Musk's Claims Challenged About Absence of Autopilot in Texas Tesla Crash (cnn.com) 205
"Despite early claims by #Tesla #ElonMusk, Autopilot WAS engaged in tragic crash in The Woodlands," tweeted U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady on Wednesday. (Adding "We need answers.")
But maybe it depends on how you define Autopilot. CNN reports: Tesla said Monday that one of Autopilot's features was active during the April 17 crash that killed two men in Spring, Texas....
Lars Moravy, Tesla's vice president of vehicle engineering, said on the company's earnings call Monday that Tesla's adaptive cruise control was engaged and accelerated to 30 mph before the car crashed. Autopilot is a suite of driver assistance features, including traffic-aware cruise control and Autosteer, according to Tesla's website... The North American owner's manuals for the Model 3, Model S and Model X, all describe traffic-aware cruise control as an Autopilot feature. Tesla's revelation may be at odds with the initial description of the crash from its CEO Elon Musk, who said two days after the crash that "data logs recovered so far show Autopilot was not enabled."
Alternately, Forbes suggests there may just be some confusion, noting that earnings call included descriptions of tests Tesla performed on one of their own cars after the accident. So when they said adaptive cruise control "only accelerated the car to 30mph [over] the distance before the car crashed," they could just have been referring to their own experiments. (Tesla also points out adaptive cruise control only engages when the driver is buckled — and disengages slowly if they're unbuckled — and after the Texas crash all seat belts were unbuckled.)
Why so much confusion? Part of the problem may be, as CNN points out, that Tesla "generally does not engage with the professional news media."
But The Drive shares another theory about the crash: A relative of the deceased told a local news station that the owner allegedly "may have hopped in the back seat after backing the car out of the driveway." Moments later, the car crashed when it failed to negotiate a turn at high speed.
CNN adds: Bryan Reimer, the associate director of the New England University Transportation Center at MIT, who studies driver assistance systems like Autopilot, said one of the plausible explanations for the crash is that the driver was confused and thought they had activated Autosteer, when only traffic-aware cruise control had been turned on. "The general understanding of Autopilot is that it's one feature, but in reality it is two things bolted together," said Reimer, referring to traffic-aware cruise control and Autosteer.
But according to the Washington Post, Tesla also disputes that theory: Tesla executives on Monday claimed a driver was behind the wheel at the time of a fatal crash that killed two in suburban Houston this month, contradicting local authorities who have previously said they were certain no one was in that seat. Tesla made the statement on its earnings call Monday... Lars Moravy, the company's vice president of vehicle engineering, said the steering wheel was "deformed," indicating a driver's presence at the time of the crash...
Mark Herman, constable for Harris County Precinct 4, told the station KHOU that police were "100 percent certain that no one was in the driver's seat."
But maybe it depends on how you define Autopilot. CNN reports: Tesla said Monday that one of Autopilot's features was active during the April 17 crash that killed two men in Spring, Texas....
Lars Moravy, Tesla's vice president of vehicle engineering, said on the company's earnings call Monday that Tesla's adaptive cruise control was engaged and accelerated to 30 mph before the car crashed. Autopilot is a suite of driver assistance features, including traffic-aware cruise control and Autosteer, according to Tesla's website... The North American owner's manuals for the Model 3, Model S and Model X, all describe traffic-aware cruise control as an Autopilot feature. Tesla's revelation may be at odds with the initial description of the crash from its CEO Elon Musk, who said two days after the crash that "data logs recovered so far show Autopilot was not enabled."
Alternately, Forbes suggests there may just be some confusion, noting that earnings call included descriptions of tests Tesla performed on one of their own cars after the accident. So when they said adaptive cruise control "only accelerated the car to 30mph [over] the distance before the car crashed," they could just have been referring to their own experiments. (Tesla also points out adaptive cruise control only engages when the driver is buckled — and disengages slowly if they're unbuckled — and after the Texas crash all seat belts were unbuckled.)
