something is (or isn't) PR doesn't mean that it's false.

I love people on this site. It is literally the only site where you respond to a comment and people start listing fallacies. My answer stands. Numerous people in other comments have explained how Tesla carefully crafted the statement so that gullible people would think it said something different and this guy fell for it. Better start listing some more fallacies in this response! Here is a list if you need help https…

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