Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

27 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.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    1. Re:Another interestnig tidbit by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In several articles about this accident, Musk goes on with stats about the safety of autonomous driving. I understand why Musk wants to make it clear the driver was negligent in his use of Auto-pilot, but he should not be making unsupported safety claims regarding autonomous driving, nor conflating them with Tesla Auto pilot safety. While it very well may be safer, the data doesn't exist to prove it. Tesla Auto-pilot is, per Tesla, used only on limited access highways when there is good visibility. It is not used in rain, snow, or fog. It is not to be used where traffic conditions are changing rapidly. So the comparable safety data should be limited to sedans traveling on limited access highways in nice weather with stable traffic conditions. Furthermore, the comparison should be based on number of fatal accidents and not number of deaths, which is higher where there are more people in a vehicle. A car that crashes with 4 people in it is not for times more dangerous to drive than a car that crashes with only one person.

      In addition, the data should account for accidents not caused by the sedan, such as a tractor trailer suddenly coming across the median a taking out a car, or other 'unpreventable' incidents that neither an autonomous or human controlled car could avoid.

      Comparison against total highway deaths is apples and oranges.

      Musk is a smart man, smart enough to know how to use statistics properly. I believe he is quite aware his claims are not supported by existing data. It is disappointing and unnecessary. If I want to abuse statistics, I'd say the data clearly shows that on the particular day of this accident it was thousands of times safer to be in a human driven vehicle when passing the deficient barrier than in an auto-piloted Tesla.

    2. Re:Another interestnig tidbit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      ... he should not be making unsupported safety claims regarding autonomous driving, nor conflating them with Tesla Auto pilot safety.

      He has to. Tesla is on the brink of going under and unless he gets more cash to keep the business going, it'll be bust by the end of the year.

      To get that cash, he has to keep in the news and make a lot of hype.

    3. Re: Another interestnig tidbit by Rei · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But, in the case of Tesla, I don't really get why anybody is giving them money to reserve a car that hasn't yet been built and may not be built for quite some time

      Because there is no competition to the Model 3. Plain and simple. The "competition" charges vastly slower, from less reliable networks, is slower, doesn't have as good handling, don't look as nice, don't have anywhere near as interesting options (long-range pack, dual motor AWD, air suspension, etc), and on and on and on.

      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.

      With the Bolt you can pay more to go the same distance, perform worse, still charge at 1/3rd the max rate, and again have your car be a dorky-looking econobox.

      People are waiting because they want what they're waiting for, and not what else is available. Yes, there also are some people waiting specifically because it's Tesla - they don't want to support companies that have continually tried to minimize how many EVs they need to build so that they can just get back to making ICEs. Others want specifically Teslas because all of the competition has terrible depreciation rates but Teslas don't, due to excellent pack management, over the air updates, etc.

      --
      "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
    4. Re: Another interestnig tidbit by Rei · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Indeed. It's often been described as win-win for shareholders, in that it doesn't cost them anything if Elon fails, but they're rich if he succeeds. But in reality, a lot of people who voted it saw it as win-win-win - the "extra" win being that not only do they earn a lot of money, but so does Elon. Namely because they like the sort of things that Elon spends his money on. ;) He's not the sort of person who makes a ton of money and just retires and buys a private island and a superyacht and whatnot. There's no telling for sure what he'll spend his money on next, but you can rest assured that it'll be like something out of sci-fi ;)

      --
      "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
    5. 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.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re: Another interestnig tidbit by Rei · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A counterpoint.

      --
      "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
    7. Re: Another interestnig tidbit by Rei · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The BMW i3 and Renault Zoe dwarf Tesla in both sales and market share and for good reasons that you tried to mention:

      Not true. The Zoe does make up 22,7% of European EV sales (vs. the Model S's 11,5%), but the i3 is only 10,8% of European EV sales. Furthermore, the fact that the Zoe has less than twice as many sales, yet is selling to a price bracket that represents a market 1 1/2 orders of magnitude larger, isn't exactly a bragging point, and doesn't bode well for it when the Model 3 arrives next year.

      - Charge speed: 99% of charging is done at home

      I'll take that as "no contest". The fact that you do most of your charging at home is completely irrelevant when you need to go on a road trip.

      the only places I've ever seen Teslas is plugged into the stock standard socket

      Wow, you've not seen Teslas plugged into superchargers at places that aren't supercharger stations? Imagine that.