Why so much confusion? Part of the problem may be, as CNN points out, that Tesla "generally does not engage with the professional news media."
But The Drive shares another theory about the crash: A relative of the deceased told a local news station that the owner allegedly "may have hopped in the back seat after backing the car out of the driveway." Moments later, the car crashed when it failed to negotiate a turn at high speed.
CNN adds: Bryan Reimer, the associate director of the New England University Transportation Center at MIT, who studies driver assistance systems like Autopilot, said one of the plausible explanations for the crash is that the driver was confused and thought they had activated Autosteer, when only traffic-aware cruise control had been turned on. "The general understanding of Autopilot is that it's one feature, but in reality it is two things bolted together," said Reimer, referring to traffic-aware cruise control and Autosteer.
But according to the Washington Post, Tesla also disputes that theory: Tesla executives on Monday claimed a driver was behind the wheel at the time of a fatal crash that killed two in suburban Houston this month, contradicting local authorities who have previously said they were certain no one was in that seat. Tesla made the statement on its earnings call Monday... Lars Moravy, the company's vice president of vehicle engineering, said the steering wheel was "deformed," indicating a driver's presence at the time of the crash...
Mark Herman, constable for Harris County Precinct 4, told the station KHOU that police were "100 percent certain that no one was in the driver's seat."
Confusion (Score:2)
I have seen confusion in other forums (not computer related) about how a car that is self-driving could crash. Not many people understand that self-driving is not actually self-driving, you have to keep your hands on the wheel.
Re:Confusion (Score:5, Insightful)
These companies should not be able to use the words "Self Driving" or "Auto Pilot" because to a layman it means the vehicle can drive on its own.
They should be using "Driver Assist(ance)" because that's all they're capable of.... assisting the driver.
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These companies should not be able to use the words "Self Driving" or "Auto Pilot" because to a layman it means the vehicle can drive on its own.
Self driving I agree with. Ask the common moron if he's ever seen plane on autopilot which didn't have a pilot in the cockpit. Hopefully they'll realise how silly they are.
Or maybe you should complain to the airline industry since they are using the term autopilot incorrectly.
Re: Confusion (Score:5, Funny)
Luckily all Tesla customers are intimately familiar with the nuances of aircraft terminology, so it makes total sense.
Self driving... (Score:2)
When I go to the self-service gas pumps no the gas will not go into my car automatically. What am I doing wrong?
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Re: Confusion (Score:2, Insightful)
Whether you have a hard time believing something does not change the fact that lying to customers by using deliberately misleading terminology is not OK.
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Bullshit.
Everyone and their dog is using deliberately misleading terminology to sell anything, from matches to spaceships. Just pick any bloody commercial and analyze it.
Fact of the matter is people are generally stupid, and money has an aggravating effect on stupidity. Teslas have been around for quite a few years. There's comprehensive documentation, a gazillion warnings and several safety features built in.
If someone is dumb enough to not glance over the documentation, ignore warnings and actively circum
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Lying is not what Tesla does.
Oh really [sec.gov]? And before you say Musk isn't Tesla, he is the face of Tesla. He is the spokesperson for Tesla. Everything about Tesla revolves around him. When he lies, Tesla lies.
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"Its functionality is exactly what autopilots in airplanes are capable of"
Modern aviation autopilots can fly a plane from taking off to landing... on a good day. Can Tesla's do the same?
OTOH, plane autopilots, and the complexity of its use, have been related to plane accidents, even considering highly trained personnel are in command. Maybe autopilots like the ones on planes are not suitable for layman usage?
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Its functionality is exactly what autopilots in airplanes are capable of, with the same limitations. Hence the pilot.
It is no use refering me to what aircraft autopilots do because I don't have a clue about them. And I don't see why anyone should have to learn what aircraft autopilots can do in order to understand what a Tesla car autopilot can do. Not everyone's life revolves around aircraft.
