NTSB Boots Tesla From Investigation Into Fatal Autopilot Crash (theverge.com)

The National Transportation Safety Board has removed Tesla from the investigation into a fatal Autopilot accident that occurred in March. The NTSB says it took the action because Tesla had released "investigative information before it was vetted and confirmed by" the agency. "Such releases of incomplete information often lead to speculation and incorrect assumptions about the probable cause of a crash, which does a disservice to the investigative process and the traveling public," the agency writes. The Verge reports: The NTSB's account contradicts Tesla's version of the story. In a statement, the automaker says it decided to remove itself from the investigation on Tuesday because of the NTSB was restricting it from sharing information before the probe ends. The company also accuses the NTSB of being duplicitous, arguing that the agency has released statements about the crash at the same time that it told Tesla not to. "It's been clear in our conversations with the NTSB that they're more concerned with press headlines than actually promoting safety," a spokesperson for the company says. "Among other things, they repeatedly released partial bits of incomplete information to the media in violation of their own rules, at the same time that they were trying to prevent us from telling all the facts. We don't believe this is right and we will be making an official complaint to Congress." The company also said it will issue "a Freedom Of Information Act request to understand the reasoning behind their focus on the safest cars in America while they ignore the cars that are the least safe." The full letter send to Musk from the NTSB can be seen here.

Comments

Re:lawyers killed the private small plane industry

[SlaveToTheGrind]

They killed all the small private aircraft companies that made small planes with the active help of NTSB.

Baloney. Here's a list that includes nearly five dozen small private aircraft companies that make small planes.

Boeing liked small pesky competitors being killed off.

Not only are the above companies not "killed off," they're not even competitors given that Boeing doesn't make small planes. (Unless you somehow consider private versions of Boeing's 7x7 models "small.")

Re:Tesla apparently doesn't understand how NTSB wo

[ShanghaiBill]

Tesla should have a great deal less than 2 deaths under their belt to be on par with human safety levels.

That is a strong assertion from someone who says "I can't find any stats".

Human drivers kill about 15 people per billion miles.

Tesla Autopilot has driven more than 1.3 billion miles, and has killed two people. So the fatality rate is roughly a tenth that of humans. That is a lot better than "on par" with humans.

Re:Tesla apparently doesn't understand how NTSB wo

[dgatwood]

Because Self Driving Vehicles are already safer than the AVERAGE human. That means the every day you delay replacing human drivers with SDCs, is a day in which somewhere between zero and 3500 extra people die that didn't have to.

That might be true for Waymo's self-driving tech (I don't know, because I've never been in one), but it sure as heck isn't true for Tesla's. It's a nice convenience to relieve us of some of the tedium of having to pay continuous attention to traffic when it is moving bumper-to-bumper at 10 MPH. It is halfway decent at most straight or nearly straight roadways. BUT:

• It changes lanes randomly in curved intersections
• It often handles exits by splitting the difference and then randomly guessing a direction after you're already driving in the gore area.
• It often thinks that striped areas are valid driving lanes.
• Same goes for shoulders.
• It doesn't reliably seem to notice and leave room for lane-splitting motorcycles, cars cutting into your lane, pedestrians, bicycles, or really much of anything else other than cars right in front of you.

In short, there are plenty of spots where it drives significantly worse than someone who has never been behind the wheel of a car before. The only way that's better than an average driver is if you're limiting the discussion to people who are out driving after 11:00 P.M. on New Year's Eve.

It is, however, usually better than a driver who is drunk or asleep or not paying attention to the road, which means it is better than the average driver at his or her worst times. That makes it useful, but only as a backup.