      Next, try actually going to a supercharger station if you want to see Teslas connected to superchargers.

      - Less reliable network is just a load of garbage.

      Plugshare status reports say otherwise. The consistent stream of reports of down stations on our local EV group says otherwise. Yesterday literally a third of our CCS chargers in the country were down.

      the Zoe is a perfectly normal looking car.

      If you mean "looks like an econobox", yes.

      The Model S is a tank and almost impossible to reverse park in Europe.

      Apparently you forgot that we're talking about the Model 3, not the Model S. The Model 3 is the same size as a BMW 3-series.

      --
      "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
    8. Re: Another interestnig tidbit by Nite_Hawk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I dont like luxuray car producers like tesla I also think the whole idea of electric car is a bad direction. Yet there are other companies that produce epic fails: there were broken ignition keys, self accelerating cars and least we forget a company that tried to fulfill silly regulation by nasty nasty and failing in covering its tracks. There were many more. If Tesla sinks it is not because it failed to inspect the bolts.

      Regarding electric cars: We've owned a Chevy Volt for the last 4 years and it's the best and most reliable car we've ever owned. There's no question in my mind that electric is the future for the vast majority of vehicles. I also own an F150 for hauling things, so I'm not opposed to gas vehicles where appropriate.

      For most people electric cars are simply going to end up being better. Higher torque, lower maintenance requirements, and I think in the long run, likely better range and cheaper fueling costs. There will still be a place for gas engines but their advantages are becoming more limited every year.

      Self driving cars are a totally different can of worms.

  2. Driving is can be extremely dangerous! Be safe! by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... 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.

    He apparently had plenty of money; he was driving a Tesla. He was an engineer, so he was educated.

    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.

    It amazes me that often people don't recognize that driving a car is a potentially extremely dangerous activity. 100% attention is required at all times, particularly since other drivers often do things they shouldn't do.

    1. Re:Driving is can be extremely dangerous! Be safe! by fluffernutter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It amazes me that often people don't recognize that driving a car is a potentially extremely dangerous activity. 100% attention is required at all times, particularly since other drivers often do things they shouldn't do.

      Then putting Autopilot in a vehicle is illogical. You don't put something in a vehicle to steer for drivers while totally failing at relieving any kind of duty of driving. Eventually they will get sidetracked, it's just human.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    2. 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.

    3. Re:Driving is can be extremely dangerous! Be safe! by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 5, Interesting

      He was an engineer, so he was educated.

      Educated but apparently not particularly smart, given that he had complained to Tesla several times about issues with the guidance system and yet continued to blindly rely on it.

    4. Re:Driving is can be extremely dangerous! Be safe! by arth1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Then given that this appears to have been an intelligent driver who was also aware of potential problems with the automatic control, we have to ask why that didn't happen. If we assume the driver didn't deliberately allow an accident to happen with tragic results, then evidently either something wasn't clear enough about the situation and what needed to be done, or something interfered with the driver's ability to act accordingly.

      No, that is not evident. Old Bill of Ockham tells me to look for a less complicated explanation, like that the driver had rolled 16 INT but 3 WIS.

    5. Re:Driving is can be extremely dangerous! Be safe! by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The core question is: why did the car not brake and stop in fromt of the obstacle?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    6. Re:Driving is can be extremely dangerous! Be safe! by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or maybe there had been warnings earlier in the drive, as Tesla's statement says, but then there was insufficient warning immediately before the fatal collision.

      We simply don't know yet, based on the information released so far, and what is needed in a situation like this is facts, not speculation.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    7. Re:Driving is can be extremely dangerous! Be safe! by AlanObject · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The core question is: why did the car not brake and stop in fromt of the obstacle?

      The core answer is: Because the driver did not apply the brakes.

      The original question is a good one and should not be just tossed off like this.

      If you did a GIS on the accident you would quickly see that the car impacted a fixed obstacle with a clear view of it. The obstacle was marked with black-and-yellow safety stripes exactly the sort to alert a human driver it was there.

      So why did the autopilot not see that obstacle and take action? (Either divert or stop?) What sensor system failed to see it? Does it have something to do with the material on the surface that holds the black-and-yellow paint?

