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

A Tragic Loss

teslamotors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 511 posts

Re: A Tragic Loss

#71

Post by ModernMech »

yardie wrote: post #54

Wow. I'm speechless. I do hope they are able to learn more from this. This is just a bad coincidence of environment meets chance and someone died because of it. I do think computer vision still has a but further to go. A white trailer and a white sky shouldn't be a problem. But everyday I'm impressed with how human sight can find and lock into the most obscure details. Like I've been sunblinded before and yet I knew…

> I do hope they are able to learn more from this. This is just a bad coincidence of environment meets chance and someone died because of it.

Nope, this is completely expected when unproven technology is packaged as a push-button feature and shipped on consumer technology. I don't work for Tesla, but I am a robotics engineer who has worked on exactly this technology, and I saw this coming from a mile away. Tesla should have as well.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#72

Post by joemi »

georgecmu wrote: post #25
simonsarris wrote: post #2

> What we know is that the vehicle was on a divided highway with Autopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. Tragic no doubt, but I'm relieved that this was not a "Autopilot did something very very wrong" story. Autopilot has the p…

Autopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. How is this not an "Autopilot did something very very wrong" story? Tesla autopilot drove the vehicle full-speed into a tractor-trailer, which wasn't registered by its sensor systems. It'…

If the driver didn't notice it either, why is it Autopilot's fault?

Re: A Tragic Loss

#73

Post by snuxoll »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #21

I mean I understand Tesla has to make a statement here and I understand they want to ensure everyone that it's not really their fault but to title a post "A Tragic Loss" and then spend the majority of the post discussing all of your car's safety features and how it wasn't your fault just seems tone deaf and distasteful to me. Maybe they had to do it for legal reasons I don't know (I'm certainly not a lawyer) and I'd…

Press Releases like this are for investors and media outlets, not for general consumers. Of course they are going to focus on damage control, because if they didn't focus on the safety features of autopilot and the hands-on requirement some media outlet would contort the situation and say "What safety features does this car to prevent an accident like this in the future? Is this technology actually ready to be used on our roads?".

I think they did a fine job of handling this, and with the high visibility of this incident due to the use of autopilot they really had no other option.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#74

Post by brae »

mathattack wrote: post #3

Tragic. Good that they own it, though I'm not thrilled with this: It is important to note that Tesla disables Autopilot by default and requires explicit acknowledgement that the system is new technology and still in a public beta phase before it can be enabled. When drivers activate Autopilot, the acknowledgment box explains, among other things, that Autopilot “is an assist feature that requires you to keep your hand…

This disclaimer also seems odd in the eventual case that an Autopilot accident involves someone in another vehicle being injured or killed. Although I implicitly agree to all sorts of risks when I drive on a public road, I'm still struggling with the idea that I'm agreeing to participate in a beta test for an automated driving system. Being a software engineer just makes the idea more terrifying!

Re: A Tragic Loss

#75

Post by mikeash »

hueving wrote: post #23
Pxtl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound like what happened. "The driver didn't notice" well, that's why they're using autopilot. No matter how many messages people throw at users, any autopilot that doesn't detect that the driver is awake and operating the vehicle is going to be used by sleeping or otherwise unattentive drivers. It's just human nature. So what likely happened was the driver was screwing around and the autopilot completel…

>detect that the driver is awake and operating the vehicle RTFA. It mentions explicitly that autopilot checks for hands on the wheel.

And yet it really doesn't. Every so often it'll beep at you to make your presence known, but it can easily go many minutes with hands off the wheel and no checks.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#76

Post by talmand »

Analemma_ wrote: post #40
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #21

I mean I understand Tesla has to make a statement here and I understand they want to ensure everyone that it's not really their fault but to title a post "A Tragic Loss" and then spend the majority of the post discussing all of your car's safety features and how it wasn't your fault just seems tone deaf and distasteful to me. Maybe they had to do it for legal reasons I don't know (I'm certainly not a lawyer) and I'd…

I agree. I'm starting to get really weirded out by Tesla's immediate "not our fault!" blog posts every time a Tesla is involved in any kind of accident. I could see the necessity the first few times back when it was new technology to a lot of people (and Top Gear had it in for them), but with it happening over and over it seems whiny and a bit callous. How long to they plan to keep doing this?

As long as media continues to blame their new cars for clickbait articles and until they are treated the same as any other car manufacturer that's not blamed for every incident involving their vehicles.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#77

Post by mevile »

loceng wrote: post #48
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #21

I mean I understand Tesla has to make a statement here and I understand they want to ensure everyone that it's not really their fault but to title a post "A Tragic Loss" and then spend the majority of the post discussing all of your car's safety features and how it wasn't your fault just seems tone deaf and distasteful to me. Maybe they had to do it for legal reasons I don't know (I'm certainly not a lawyer) and I'd…

I feel 'A Tragic Loss' sets the tone for the remaining highly technical overview, instead of the technical breakdown seeming tone-deaf, it added tone until getting to the concluding paragraph. Unfortunately, fortunately, Tesla is having to educate people and being very clear to not allow room for panic and unwarranted fear mongering. I would say it is as to the point as it can be, and that it is heartfelt.

In addition it had important information for how other Tesla drivers can use the auto-pilot feature more safely. The article combines condolences and helpful safety information to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. Also, you don't see GM making a blog post every time someone passes away in a car they make.

Re: A Tragic Loss

#78

Post by XCSme »

mikeash wrote: post #45
petercooper wrote: post #16

Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, I'm intrigued that the color is relevant in the car's case - wouldn't it be using some sort of radar to detect and map objects rather than vision? I appreciate I am probably missing something.

Tesla's Autopilot uses a radar unit, a front-facing camera, and twelve ultrasonic sensors on the front and back bumper. The ultrasonic sensors are short range and are for detecting adjacent cars and obstacles while parking, the camera is used for detecting lanes, and the camera and radar work together to detect cars. The radar is low to the ground and probably doesn't pick up a trailer that's high off the ground. The…

Yeah, the height seems to be the problem. There was a "similar" accident a few months ago where a Tesla was summoned out of the garage and it hit a trailer because it was to high for the radar to get it. http://s3.amazonaws.com/digitaltrends-uploads-prod/2016/05/T...

Re: A Tragic Loss

#79

Post by [deleted] »

mikeash wrote: post #45
petercooper wrote: post #16

Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, I'm intrigued that the color is relevant in the car's case - wouldn't it be using some sort of radar to detect and map objects rather than vision? I appreciate I am probably missing something.

Tesla's Autopilot uses a radar unit, a front-facing camera, and twelve ultrasonic sensors on the front and back bumper. The ultrasonic sensors are short range and are for detecting adjacent cars and obstacles while parking, the camera is used for detecting lanes, and the camera and radar work together to detect cars. The radar is low to the ground and probably doesn't pick up a trailer that's high off the ground. The…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN