Investigation into Tesla after fatal crash

InTheTrees

Mycroft H wrote: »

Well I hope they're going to investigate other Teslas. If an accident happened to an aircraft while on Autopilot, you don't think the NTSB would be making recommendations or grounding various planes? It's happened before.

We can thank god american pilots arent trained to the same standards as the average american driver.

bertie4evr

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

Ah no, in fairness I'll give Tesla that much credit at least - they haven't had to install nets around their factories to catch workers who have had enough.

But I'm not sure the company is even viable without all the rather ironically named "green rebates" they're getting.

Not yet They are looking to open a Chinese factory.

eeguy

bertie4evr wrote: »

Not yet They are looking to open a Chinese factory.

And one in Europe too!
Plus a second battery gigafactory in the US

bertie4evr

eeguy wrote: »

And one in Europe too!
Plus a second battery gigafactory in the US

They desperately need to too. If the Model 3 is to be any way viable they need to really ramp up production. I'm still not convinced they'll succeed...

jimmy blevins

It's a case of reckless driving as the driver obviously was not aware or in full control of the road conditions, it's a driver aid rather than auto pilot.
It's no different from blaming cruise control for a rear end shunt.as a previous poster stated a dead man's switch should be compulsory.

gctest50

jimmy blevins wrote: »

It's a case of reckless driving as the driver obviously was not aware or in full control of the road conditions, it's a driver aid rather than auto pilot.
It's no different from blaming cruise control for a rear end shunt.as a previous poster stated a dead man's switch should be compulsory.

Mercedes weren't afraid to hide the emergency switch :

RandomAccess

2RockMountain wrote: »

As a regular cyclist, I'll be far more comfortable with computer controlled cars than the large number of idiot-controlled cars out there today.

One point about this is that some (bad) cyclists are incredible unpredictable, often a good Human driver can observe this long before an autonomous car would detect it and will be watching for a potentially dangerous move or overtaking them with an exaggerated amount of space.

Hopefully thats what we will get sooner rather than later from true autonomous cars, this predictive premonition rather than just relying on the fact that they can react faster to incidents by braking late & fast or swerving hard.

However the reality may be that this is beyond our capability for some time, hopefully not, but possibly so.

RandomAccess

gctest50 wrote: »

Mercedes weren't afraid to hide the emergency switch :

The narration from the autopilot in that Mercedes clip is something that maybe should be mandatory until these systems reach a very advanced level of development.


And take the example of that clip where the deceased owner says the car saved him from being struck by a truck which moved into his lane. Yes the truck was wrong, but I wouldn't be comfortable being in the blind spot.
He also said he was oblivious until the car handed him back control, I doubt he even noticed it was getting uncomfortably close.

It comes down to the fact the Tesla has no real collision avoidance ability, it just reacts to imminent collisions.
Its what the Volvo engineer was alluding to in the article below, that people believe the car is more capable than it is. He was attacked then as a shill and a sore loser by various fanboys.
The video at the end of theverge article is a reminder and warning of how dangerous this feature can be.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/27/11518826/volvo-tesla-autopilot-autonomous-self-driving-car


And here is a police map of the fatal crash site,


A witness commented that she was overtaken at speed shortly before the crash and that she herself was doing 85 at the time. eek.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQNMvHbL3jU

The news media lead the story as being a "Driverless car".
Hardly a surprise as Tesla allowed the tech media, owners & supporters to fan those flames.

nokia69

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Is there anything to suggest that he would have had the time to react and avoid the truck in a normal car? If you're doing 60-70mph and a truck pulls out directly in front of you there'd be very little time to do anything anyway...

I think he might have saw it at the last minute

AFAIK once the driver in a Tesla moves the steering wheel or hits the brake the car switches off the autonomous mode

The fact that the car went off the road after losing the roof implies to me that he tried to take control, once he died the car then drove uncontrolled into the telephone poll

I think most of the autonomous hardware is lower down on the car so in theory it could have continued without the roof

2RockMountain

RandomAccess wrote: »

One point about this is that some (bad) cyclists are incredible unpredictable, often a good Human driver can observe this long before an autonomous car would detect it and will be watching for a potentially dangerous move or overtaking them with an exaggerated amount of space.

And yet, cyclist deaths are at an all-time low, and the proportion of road deaths that involve cyclists is very low. Drivers manage to kill and maim others on the road every day without any involvement of cyclists.

frozenfrozen

What's the point of it at all. Soon millions of Americans will be able to sleep on their 2 hour each way commute to work? Here's a ****ing tip lads don't live two hours away from where you work

gctest50

frozenfrozen wrote: »

What's the point of it at all. Soon millions of Americans will be able to sleep on their 2 hour each way commute to work? Here's a ****ing tip lads don't live two hours away from where you work

BOIL an egg to perfection without costly egg timers by popping it into boiling water and driving away from your home at exactly 60mph. After three miles, phone your wife to take the egg out the pan.

frozenfrozen

People on reddit are, ironically, describing taxis as being the future for personal transport in America

"[–]KusanagiZerg 24 points an hour ago
People having their own cars is really inefficient. Lots of production and they mostly sit still all day. It would be much better for the environment if we just called a [self-driving]car when we needed one, use it, then send it to whoever needs a car then."