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Whether you have a hard time believing something does not change the fact that lying to customers by using deliberately misleading terminology is not OK.
Autopilot is a perfectly reasonable name for Tesla's non-full-self-driving self-driving tech. An airliner or a boat with autopilot turned on will happily pilot itself right into an obstacle if you let it.
Claiming to have a "full self-driving" product to sell to people is arguably fraudulent, since they don't. The phrase "full self-driving" implies that the human never has to intervene. But right now Tesla is clearly telling people that they have to be in control while "full self-driving beta" is in use, so
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The problem is that people's perception of what autopilot is does not accord with reality.
Re: Confusion (Score:2)
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No, but there is a blue autosteer indicator on the display that only shows if autosteer is enabled, as well as a distinct audio chime when enabled. Merely enabling the "traffic-aware cruise control" doesn't do either of those things.
There's also a box that requires checking, and an agreement screen that you must agree to in order to even enable autosteer to be used at all. That agreement explains quite clearly (it's not a EULA type agreement, but rather two or three sentences) that you are still responsib
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If you watch the commercials, it is clear that these companies are advertising these features as an alternative to you having to actively drive. And time and again we see people buying these cars so that they can sleep, use their phone, or do anything other than drive while being transported around.
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All the youtube videos that exist of Tesla drivers driving down the highway with nobody in the driver's seat tell me that you need to try harder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Driving on a freeway is exactly where I want autopilot.
I can find a parking spot myself, not a big deal. But driving at a constant, high speed for hours? That's not something humans are well equipped to do. I'd love to roll back the chair a bit and take out a book, and if the autopilot tells me I'm needed, I can be there in a second.
I'd be perfectly happy with a car that can drive itself on the freeway, highway, Autobahn, whatever, and maybe on most overland roads. It doesn't need to do dirt roads or small
Re:Confusion (Score:4, Insightful)
> and if the autopilot tells me I'm needed, I can be there in a second.
Humans can't go from being immersed in fantasy to full situational awareness in a second. 5-10 seconds is realistic.
That's a tenth of a mile minimum reaction time on a highway.
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True, but an autopilot system that works well only in a highway scenario is still something that would be useful as long as it's good enough that a human doesn't need to be attentive. A self driving system that was safe enough so that a could take a nap would be of use to me even if it only worked on the motorways.
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Every airline passenger knows that too.
[Citation needed.]
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I have seen confusion in other forums (not computer related) about how a car that is self-driving could crash. Not many people understand that self-driving is not actually self-driving, you have to keep your hands on the wheel.
I think (as the MIT guy from the article guessed) they could have just been confused by what mode they were in, considering that both modes are engaged by pulling the stalk. Once for adaptive cruise, twice for autopilot. I can see an older person messing this up easily.
Think: how many time have you seen an older person mess up double-clicking on a computer? With a desktop icon there's a stark difference in outcome (one opens the app, one doesn't), but with Autopilot both "single click" and "double click" pe
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There's a difference when autosteer is engaged though - you get an audio chime and a blue steering wheel icon appears on the display confirming that autosteer is engaged. Merely turning on the traffic-aware cruise control gives no chime, and only shows the speed at which you have TACC set.
If the driver was competent in operating the vehicle in even the slightest bit, or really if any occupants of the vehicle were, it would have been obvious if autosteer was enabled or not.
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> If the driver was competent in operating
Weren't these were two drunk Texans or am I misremembering?
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I have seen confusion in other forums (not computer related) about how a car that is self-driving could crash. Not many people understand that self-driving is not actually self-driving
Yeah. It's almost as if it were false advertising or something.
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A. They haven't released full self driving yet
B. When you enable the autosteer portion of the Autopilot software, there's a big thing you have to agree to that says you understand that you must pay attention and be able to take control of the vehicle on a moment's notice, and you are responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle. Until you agree, you cannot engage autosteer.
I know you're going for snark, but I'm not sure why this isn't being treated exactly the same as someone who operates literally
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> arboreally interrupted
I'm stealing this.
