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