"[–]Mustbhacks [-1] 8 points an hour ago
So much this.^
Plus theres a HUGE liability issue with a personally owned self driving car that isn't maintained. People can't even be arsed to get their oil changed every few thousand miles. Let alone make sure anything/everything else is in working order."

help, my eyes have rolled so far back they won't go forward anymore. Looks like I'll need a self driving car.

eeguy

frozenfrozen wrote: »

What's the point of it at all. Soon millions of Americans will be able to sleep on their 2 hour each way commute to work? Here's a ****ing tip lads don't live two hours away from where you work

Easy for you to say. Plenty of people in Ireland are doing hour, hour and a half commutes each way daily. Just moving house isn't aa simple as you may think.

Think of the millions of hours that could be spent more productively than sitting in motorway traffic inching forward.

RE taxis.
That'll probably be what will happen. Autonomous cars will replace taxis and be much cheaper since you're not paying a drivers wage. They'll also go anywhere at any time.
I'd also imagine a AIRBNB type service where you can make your car a taxi when you're not using it.
You'll be sitting at home on a Saturday night while your car is out doing pub runs and making money.

frozenfrozen

Yes, it is easy for me to say considering I live in Clare and everyone I know has a minuscule 'commute' (also known as driving 15 minutes to work) it is easy for me to say it is silly to spend 4 hours a day driving to and from work. I did have a cousin who was leaving cavan at 5am to commute to dublin, but he simply moved to dublin

Plenty of people in Ireland are also able to see their place of work from their home. What's your point here? That millions of americans spending 20% of their day commuting is not an issue because a small percentage of Irish people commute from cavan to dublin every day? Moving house isn't the only option, decentralising jobs is an option.

The only reason people don't take taxis everywhere is the cost of paying the driver, right. I don't see how losing thousand per year in depreciation is cheaper than paying a taxi driver who would be working 12 hours a day. Wait.. if all these cars are going to be shared, what happens when everyone needs them at the same time.. you know in the morning when everyone wants to get to work in the same place at the same time. And what do these cars do during the day when everyone is at work? Who pays for that downtime?

That really would be the utopian dream, renting out your car to give drunk people lifts home from the pub. You know, that job which is already fulfilled by taxi drivers

What productivity could there be 'inching forward in traffic' which couldn't be achieved when working from home? They could sleep, or watch game of thrones. People already take work calls while commuting. And if there's another part of their job which could be done while driving then again, why wouldn't they just work remotely. Not to say the time spent sitting in traffic is time well spent, but really when you're 2 hours away from work that time is always going to be time wasted.

Charles Babbage

eeguy wrote: »

You'll be sitting at home on a Saturday night while your car is out doing pub runs and making money.

Will there be robot cleaners also in this brave new world.

RandomAccess

frozenfrozen wrote: »

And what do these cars do during the day when everyone is at work? Who pays for that downtime?

Reminds me of the recent contact changes for Deliveroo riders. It's a race to the bottom.

Dempsey

The bigger problem is how these limited driving assistance systems are being marketed to customers as fully automated systems until you read the manual and all the legal disclaimers attached to limit liabilty. The current generation of these systems are nowhere near full automation. As an engineer in this field im not comfortable with the false sense of security given by gimmicky marketing.

People dont read manuals and they wont think of all the failure modes in a time critical safety system.

Public beta stages of these systems will have fatalies. Its a statistical certainity. The ethics of companies misrespresenting the capability of the systems for cheap test data, good marketing and profit needs to be questioned.

InTheTrees

Dempsey wrote: »

Public beta stages of these systems will have fatalies. Its a statistical certainity. The ethics of companies misrespresenting the capability of the systems for cheap test data, good marketing and profit needs to be questioned.

This is where the product liability lawyers will be starting to gather. You can bet the victims insurance companies (he probably has life insurance, car insurance, maybe more) will be preparing to point the finger at Tesla.

It does seem incredibly irresponsible to allow this kind of "beta test" on public roads despite the supposed fail safes built in. Its not like we the general public are signing up for Tesla drivers to be beta testing on the same roads as us.

Dempsey

InTheTrees wrote: »

This is where the product liability lawyers will be starting to gather. You can bet the victims insurance companies (he probably has life insurance, car insurance, maybe more) will be preparing to point the finger at Tesla.

It does seem incredibly irresponsible to allow this kind of "beta test" on public roads despite the supposed fail safes built in. Its not like we the general public are signing up for Tesla drivers to be beta testing on the same roads as us.

When you agree to all the warnings in the car before you can use this system. You are agreeing to be an unpaid test pilot for the company.

When the likes of lockheed etc were trying to break the sound barrier, they had the decency to pay their test pilots for the risks. Big business has found a way to turn development into a profit making exercise.

jackofalltrades

InTheTrees wrote: »

It does seem incredibly irresponsible to allow this kind of "beta test" on public roads despite the supposed fail safes built in. Its not like we the general public are signing up for Tesla drivers to be beta testing on the same roads as us.

