Slashdot Mirror


Dashcam Video Shows Tesla Steering Toward Lane Divider - Again (arstechnica.com)

AmiMoJo shares a report from Ars Technica: The afternoon commute of Reddit user Beastpilot takes him past a stretch of Seattle-area freeway with a carpool lane exit on the left. Last year, in early April, the Tesla driver noticed that Autopilot on his Model X would sometimes pull to the left as the car approached the lane divider -- seemingly treating the space between the diverging lanes as a lane of its own. This was particularly alarming, because just days earlier, Tesla owner Walter Huang had died in a fiery crash after Autopilot steered his Model X into a concrete lane divider in a very similar junction in Mountain View, California.

Beastpilot made several attempts to notify Tesla of the problem but says he never got a response. Weeks later, Tesla pushed out an update that seemed to fix the problem. Then in October, it happened again. Weeks later, the problem resolved itself. This week, he posted dashcam footage showing the same thing happening a third time -- this time with a recently acquired Model 3. "The behavior of the system changes dramatically between software updates," Beastpilot told Ars. "Human nature is, 'if something's worked 100 times before, it's gonna work the 101st time.'" That can lull people into a false sense of security, with potentially deadly consequences.

3 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. Tesla and Boeing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Are they sharing the same autopilot dev team?

    Tesla's autopilot automatically takes aim at anything the camera doesn't recognize and the Boeing 737-Max autopilot automatically takes a 90 degrees plunge to the ground the moment something abnormal happens.

    There are parallels here..

  2. Wow! by fluffernutter · · Score: 1, Funny

    This must be the autopilot in the Boeing 737 Max 8!

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  3. You guys don't understand by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Funny

    The video clearly shows that the Tesla was in the Ravenna section of Seattle, which is reasonably nice. It was simply trying to avoid heading further south into the lower-class area known as the University District.

    --
    #DeleteChrome