So shocking!!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Step 2: Idiots kill themselves thanks to step 1
Step 3: Media gets ahold of story
Step 4: Story is boring so media changes it to appear as shocking and controversial as possible
Step 5: Success! The advertising dollars roll in
Please adjust step one as needed, then apply all following steps to at least 10% of all stories that appear on
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Sounds like the woman driving an RV who set the cruise control and then went in the back to make some tea.
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https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com]
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Maybe I'm stereotyping, but the guys in the car were older. It's difficult to believe that a 59 and 69 year old were attempting childish stunts.
Personally, I'm suspecting the simplest answer (as someone else mentioned): they crashed, then they moved to the back seat for some reason, possibly because the front doors wouldn't open. The car had just been wrapped around a tree, which could have partially crushed the doors.
What also remains a possibility is confusion over Autopilot. Now that we know the adaptive
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Personally, I'm suspecting the simplest answer (as someone else mentioned): they crashed, then they moved to the back seat for some reason, possibly because the front doors wouldn't open.
And then they conveniently died, allegedly to keep the whole thing a secret.
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"Here, hold my beer."
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And CNN blames everyone's confusion and their own click-bait commentary on Tesla for not engaging with them. Incredible.
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Step 2: Idiots kill themselves thanks to step 1
Step 3: Media gets ahold of story
Step 4: Story is boring so media changes it to appear as shocking and controversial as possible
Not boring at all. I find any story about Darwin Award feats quite fascinating.
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Says the guy who made an acct to bash Tesla (Score:2)
It's amusing that you talk about "paid shills" while your account name indicates it was made for the express purpose of bashing Tesla, given that we know who Rei is around here.
I think you'd have to be pretty stupid to turn on cruise control and leave your seat, personally.
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I think you'd have to be pretty stupid to turn on cruise control and leave your seat, personally.
It is pretty stupid, but it sounds like they did.
Plausible explanation (Score:4, Insightful)
A person was actively driving, possibly without autopilot, and crashed. After the crash, his door wouldn't open, si he tried to exit by jumping to the rear seat.
I don't know if something like this happened, but it appears to be plausible (unless both people were wearing their belts) and does not require an exchange explanation involving autopilot.
Re:Plausible explanation (Score:4, Insightful)
A person was actively driving, possibly without autopilot, and crashed. After the crash, his door wouldn't open, si he tried to exit by jumping to the rear seat.
After crashing the car, the driver jumps into the back seat in an attempt to exit the vehicle because the driver's door wouldn't open. But instead of exiting, he buckled himself into the back seat? And while crawling into the backseat, he re-buckled the driver's seat too?
Seriously?
There were 2 people in the vehicle. Both of them were buckled in. And both of them died.
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From Elon Musk Denies Autopilot Use In Fatal Tesla Crash Where Police Claim 'No One Was Driving' [slashdot.org]
After a Tesla crash in The Woodlands killed two people last Saturday night, news reports were quick to jump to the conclusion that Autopilot (or even FSD) was being used and led to the strange crash, in which investigators reported nobody in the driver's seat, one victim buckled in in the front passenger seat, and the other buckled in behind them.
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From Elon Musk Denies Autopilot Use In Fatal Tesla Crash Where Police Claim 'No One Was Driving' [slashdot.org]
After a Tesla crash in The Woodlands killed two people last Saturday night, news reports were quick to jump to the conclusion that Autopilot (or even FSD) was being used and led to the strange crash, in which investigators reported nobody in the driver's seat, one victim buckled in in the front passenger seat, and the other buckled in behind them.
And there we have it. The Tesla fanbois defending Musk are reaching the level of flat-earthers and anti-vaxxers here in their disconnect from reality. Some kind of automation was driving. And unless the Tesla design is fundamentally unsafe, the only thing that should be able to do it is the "autopilot". And that is really the only two options here: Either the "autopilot" killed these people or the technical failure was even worse.