Exactly ever hear of car companies offering beta ABS or ESP on their cars.
No. They tested it first, got it right and then released proper versions.
Beta testing turns ordinary motorists into untrained test drivers.
And from watching the video in this post, Tesla drivers really need to have their hands on the wheel at all times.

Dempsey

jackofalltrades wrote: »

Exactly ever hear of car companies offering beta ABS or ESP on their cars.
No. They tested it first, got it right and then released proper versions.
Beta testing turns ordinary motorists into untrained test drivers.
And from watching the video in this post, Tesla drivers really need to have their hands on the wheel at all times.

In fairness, those are much simpler systems to implement and cover all the corner cases of operation

Automated driving relies on complex software to interpret sensor data at an incredible speed and its more complex than an autopilot system of a aircraft as there is a huge amount of objects in close proximity to interpret and characterize.

Renegade Mechanic

jackofalltrades wrote: »

Exactly ever hear of car companies offering beta ABS or ESP on their cars.
No. They tested it first, got it right and then released proper versions.
Beta testing turns ordinary motorists into untrained test drivers.
And from watching the video in this post, Tesla drivers really need to have their hands on the wheel at all times.

Well they got that attitude from the gaming industry tbh. Why spend millions of Euros testing a product when millions of plebs will pay you nigh on 70 quid for the pleasure of doing it for free?

Though the semi/fully autonomous vehicle of your choosing won't come with a reset button, so naturally I wager they put more effort into testing their product beforehand than the gaming indusrty would

Still, I'd rather not see this tech take off. Way too much scope for bad possibilities. If people want to be driven about the place, they should call a taxi.

Dempsey

This technology is coming though, billions is being pumped into it and the oems are ramping towards to 99% automation, with the 1% dealt with by legal disclaimers. It will never be 100%

I agree with you, using the gaming industry development model is wrong for systems that can result in loss of life. Again, risk vs reward dictates that they are onto a winning formula for their shareholders

eeguy

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

Well they got that attitude from the gaming industry tbh. Why spend millions of Euros testing a product when millions of plebs will pay you nigh on 70 quid for the pleasure of doing it for free?

Most systems implemented on a car are tested by the public, they just don't know it. Nothing new in a car is ever perfect, the likes of ABS are only good because they're decade old tech and constantly refined and iterated on.

They're also simple features. A couple of sensor trigger the ECU to change a few parameters. Job done.
Autopilot and autonomous driving has to take into account the infinite possibilities on the road. While they can simulate millions of miles travelled, the best data is from real world driving, and the quickest, cheapest and best way is to get the people who'll actually use the product to test it.

The comparison to the likes of ABS isnt accurate. ABS is decades old, from a time before software updates. If it didn't work, all the cars had to be recalled to the garage.

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

Still, I'd rather not see this tech take off. Way too much scope for bad possibilities. If people want to be driven about the place, they should call a taxi.

It will take off. No doubt about it. If there's a market there'll be a product, and there's a BIG market.

InTheTrees

Dempsey wrote: »

When you agree to all the warnings in the car before you can use this system. You are agreeing to be an unpaid test pilot for the company.
.

Except I didnt sign up to share the road with members of the public beta testing next to me on the freeway.

I dont care if some idiot tesla driver signs his life away to drive into a wall, its when he endangers the general public that there's a larger problem.

InTheTrees

The FAA regulations regarding aircraft systems are probably a better safety example.

I cant imagine the NTSB being very happy with Tesla giving these vehicles out to the public even with all the sign off's a driver needs to make to activate it. If the NTSB rules tesla was wrong to do so the lawyers really will swoop in.

InTheTrees

eeguy wrote: »

It will take off. No doubt about it. If there's a market there'll be a product, and there's a BIG market.

I agree. It'll be fascinating to see how it goes in Europe. The wide boulevards of silicon valley and the western usa, along with the slow drivers makes it a good place to develop the tech.

But transferring it to the fast small roads of europe will be a challenge.

jackofalltrades

Dempsey wrote: »

In fairness, those are much simpler systems to implement and cover all the corner cases of operation

Automated driving relies on complex software to interpret sensor data at an incredible speed and its more complex than an autopilot system of a aircraft as there is a huge amount of objects in close proximity to interpret and characterize.

Oh I'm aware of the difference in the complexity between the two systems.
I just picked them as an example of another system in a car.
One which people would not accept a beta version of, just like every other system until now.

seamus

InTheTrees wrote: »

I agree. It'll be fascinating to see how it goes in Europe. The wide boulevards of silicon valley and the western usa, along with the slow drivers makes it a good place to develop the tech.

But transferring it to the fast small roads of europe will be a challenge.

Slow drivers? Are you having a laugh?

The western US and California in particular is a mad place to drive. Anywhere I've driven in Europe is a dream in comparison. Even Italy, who are fncking terrible drivers.

I find it quite incredible that anyone would complain about automated vehicles driving on the road and yet still happily get out into traffic with people behind the wheel of every other car. One death from an automated vehicle, and the circumstances weren't even caused by the vehicle.