Slashdot Mirror
Are Tesla Crashes Balanced Out By The Lives That They Save? (eetimes.com)
Friday EE Times shared the story of a Tesla crash that occurred during a test drive. "The salesperson suggested that my friend not brake, letting the system do the work. It didn't..." One Oregon news site even argues autopiloted Tesla's may actually have a higher crash rate.
But there's also been stories about Teslas that have saved lives -- like the grateful driver whose Model S slammed on the brakes to prevent a collision with a pedestrian, and another man whose Tesla drove him 20 miles to a hospital after he'd suddenly experienced a pulmonary embolism. (Slate wrote a story about the incident titled "Code is My Co-Pilot".) Now an anonymous Slashdot reader asks: How many successes has the autopilot had in saving life and reducing damage to property? What is the ratio of these successes to the very public failures?
I'd be curious to hear what Slashdot readers think. If you add it all up, are self-driving cars keeping us safer -- or just making us drive more recklessly?
But there's also been stories about Teslas that have saved lives -- like the grateful driver whose Model S slammed on the brakes to prevent a collision with a pedestrian, and another man whose Tesla drove him 20 miles to a hospital after he'd suddenly experienced a pulmonary embolism. (Slate wrote a story about the incident titled "Code is My Co-Pilot".) Now an anonymous Slashdot reader asks: How many successes has the autopilot had in saving life and reducing damage to property? What is the ratio of these successes to the very public failures?
I'd be curious to hear what Slashdot readers think. If you add it all up, are self-driving cars keeping us safer -- or just making us drive more recklessly?
The biggest problem with Tesla is not their technology, but their communication. They call their system "Autopilot", but backpedal that statement in their legalese and fine print. They say their car is safer, but only acknowledge accidents after investigative reporters uncover them (the attached article is a perfect example). Further, they always shift as much blame on to the driver as possible, while giving as few details about the crash as possible. This is poor communication. Tesla should be transparent about how well they're doing. It's to their benefit, as many people (myself included) would be more open to trying out potentially unsafe technology if the risks are clearly explained and can be mitigated.
Back to the original point of the question, "Are Tesla Crashes Balanced Out By The Lives That They Save", Tesla could easily answer that question if they wanted to, they have the data. Unfortunately, due to their secretiveness and poor communication, they only share self-serving pieces of what they know, and no one gets the full picture. Based on the way Tesla has conducted itself, we have to assume that these vehicles are unsafe unless proven otherwise.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
An article over on Forbes already looked into this.
The TL;DR version is that Tesla's autopilot has 1 fatality per 130M miles driven, while the US average of all vehicle-related fatalities comes out to about one per 94M miles. That's 94M miles under all roads, all conditions, compared to Tesla's autopilot being driven almost exclusively on highways.
It is so much more complicated than that. Here are two perhaps more reasoned points to consider...
First, fatalities aren't all that matter - injuries and property damage should also be considered. It would be awesome if someone could come up with a cost of accidents per million miles rating that puts a price on the lives and adds it in to get a single number.
Second, it needs to be considered systemically and with a long-term point of view. A transition that costs a few more lives in the short term but brings a vast improvement forth sooner in the long term could cause the total lives saved over, say, the next 20 years to be vastly higher with a short, dangerous transition than a long, "safe" transition. We all too often miss the advantage of paying a price up front.
We should also consider other advantages of rushing to the eventual arrival of fully autonomous vehicles. Full autonomy is almost undoubtedly going to result in vast savings to any society that utilizes it - no more insurance cost, a drastic reduction in accidents, a transition to a vastly smaller fleet of cars that are shared, million mile cars once the companies that are making them are also the owners and maintainers, fewer roads due to much greater efficiencies of road utilization, etc., etc., etc. Vast pools of both time and materials will be freed for other endeavours. Awesome.