Third Tesla Crashes Amid Report of SEC Investigation (usatoday.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Tesla hasn't had the best month so far as not one, not two, but a total of three crashes have been reported with the car's Autopilot self-driving system engaged at the time -- two of which resulted in fatalities. In addition, The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Tesla violated securities law by failing to disclose more quickly a fatal accident in Florida in May involving a Tesla Model S that was in self-driving mode. The SEC didn't comment on the report, and Tesla issued a statement saying it has "not received any communication from the SEC regarding this issue." As for the Autopilot crash that was reported today, the driver said he activated Autopilot mode at the beginning of his trip. Tesla is looking into the crash and has yet to confirm whether or not Autopilot was a factor. Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased a "Top Secret Tesla Masterplan, Part 2" via Twitter that he is "Hoping to publish later this week."

Comments

The summary is false.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla hasn't had the best month so far as not one, not two, but a total of three crashes have been reported with the car's Autopilot self-driving system engaged at the time -- two of which resulted in fatalities.

The article about the most recent crash contradicts the summary poster's statement that two of the crashes resulted in fatalities. Only one of the crashes has resulted in fatalities.

Re:The summary is false.

[Rei]

That's exactly what I was thinking. I can't find any evidence that there has been a second fatality.

And really, have only three Tesla vehicles period crashed, period, while on autopilot in 130m miles? If so, that's bloody impressive. More impressive than just a statistic of 1 fatality in 130m miles.

Duke Nukem Forever Young

[PopeRatzo]

Because I like you guys, I'm gonna do you a solid and save you all kinds of tsuris later on. There will not be self-driving cars in any of our lifetimes. Yes, we will have something like super cruise control and driver assist, but no, you will never be able to call for your robot Uber to pick you up and drive you to your part-time job. It's just not going to happen. And finally, the people who know most about "driverless" cars are starting to come clean:

The most realistic industry projection about the arrival of autonomous driving comes from the company that’s done the most to make it possible. Google, while never explicitly saying so, has long intimated that self-driving cars would be available by the end of the decade.

In February, though, a Google car caused its first accident; a bus collision with no injuries. A few weeks later, Google made a significant, if little-noted, schedule adjustment. Chris Urmson, the project director, said in a presentation that the fully featured, truly go-anywhere self-driving car that Google has promised might not be available for 30 years, though other much less capable models might arrive sooner.

Historians of technology know that “in 30 years” often ends up being “never.” Even if that’s not the case here, if you’re expecting a self-driving car, you should also expect a wait. And so you might want to do something to pass the time. Maybe go for a nice drive?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07...

Yes, you read that right. The project director for "self-driving cars" at Google just added 25 more years to his projection on when you're going to see them. And as the writer points out, most of us know that any tech prediction for 30 years down the road always ends in tears. If you go back 30 years, they were predicting tech that never showed up and mostly totally missed on the most important tech advances that did show up.

Now I don't have a particular interest one way or the other regarding self-driving cars, except this: I don't want to see one dollar in public funds spent to develop this technology or to create infrastructure for a self-driving fleet until we've made actual public transportation affordable and viable, the way it was early to middle last century before Standard Oil and GM conspired to destroy public transportation in the United States (and yes, they were even convicted of doing so in court). So go ahead, Google and Elon and Tim Cook and all the visionaries. Make your self-driving golf carts all you want. Just don't ask for a dollar of taxpayer money, especially not until you start paying your taxes.

http://www.whale.to/b/street_c...

http://www.baycrossings.com/Ar...

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

Lost focus

[Trogre]

Seriously, can't we just have a nice electric car without all this self-driving crap screwing it up?

Re:Three crashes in a month

[Anonymous Coward]

3000 people per day who die in car accidents just in the USA alone

So your claim is over one million car deaths per year in the USA? I have to call [citation needed] on that.

Because in 2014, USA deaths in cars, motor cycles, bicycles, and pedestrians all together were 32675.

Re:Three crashes in a month

[OzPeter]

yep screwed .. that should have been 3000 per month

Re:Stop calling it "Autopilot"

[AK Marc]

Others have a substantially similar thing. They call it cruise control. Subaru calls theirs "Eyesight" but Toyota calls theirs "cruise control with lane keeping assist". Honda called theirs "lane keeping assist" as well.

In general, they are adding modifiers to cruise control, and Subaru was the only other one I saw in a quick search that used a completely new name.

Just one fatality

[wildsurf]

two of which resulted in fatalities.

Sigh. One of the crashes resulted in one fatality. The other two crashes, no fatalities. (And it is not yet known whether Autopilot was engaged at the time of those two incidents.)

Getting distracted with Autopilot engaged is like removing your seatbelt because you have airbags. You may be able to occasionally get away with it, but it's still an incredibly dumb thing to do. (And the former endangers other drivers, not just yourself.) The silver lining of these incidents is that maybe more drivers will start paying more attention while using AP, though it should have been up to Tesla to properly instill this sense of caution to begin with.

And side skirts/guards should really be mandated for trailers nationwide. (They're already mandated in California.) It may not physically prevent an underride at high speed, but it doesn't have to; the radar is much more likely to detect them and trigger collision-avoidance braking. It's only a small patch for a small part of the problem, but better than not patching it at all.

*Two* of which?

[Theaetetus]

Tesla hasn't had the best month so far as not one, not two, but a total of three crashes have been reported with the car's Autopilot self-driving system engaged at the time -- two of which resulted in fatalities

The first one was the guy watching the DVD who went under the truck. Or at least, all of him below the neck did. Fatality!
The second one was in Michigan, and the driver "survived a rollover crash."
This is the third one, and "the driver said he activated Autopilot mode at the beginning of his trip."

That's one fatality, Subby. These are your own links and summary. We expect you to read them, even if none of the posters or editors here do.

Re: Three crashes in a month

[tysonedwards]

When life gives you melons, you may have dyslexia.

Re:Slippery slope?

[larryjoe]

When one attempts to make something idiot-proof, nature builds a better idiot. Not necessarily true, but we live in world where innovators are hampered by the chance of being sued by idiots who just-don't-listen.

"Fire is hot", "peanuts may contain peanuts", "online play not rated", "cruise control is not auto-pilot", "autopilot is experimental", etc.

I don't drive a Tesla, but the only message I heard about Tesla's Autopilot was the name. Yes, there are safety warnings in the manual and when you start up the car, but who actually pays attention that that? The same people who read EULAs? There's a reason the product is called Autopilot and not assist or level-2, and the reason is that they want to implicitly convey the idea that they are better than the competitors with mere assist or level-2. The name is not accidental.

Re:I would just point out.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I was also part of the SpaceX certification process. I remember you, you were the guy named Chester. I was sitting next to you in meetings and I had a bag of Cheetos, and for some reason you were always really trying hard to get my bag of Cheetos and I wouldn't let you. Neither would anyone else. You did this for like 3 weeks. I don't know why a guy dressed like a cheetah wanted Cheetos so bad and didn't just go get his own out of the vending machine, but when I said "It ain't easy bein' cheesy" you got super pissed and stormed out of the room and said "Fuck you and fuck your dangerously cheesy snacks too."

I always knew that would come back to haunt us, and here it is. Damn.

Re:Slippery slope?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing, Autopilot is what this is.

You may have the idea that "Autopilot" means the plane flies itself. Nope. Typically autopilot on the plane means it will fly straight and level until ordered otherwise. The autopilot on a plane absolutely will fly straight into another plane even, the human pilot is expected to take care of that sort of thing.