Tesla's autopilot, on the road

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
To my knowledge, there hasn't been an Autopilot crash, where the driver was using the system properly. As soon as you design a better system, let us know, so we can test it out. :roll:
 
pchilds said:
To my knowledge, there hasn't been an Autopilot crash, where the driver was using the system properly. As soon as you design a better system, let us know, so we can test it out. :roll:
How about until Tesla (and all other car companies) design a system that can only be engaged in conditions which the company states it's able to handle, and then is willing to accept full liability for any accident while the car is driving autonomously? Until they're willing to do that, they simply shouldn't be putting the decision in the hands of consumers. But what you or I think is acceptable is moot; as I've said before, it will be decided in the courts if not by regulation. Or by the insurance companies, if more follow the Hartford's lead and refuse to write new policies for Teslas. I wonder what they'll do when existing customer's policies come up for renewal - cancel them, or institute a major premium increase?
 
GRA said:
pchilds said:
Or by the insurance companies, if more follow the Hartford's lead and refuse to write new policies for Teslas. I wonder what they'll do when existing customer's policies come up for renewal - cancel them, or institute a major premium increase?


With the Model 3 and other new Tesla's there will be a new solution to address this in the near future. Something not offered in the industry presently.
 
EVDRIVER said:
GRA said:
pchilds said:
Or by the insurance companies, if more follow the Hartford's lead and refuse to write new policies for Teslas. I wonder what they'll do when existing customer's policies come up for renewal - cancel them, or institute a major premium increase?
With the Model 3 and other new Tesla's there will be a new solution to address this in the near future. Something not offered in the industry presently.
Source?
 
palmermd said:
GRA said:
EVDRIVER said:
With the Model 3 and other new Tesla's there will be a new solution to address this in the near future. Something not offered in the industry presently.
Source?
quarterly shareholder conference call meeting minutes.
Okay, so no details at all, just what, Elon making big claims? I'm trying to imagine what they could do (other than fixing A.P.) that would qualify. Self-insuring comes to mind, but the last thing they should be doing is taking on even more liability.
 
GRA said:
palmermd said:
GRA said:
quarterly shareholder conference call meeting minutes.
Okay, so no details at all, just what, Elon making big claims? I'm trying to imagine what they could do (other than fixing A.P.) that would qualify. Self-insuring comes to mind, but the last thing they should be doing is taking on even more liability.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/4048698-tesla-tsla-q4-2016-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single



Adam Michael Jonas - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC

Thank you. Thank you. Just a follow-up. On insurance, if your cars prove to be as much as 90% safer than other cars on a per mile basis, as I think you've alluded as a reasonable target medium-term, and if insurance companies only offer your customers, say, like a piddling 5% discount versus a comparably priced car, would you consider offering a service or product like P&C insurance directly to Tesla owners from your own platform and your own stores? Thanks.

Elon Reeve Musk - Tesla, Inc.

Jon, do you want to take that?

Jonathan McNeill - Tesla, Inc.

Hey, Adam, it's Jon. We're actually currently doing that. And we've been doing it quietly. But in Asia in particular, where we started this, now the majority of Tesla cars are sold with an insurance product that is customized to Tesla. It takes into account not only this autopilot safety features, but also the maintenance cost of the car. So, it's our vision in the future that we'll be able to offer a single price for the car, maintenance, and insurance, in a really compelling offering for the consumer. And we're currently doing that today.

Elon Reeve Musk - Tesla, Inc.

Yes, and this is not to the exclusion of insurance providers, but I mean, if we find that insurance providers are not matching the insurance proportionate to the rest of the car then, if we need to, we will in-source (7:12) it, but I think we'll find that insurance providers do adjust the insurance costs proportionate to the risk of a Tesla.

Jonathan McNeill - Tesla, Inc.

That's true, that's true. We're doing this with insurance partners today.

Elon Reeve Musk - Tesla, Inc.

Right.

Adam Michael Jonas - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC

Okay. Thanks a lot.
 
palmermd said:
GRA said:
<snip>
Okay, so no details at all, just what, Elon making big claims? I'm trying to imagine what they could do (other than fixing A.P.) that would qualify. Self-insuring comes to mind, but the last thing they should be doing is taking on even more liability.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/4048698-tesla-tsla-q4-2016-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single

Adam Michael Jonas - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC

Thank you. Thank you. Just a follow-up. On insurance, if your cars prove to be as much as 90% safer than other cars on a per mile basis, as I think you've alluded as a reasonable target medium-term, and if insurance companies only offer your customers, say, like a piddling 5% discount versus a comparably priced car, would you consider offering a service or product like P&C insurance directly to Tesla owners from your own platform and your own stores? Thanks.