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Tesla said that the car didn't have FSD purchased (which is "auto-pilot"). They also outright said that Auto-pilot wasn't enabled, and only cruise-control was enabled. How could you come to the conclusion that auto-pilot had killed them? You were nice enough to bold out the line about being buckled, but ignored everything else. It's fairly reasonable to assume that the driver had turned on Cruise Control and then jumped into the passenger seat.
And here you liken everyone else to "flat-Earthers" while claimi
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Seriously?
You'd be amazed at the things people have done in an attempt to blame their stupidity on others. I mean sure it fails Occam's Razor but this isn't without the realm of possibility, especially for someone who has already advertised themselves as quite likely being stupid.
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more plausible to me: a person was actively driving, and crashed. And intoxicated. After the crash, he bailed and didn't tell investigators or anybody else that he was ever in the car.
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more plausible to me: a person was actively driving, and crashed. And intoxicated. After the crash, he bailed and didn't tell investigators or anybody else that he was ever in the car.
Only 2 people ever got into the car according to a witness (who happens to be the brother-in-law of driver and car owner) and both he and the front passenger died... so no.
From 'No One Was Driving the Car': 2 Dead After Fiery Tesla Crash [slashdot.org]
KPRC 2 reporter Deven Clarke spoke to one man's brother-in-law who said he was taking the car out for a spin with his best friend, so there were just two in the vehicle.
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Re:Plausible explanation (Score:4, Insightful)
So it was the brother-in-law who drove the car.
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That person would likely be the owner of the car, making them an obvious suspect, and would be caught on the car's cameras fleeing the scene.
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And the recording of that video would have gone up in smoke with the rest of the car.
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Forget all that let's get to the conclusion. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is all Tesla's fault. If they weren't making cars nobody would crash in them.
That's what the media craves. It is Tesla's -- no IT IS ELON MUSK'S FAULT! Why not just be honest about it? That's the conclusion they want from the start.
Those guys went for a Darwin award and won it. And yet it is 100% guaranteed that here and everywhere we will have wags insisting that it is ELON MUSK'S FAULT because a) he made a mistake in some statement, b) he called it "Autopilot" and not something else, c) Tesla didn't make the safeties 1000% bullet-proof and unbreakable, or d) we just don't like him because we are jealous. Mostly d.
Anyone besides me tired of it?
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"Those guys went for a Darwin award and won it."
Seriously? Darwin awards are for those who haven't spawned crotch-goblins, which at age 59 aand 69, it's more than likely they have.They are quite possibly grandparents.
There is little chance of any Darwin award here - though you never know for sure.
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Those guys went for a Darwin award and won it.
This.
Whatever exactly they did, they circumvented several systems there to protect them. Oh, look! What a surprise! Computers do what you tell them to do once you've gone past the safety features.
IMHO this is on level with someone complaining that after logging in as root and writing "rm -rf /" the system nuked itself and it's all Linus Torvald's fault...
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Those guys went for a Darwin award and won it.
This.
Whatever exactly they did, they circumvented several systems there to protect them. Oh, look! What a surprise! Computers do what you tell them to do once you've gone past the safety features.
IMHO this is on level with someone complaining that after logging in as root and writing "rm -rf /" the system nuked itself and it's all Linus Torvald's fault...
Is it? In that case you'll be able to give us all a forensic description of exactly what happened from the 59-year-old and the 69-year-old getting into the car to the impact.
Off you go, the Internet has enough space for your most detailed breakdown of events and it will sure save the courts a lot of time.
Re: Forget all that let's get to the conclusion. (Score:2)
Anyone besides me tired of it?
*raiseshand*
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If some idiot puts a brick on the accelerator of his Honda Civic and climbs over the the back seat, surely it is Takahiro Hachigo's fault!
This Comment (Score:2)
is as far as I feed the trolls.