      If they get to the root cause of that they have a good chance of never having an accident like this again.

  3. Hands off the wheel for 6 seconds by rmdingler · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    Having narrowly avoided two separate impending collisions while driving due to insects, one hornet loose in the cab & one bee in the eye through an open window, I have a macabre fascination with the last few seconds in a vehicle before the collision the takes the life of the human witness(es).

    Sure, we live in an age of unrivaled electronic distractions, but there have always been ample incentive to pick the wrong five seconds to look away from the road. Outside of law enforcement, we'd never see the video, even if it did exist... but the new tech vehicles are getting makes the 'fly on the wall' view ever more likely.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  4. Apple engineer by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Huang reportedly complained that the car’s Autopilot option kept veering the car toward the same barrier on Highway 101, near Mountain View, into which he crashed the car last Friday.

    If you've noticed unsafe behaviour and have made complaints about it, why the fuck would you keep using it?

    Not surprising that an Apple engineer has no common sense.

    And the only common sense thing for Tesla to do is to disable the damn thing. People are too stupid to be trusted with anything.

    --
    Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
  5. Artificial Intelligence kills 2 in one week by Andrew+Lindh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    On average there are 700 deaths on US roads EVERY week and two more should not be national news. With safer cars this number has been dropping in the last decade but this is news is actually about computer AI making a choice, or by not making a choice, killing two people. It may not be full AI, but it is still a computer program in control. Two people died because of a computer program. With both accidents the "self-driving" AI program should have saved these people. Both times the person behind the wheel should have been able to avoid or lessen the collision if they were actually driving. We don't hear much about AI driving success in avoiding crashes just like we don't hear about planes that land safely. We only hear about failures. These features will get better with time and debugging (meaning more failures to come). Just as early commercial planes had their problems so does AI self-driving. For now flying is safer than driving no matter who is in control of the car (0 commercial aviation deaths for 2017 in US) and improved technology can only help our chances of making it home safely even if it makes the wrong choice occasionally (well, on average).

    1. Re:Artificial Intelligence kills 2 in one week by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why are we allowing corporations to "debug" their cars on our roads? You have no concept of reality. 700 deaths on US roads. What would the number be if every car was using Tesla's autonomous technology? It might be 10,000 deaths per week. How would you know?

  6. Re: Evolution in action by MachineShedFred · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Better yet, another story is saying that the man has noticed autopilot having a problem at this particular stretch of road In the past - if you've seen it trying to send you into a k-rail at that bit a few times, what the fuck are you doing letting it drive on that bit, and not paying attention when it tells you to? Did he fall asleep or something?

    I sure as shit wouldn't be using it there if I've gone so far as to take it to the service center to have them look at it for trying to drive into exactly that barrier in the past...

    Man: Hey Doc, when I shove my head up my ass, I have problems breathing!
    Doctor: then pull your head out of your ass, and stop shoving it up there!

    --
    Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  7. Re: Driving is can be extremely dangerous! Be safe by arth1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... or maybe you're not holding the wheel tight enough.

    Well, he did work at Apple. Not holding it right is a distinct possibility...

  8. Darwin wins again by hyades1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "...the victim had made several complaints to Tesla about the vehicle's Autopilot technology prior to the crash...

    So the guy who has complained not once, but repeatedly, that his car's autopilot is inadequate engages it and completely ignores what it's doing.

    This takes a special kind of stupid.

    Somehow I found the strength to ignore the low-hanging fruit: that this potential Darwin Award winner was an Apple engineer.

    --
    I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
  9. Re:Unfortunately, People Will Get Hysterical by fluffernutter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How many people are going to die before we are there? 3.22 trillion miles driven and humans have 16,000 accidents a month. They drive over 550K miles without getting in an accident in all weather and road conditions. Let's give Waymo the benefit of the doubt and say they achieve 7000 miles per interaction, that's still only 1.8% the safety of a human *in ideal conditions*; how many injuries and deaths have there been already to get to this point?

    People understand the risk of driving and they drive. What people don't understand is how long it will take to make these cars workable.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  10. Re: Evolution in action by michelcolman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That story was incorrect. He had taken his car in because of problems with the navigation system, unrelated to autopilot. How that morphed into “autopilot problems at that particular stretch” is a classic example of the telephone game.

  11. 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...