Elon Reeve Musk - Tesla, Inc.

Jon, do you want to take that?

Jonathan McNeill - Tesla, Inc.

Hey, Adam, it's Jon. We're actually currently doing that. And we've been doing it quietly. But in Asia in particular, where we started this, now the majority of Tesla cars are sold with an insurance product that is customized to Tesla. It takes into account not only this autopilot safety features, but also the maintenance cost of the car. So, it's our vision in the future that we'll be able to offer a single price for the car, maintenance, and insurance, in a really compelling offering for the consumer. And we're currently doing that today.

Elon Reeve Musk - Tesla, Inc.

Yes, and this is not to the exclusion of insurance providers, but I mean, if we find that insurance providers are not matching the insurance proportionate to the rest of the car then, if we need to, we will in-source (7:12) it, but I think we'll find that insurance providers do adjust the insurance costs proportionate to the risk of a Tesla.

Jonathan McNeill - Tesla, Inc.

That's true, that's true. We're doing this with insurance partners today.

Elon Reeve Musk - Tesla, Inc.

Right.

Adam Michael Jonas - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC

Okay. Thanks a lot.
Thanks. Not a vote of confidence in A.P. from the insurance companies if they're not offering a discount but charging the same or more, or refusing to cover them altogether. They're a hell of a lot better at probabilistic risk assessment than Elon is - after all, that's their business, and what they depend on for their profits.
 
palmermd said:
GRA said:
palmermd said:
quarterly shareholder conference call meeting minutes.
Okay, so no details at all, just what, Elon making big claims? I'm trying to imagine what they could do (other than fixing A.P.) that would qualify. Self-insuring comes to mind, but the last thing they should be doing is taking on even more liability.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/4048698-tesla-tsla-q4-2016-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single



Adam Michael Jonas - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC

Thank you. Thank you. Just a follow-up. On insurance, if your cars prove to be as much as 90% safer than other cars on a per mile basis, as I think you've alluded as a reasonable target medium-term, and if insurance companies only offer your customers, say, like a piddling 5% discount versus a comparably priced car, would you consider offering a service or product like P&C insurance directly to Tesla owners from your own platform and your own stores? Thanks.

Elon Reeve Musk - Tesla, Inc.

Jon, do you want to take that?

Jonathan McNeill - Tesla, Inc.

Hey, Adam, it's Jon. We're actually currently doing that. And we've been doing it quietly. But in Asia in particular, where we started this, now the majority of Tesla cars are sold with an insurance product that is customized to Tesla. It takes into account not only this autopilot safety features, but also the maintenance cost of the car. So, it's our vision in the future that we'll be able to offer a single price for the car, maintenance, and insurance, in a really compelling offering for the consumer. And we're currently doing that today.

Elon Reeve Musk - Tesla, Inc.

Yes, and this is not to the exclusion of insurance providers, but I mean, if we find that insurance providers are not matching the insurance proportionate to the rest of the car then, if we need to, we will in-source (7:12) it, but I think we'll find that insurance providers do adjust the insurance costs proportionate to the risk of a Tesla.

Jonathan McNeill - Tesla, Inc.

That's true, that's true. We're doing this with insurance partners today.

Elon Reeve Musk - Tesla, Inc.

Right.

Adam Michael Jonas - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Awe yes, Adam Jonas & Morgan Stanley, "in bed with Tesla" and ready for the upcoming public offering and house
commissions. He'll need to start to "pump the stock", e.g. a near term forecast of $300, before the offering.
This time, though, Goldman Sachs has downgraded Tesla.
 
Google translation seems to indicate another Tesla crash due either autopilot, or to confusion of who (or what) was driving the car: :

MODEL X FOUNDER: AN ACCIDENT THAT HURTS ... HEART!

On May 25, 2017 at 10 am, I made a horrendous road accident with the Model X Founder which was given to us as a gift by Tesla Motors thanks to the SEO competition.
Route 138 to Pointe-du-Lac is very narrow and in some places the stone walls protecting the residences are at as little as 2 meters from the asphalt.
I thought I was on the autopilot (it was activated well or I thought it was activated, I do not know) and so I left the road of the eyes for a short time in order to change Song on the center screen. When my eyes came back on the road, half of the car was already on the roadside ... I gave a steering wheel to avoid the stone wall, but it was too late! Obviously, it happened very quickly...
http://roulezelectrique.com/model-x-founder-un-accident-qui-fait-mal-au-coeur/

Another report emphasizing another risk from the driver not comprehending autopilot's limitations:

Tesla’s Autopilot Tech Is a Danger to Cyclists, Robotics Expert Says

Tesla's semi-autonomous car technology has helped make the company a $54 billion success story. But the system still has flaws, according to a Stanford University robotics researcher, who says it shows a disturbing inability to recognize cyclists.