To avoid this in the fute... (Score:5, Informative)
If a person somehow contrives a way to override this and gets the car to drive itself without anyone in the driver seat, perhaps by putting a weighted bag in the driver's seat so as to confuse the car's sensors to override the above policy, then they are provably at fault for deliberately creating a scenario that obviously falls outside of any reasonable protections that Tesla could have done to prevent it.
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This is not how I expect the car to behave, and this is in fact an extremely bad expectation to have gotten wrong.
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It's almost as if you missed the "...and disengages slowly" part of the summary.
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We have something like that in Europe. If the car detects a certain amount of weight on a seat and the seatbelt isn't fastened it beeps at you. Mandated by law.
It's kind of annoying when you want to use the passenger seat to carry moderately heavy stuff like a backpack. You can just do the seatbelt up to stop it.
Tesla doesn't need any of that though, it has an internal camera pointed at the driver's seat. Nissan and Cadillac both have had them for years now, and they can detect if the driver is awake and lo
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I don’t know if it’s the law or not, but our US 2011 Toyota Camry does the same beeping as you described, so I’d expect that it’s a fairly common feature here in the US as well (like you, I only ever hear it beep when transporting something heavy in the passenger seat, otherwise I probably wouldn’t even have been aware of it).
30mph? (Score:2)
The cops are now claiming that a 30mph collision did that much damage to the vehicle? Someone is telling porkies...
Inaccurate Summary (Score:2)
CNN adds:
Bryan Reimer, the associate director of the New England University Transportation Center at MIT, who studies driver assistance systems like Autopilot, said one of the plausible explanations for the crash is that the driver was confused and thought they had activated Autosteer, when only traffic-aware cruise control had been turned on. "The general understanding of Autopilot is that it's one feature, but in reality it is two things bolted together," said Reimer, referring to traffic-aware cruise control and Autosteer.
But according to the Washington Post, Tesla also disputes that theory:
Tesla executives on Monday claimed a driver was behind the wheel at the time of a fatal crash that killed two in suburban Houston this month, contradicting local authorities who have previously said they were certain no one was in that seat. Tesla made the statement on its earnings call Monday... Lars Moravy, the company's vice president of vehicle engineering, said the steering wheel was "deformed," indicating a driver's presence at the time of the crash...
Mark Herman, constable for Harris County Precinct 4, told the station KHOU that police were "100 percent certain that no one was in the driver's seat."
Nowhere in the bolded text does it say Tesla disputed Bryan Reimer's theory.
Elon uses semantics as excuses a lot (Score:2, Informative)
Elon and Tesla use literal wordsmithing a lot to justify their hype, smoke and mirrors. Perfect example was the P85D, touted by Elon as a "700hp car", officially listed by Tesla at 691hp, but it took two years for Tesla to admit that only the actual motors were capable of the advertised horsepower only if they were connected to a completely different batter and power delivery system (so a different car). Tesla's and Elon's official stance is that they only advertised motor horsepower, that they never said t
Looks like misdirection on Musk's part (Score:2)
It is amply clear that Musk would like all the automated driving features on a Tesla to be much more powerful than they actually are. When they fail, he has a tendency to go into misdirection far enough that it is justified to call it lying (in the moral sense, not the legal one). This is not the first time this has happened.
So (Score:2)
tweeted U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady on Wednesday. (Adding "We need answers.")
No, you don't need answers, you posturing, braying ass. You couldn't think your way out of a paper bag.
No, I'm sorry. Go get 'em! With any luck, you and lawyers can delay lifesaving robo cars for another 20 years!
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We do need answers because knowing the capabilities and limits of these systems is what will make people confident both using them and sharing roads with users of the systems.
What will certainly "delay robo-taxis 20 years" is overstating the capabilities of today's technology, making poor decisions based on that bad information, and killing a bunch of people
This is a strange crash that generated a trivial amount of intrigue among a handful of people. Elon Musk tweeted about it and turned it
They don't need PR (Score:2)
There's a simple fix for this (Score:2)
Nothing needs to be invented here because the technology already exists. Ever try to drive an electric cart at Home Depot or Wal-mart? There's a switch in the seat that prevents it from moving unless your butt is in the seat.
