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Tesla Says Autopilot Was Engaged During Fatal Model X Crash (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the imperfect-systems dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Tesla says Autopilot was engaged at the time of a deadly Model X crash that occurred March 23rd in Mountain View, California. The company posted a statement online late Friday, after local news reported that the victim had made several complaints to Tesla about the vehicle's Autopilot technology prior to the crash in which he died. After recovering the logs from the crash site, Tesla acknowledged that Autopilot was on, with the adaptive cruise control follow distance set to a minimum. The company also said that the driver, identified as Apple engineer Wei "Walter" Huang, had his hands off the steering wheel and was not responding to warnings to re-take control. Tesla said in a statement: "The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver's hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision. The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken."

According to Mercury News, the driver of the car was headed southbound on California's Route 101 when his Model X crashed headfirst into the safety barrier section of a divider that separates the carpool lane from the off-ramp to the left. "The front end of his SUV was ripped apart, the vehicle caught fire, and two other cars crashed into the rear end. [The driver] was removed from the vehicle by rescuers and brought to Stanford Hospital, where he died from injuries sustained in the crash."

5 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. Another interestnig tidbit by fluffernutter · · Score: 3, Informative

    Tesla said in a previous article that autopilot had done this route 85,000 times. I guess repetition doesn't necessarily mean success here. Big surprise.

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    1. Re: Another interestnig tidbit by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

      Look at, say, the 2018 Leaf. Yeah, you save $5k. You also get an econobox that looks like a catfish that only goes 2/3rds as far (which becomes even worse when you consider the need to leave yourself a safety buffer), charges at a max rate 1/3rd that of the Tesla before #RapidGate sets in, 1/5th the speed after #RapidGate sets in, with much worse performance.

      That's not really a fair comparison, because you can't actually get a $35k Model 3 today, or any time in the foreseeable future. They are only selling the more expensive ones at the moment. And despite the problems (RapidGate is pretty serious) the Leaf 40 is selling quite well - so much so that they just bumped the price up 3%.

      Also that $35k won't get you the features that a $5k cheaper Leaf will, such as ProPilot which does auto-sterring and auto parking that is actually more advanced that Tesla's. So it's not really a like-for-like comparison. Depending on the country the Leaf sometimes has a better charging network too, e.g. the UK where there are far more CHAdeMO pumps than Superchargers.

      The real competition for the Leaf 40 is the Hyundai Ioniq and to a lesser extent the Renault Zoe. The Ioniq isn't widely available and the Zoe has its own rapid charging issues, as well as being an inferior car in every way.

      Having said that, the Leaf 40 is a massive disappointment compared to what people were expecting. Maybe the 60 will be better... At least it should have active battery cooling to fix the charging problems.

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  2. Re:Driving is can be extremely dangerous! Be safe! by GrumpyOldMan · · Score: 2, Informative

    Don't take Tesla's word that he had his hands off the wheel; he may have had them resting lightly on the wheel. They use a pressure sensor. I've got a Tesla Model X, and have been nagged many times, because my touch is a bit too light for it to detect.

  3. Re:Driving is can be extremely dangerous! Be safe! by Darren+Hiebert · · Score: 5, Informative
    This is partially incorrect. Tesla does not use a pressure sensor; they use a torque sensor. According to the manual:

    Autosteer detects your hands by recognizing light resistance as the steering wheel turns or from you manually turning the steering wheel very lightly (i.e., without enough force to retake control.

  4. Re:Better stats by BankRobberMBA · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, I did find an NHTSA report from January of 2017 (after a previous fatality linked to Autopilot use). They found a 40% decrease in crashes among Tesla drivers after Autopilot Autosteer became available. Not super-definitive, but interesting.

    5.4 Crash rates
    . ODI analyzed mileage and airbag deployment data supplied by Tesla for all MY 2014 through 2016 Model S and 2016 Model X vehicles equipped with the Autopilot Technology Package, either installed in the vehicle when sold or through an OTA update, to calculate crash rates by miles travelled prior to (21) and after Autopilot installation. (22)
      Figure 11 shows the rates calculated by ODI for airbag deployment crashes in the subject Tesla vehicles before and after Autosteer installation. The data show that the Tesla vehicles crash rate dropped by almost 40 percent after Autosteer installation.

    page 10 on:
    https://www.scribd.com/documen...