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Tesla Autopilot 'Predicts' Accident Before It Happens (engadget.com)
A dash cam footage suggests a Tesla on Autopilot may have predicted a nearby freeway crash before it actually happened. A video showed that a Tesla car driving on a highway in the Netherlands started to beep a few seconds ahead of two cars colliding with each other in front of it. A Tesla representative confirmed to media that the beeping heard in the video is indeed the sound of Autopilot's Forward Collision Warning. Elon Musk tweeted a news article about the incident, adding more credibility to the matter. From a report on Engadget:Tesla's Autopilot 8.0 has a particularly clever feature: it uses radar to track road activity two cars ahead, helping it avoid danger that you wouldn't normally see. And it now appears that this tech just averted a disaster. Dutch Model X owner Frank van Hoesel has dashcam footage showing his electric crossover reacting to a bad highway crash before it even starts. As you can hear in the video, the Model X's Forward Collision Warning system starts braking when it detects the SUV two vehicles ahead coming to an abrupt stop, even though the driver of the car directly behind it is unaware. The result? Van Hoesel's EV remained untouched when it could easily have contributed to a pile-up.
Gee, the comments on this so far stink. People seem to be prejudiced.
First, the dashcam video presented is not from Tesla, it's from an independent car fan who seems to have gotten it from the driver. It was then retweeted by Elon Musk.
The activity demonstrated is the Tesla Autopilot triggering on sudden deceleration of the second car ahead, which is not clearly visible from the dashcam view (and presumably equally not clearly visible to the driver). It appears that autopilot warns and brakes.
Autopilot does not predict what happens to the cars ahead (although in second-car detections it's probably implied) and "anticipate" would be a better word anyway. Autopilot anticipates that the Tesla will hit something if it doesn't brake.
Soneone on twitter pointed out that he heard the "disengage" sound after the warning sound, indicating that the driver brakes. I don't hear if, but I don't know what it sounds like. Does anyone else hear it?
Someone pointed out that the Joshua Brown accident might not have happened if the radar had worked then. Yes, it might not have. One should also point out that Brown was speeding and apparently not looking. Despite its name, "autopilot" is not ready for the driver to disengage.
Bruce Perens.
So does that mean it also "predicted" that it would kill that driver who slammed into a transport at high speed?
That was before the 8.0 update. Unlike other cars, Teslas get updates. The old software just used a single radar beam, which passed underneath the high trailer in the accident you are refering to. The new software lets the radar beam scan around to create a point cloud, tracking multiple objects. In an identical scenario, it would have seen the trailer and braked in time. And it can also look two cars ahead by bouncing the radar signal on the asphalt, which is what saved it in this latest video.