All mute... (Score:2)
coverage of musk is like coverage of russia/china. (Score:2)
you can really tell the media owners don't like him, because every opportunity possible they come up with some bullshit...
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Quote (Score:2)
What was the actual quote when the VP said that adaptive cruise control was engaged?
Why is is so difficult include the quote in a news story?
Re:100 percent certain (Score:5, Insightful)
How can that be a credible statement that a driver's seat had noone in it at the time of crash with 100% certainty, if the car's systems don't even say that? The driver told them, so they believe whatever the driver says 100%, or what?
Uh... everyone in the vehicle died.
Re:100 percent certain (Score:5, Funny)
This is Slashdot, dude. Even if this is the third or fourth post on the subject, and even if it had been mentioned in the summary this time, expecting a respondent to have any knowledge whatsoever about what they’re posting is setting the bar just a smidge too high.
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Car crash analysis is a pretty well established engineering science. Their car crash analysis experts will have been pretty sure of their results. Stop trying to defend Tesla when there is nothing to defend. For example, vehicle deformation, internal impact damage, blood-spatter, positioning of bodies, etc. will all give good indicators who was where. A Tesla is not fundamentally different in these regards and it was still classical humans in there.
Sure, calling it "100%" is not scientifically valid, that i
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Tesla have pretty good details on the condition of the car rolling up to incidents. They log so much data that they were literally frying SSDs
Re: The only autopilot we care about (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'm not criticizing most of what you wrote, but while gasoline can splash around, the last vehicle I drove where a good crash could cover you in gasoline was a truck from the 1970s with an in-cab, behind-the-seat fuel tank. I'm not even sure in-cab tanks even meet current safety regulations.
I'm not saying it's impossible, especially in a bad crash, for the occupants to be covered in gasoline in a modern car, but I don't think it's likely in even most fatal cr
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Beyond that, the median car on the road is roughly as old (12 years) as the very oldest Tesla (13 years, but they only sold 500 of the 2008 model Roadster -- how many of those are still running?). Automobile fires are mostly related to mechanical or electrical failures, which are more frequent in older cars due to wear and tear. And the most deadly gas-burner fires are among large trucks, where Tesla still does not compete, so the comparison is apples-to-oranges in multiple ways.
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Re: The only autopilot we care about (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, for the most part vehicles don't burst into flames when you crash them.
I've seen the aftermath of several serious crashes on motorways in my driving career and in none of the cases did any vehicle catch fire. I've also seen a couple of cars on fire but judging by the situation in each case, I would say they were more due to mechanical failure.
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Re: The only autopilot we care about (Score:2)
Yes it does. That's the problem. Bullshit sells snake oil. Truth rarely sells anything. You have to appeal to emotions, not logic, to sell.
Re: The only autopilot we care about (Score:2)
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Per the fire department's statement the next day, the fire was out within a few minutes of the 1st engine company arriving on the scene with water and foam - as expected. An overhaul crew had to keep cooling the battery for several hours afterward - also as expected. There was no smoking crater 7 hours later as initially reported. EV fires are going to occur and will need to be handled differently than ICE vehicle fires, but an automobile wit
Re: The only autopilot we care about (Score:2)
>They log so much data that they were literally frying SSDs write endurance limits.
I believe the issue is poor write leveling and write amplification on the eMMC. So it's not how much it stores, but rather the size and frequency of writes.
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I don't know why this is another /. story and why we're still talking about it. There is no conclusive new evidence. The investigation is not done yet.
This is a non-story that should have gone into the bin. We already had our 'OMG TESLA BAD/OMG SHORTS AFTER TESLA' initial article. How about we not keep beating a dead horse until the autopsy is done?
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"is the one driving us on the highway to the stars!"
You are confused, it's a stairway to heaven and a highway to hell.
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