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Tesla Model S Plows Into a Fire Truck While Using Autopilot (cnbc.com)
On Monday, a Tesla Model S plowed into the back of a fire truck on a freeway near Culver City, California. The driver is claiming the car was on Tesla's Autopilot driver assistance system. As a result, the National Traffic Safety Board will be investigating both driver and vehicle factors. CNBC reports: The Culver City Firefighters Association Local 1927 union chapter tweeted out a picture of the crash on Monday afternoon. The firetruck was on the freeway helping after a motorcycle accident, the union said in an Instagram post. The post said there were no injuries. The outcome could have been much worse if firefighters had been standing at the back of the truck, Battalion Chief Ken Powell told the San Jose Mercury News. "Autopilot is intended for use only with a fully attentive driver," Tesla said in a statement sent to CNBC.
If no defects were found in the autopilot system, then why did the car crash?
The "no defects were found" is from the fatal crash a couple of years ago, and there were several contributing factors, outside of the autopilot.
That said: I don't drive a Tesla, but my car has a similar adaptive cruise control and auto-braking system. On my (non-tesla), I can easily see how somebody not familiar with it would think "Oh, I have the system engaged, the car will stop."
The reality is that it'll only stop if the difference in speed between my car and the object in front of me is less than 30 MPH. Drivers must go to the effort of learning the car's systems in order to know that. (And the learning comes from the Manufacturer's YouTube videos, The Fine Manual, The Dealership's guy whose only job is to teach customers about it, and said it at least a dozen times...)
I've been in more than a few situations where I can see traffic is stopped ahead, but my car continues accelerating towards them -- I'm accelerating past 50 MPH, while they're at a dead stop, 50 meters ahead.
Honestly, it feels like my brain is breaking every time: "Why isn't the car slowing down? Oh yeah, dummy! I gotta do it this time!"
So with my experience in a similar system on an entirely different make/model, I'm willing to bet the guy could have had autopilot engaged, but he didn't learn (for whatever reason) its limitations.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
The tweet is on what appears to be an official twitter account. But, it claims the vehicle was traveling at 65 mph when it struck???
Firemen with any experience at all have usually worked a few highway crashes. Anyone with a clue as to what striking a near immovable object (as demonstrated by the mostly superficial damage to the truck) at 65 mph does to a modern vehicle with all sorts of built-in crumple zones can tell at a glance that this collision occurred at a far slower speed than 65 mph. I'd be surprised if it was even 40mph. It does not even appear that any of the Tesla's glass cracked. And the damage to the truck appears to be at a surface level. I wonder if the airbags deployed?
As public officials, these folks need to be much more responsible in what they tweet. Hopefully, responsible officials will correct the record and at least chastise whoever posted the tweet after reviewing the crash data.
One, the other big notable accident was also with a vehicle with high ground clearance. At the time it was suggested that the system sensors were basically counting on something relatively close to the ground, and would miss things as they approach 'decaptiation level'.
I will say I am highly skeptical that the car slammed in at full 65 mph into a stopped fire truck. I got rear ended while I was going about 15 mph (traffic jam) by a car that was going about 60, and there were injuries and both cars were in much worse shape than the Tesla pictured (both cars totaled, frames bent so bad that no doors able to open without prybars), and that's with both cars having crumple zones, whereas the fire truck didn't yield much at all and the Tesla had to take the vast majority of the energy of the impact. Also, the Model S is a pretty heavy car, so there had to be a lot of energy in that collision.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
More to the point, I doubt it will turn out that Autopilot was even on. "Autopilot crashed me" is the best excuse bad drivers have ever been given. And people automatically take it at face values, until the logs get examined.
How come things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me?
My Outback with EyeSight will do its damnest to brake in that situation because the engineers understand that slower is better than doing nothing. I've tested up to about 45mph with cardboard boxes. Very strange felling. Amazing what they can do with two cameras, even in PNW rain.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.