Heather Knight is an expert in human-robot interfaces with a PhD from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, and is doing post-doctoral research in social robotics. She published an essay about Tesla's self-driving tech on the blogging platform Medium, entitled "Tesla Autopilot Review: Bikers Will Die."...

Knight said that her concern is that people will see the so-called "autopilot" feature as being fully autonomous at all times, and will fail to pay attention to their surroundings, "as we see in the fatal crashes so far." Even if detection rates improve, she said, it's important that human drivers "have the correct mental model of the car, complete with its shortcomings."...
http://fortune.com/2017/05/29/tesla-danger-cyclists/
 
GRA said:
BTW, we still haven't seen the NTSB's report on the causes of the accident, which is separate from the NHTSA's investigation. Unlike NHTSA, NTSB doesn't have any regulatory or enforcement authority, all they can do is make recommendations. They tend to be much more willing to point out safety problems than NHTSA or FAA, for that reason. Unfortunately, it also means that many of their recommendations get delayed or ignored for years, because (especially in the case of airliners), it costs a lot of money to retrofit an entire fleet, so the airlines usually lobby to delay or defeat such mandates.
NTSB has now opened their docket on the crash, so we're getting closer. From USA Today:
A driver killed in an accident that attracted nationwide attention while using Tesla's partially self-driving car ignored repeated warnings to put his hands on the wheel, federal investigators say in a report released Tuesday.

The 538-page report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reveals fresh details about what is believed to be the first deadly crash in which an American driver was relying on self-driving technology to steer, accelerate and brake the vehicle.

The agency, which opened an investigation to explore the possibility that Tesla's Autopilot system was faulty, said it had drawn "no conclusions about how or why the crash occurred. . . ."

Jack Landskroner, a lawyer for Brown's family, said the NTSB report confirms that "baseless rumors reported in the media that Joshua was watching a Harry Potter video at the time of this horrible crash are unequivocally false."

"There was no video playing and no evidence that any electronics were in use at the time of this accident, other than his car’s operational technology," Landskroner said in an email. "We look forward to receiving the Board’s finding and recommendations related to the crash which we anticipate will be published at a later date."

Landskroner did not say whether the family would pursue any legal action against Tesla but added that he anticipates NTSB will deliver additional information at a later date.

NHTSA said in January that the driver should have seen the truck "at least" seven seconds before the collision, calling it a "period of extended distraction" and that he "took no braking, steering or other actions. . . ."

The driver used the vehicle's self-driving system for 37.5 minutes of the 41 minutes of his trip, according to the NTSB. During the time the self-driving system was activated, he had his hands on the wheel for a total of only about half a minute, investigators concluded.

Tesla has long insisted that drivers must keep their hands at the wheel, ready to take over at any time. The company, which declined to comment, has previously defended its system. But software upgrades since the accident would likely have prevented it, CEO Elon Musk has said.

NTSB said the driver received seven visual warnings on the instrument panel, which blared "Hold Steering Wheel," followed by six audible warnings. Although most attention in the crash has focused on Tesla and Brown, NTSB also quoted a witness to the crash as saying that the truck driver had sufficient time to avoid the collision. . . .
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/06/20/tesla-self-driving-car-crash/411516001/

The NTSB press release: https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/PR20170619.aspx
. . . The docket includes reports that cover various aspects of the investigation, including highway design, vehicle performance, human performance, and motor carrier factors. The crash reconstruction report, also included in the docket, provides a description of the crash sequence. The docket also includes interview transcripts and summaries, photographs, and other investigative material.

The docket contains only factual information collected by NTSB investigators; it does not provide analysis, findings, recommendations, or probable cause determinations. No conclusions about how or why the crash occurred should be drawn from the docket. Analysis, findings, recommendations, and probable cause determinations related to the crash will be issued by the Board at a later date. . . .
Direct link to docket: https://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/...7e849bb32-88C471C8-01C8-077F-A22C23E2E219927F

Reading it now (just finished with the injuries report, which is about what you'd expect in this situation, if not quite what was widely assumed. Although the injuries are described dispassionately in medical terms, if you're at all squeamish it's best to skip that section).
 
Tesla Shakes Up Its Automated Driving Team For The Second Time In 6 Months

Just days after Elon Musk tweeted about upgrades in semi-autonomous driving features for Tesla electric vehicles, the head of its Autopilot development efforts has been replaced, the second shakeup of that team in less than six months. The company also tapped an artificial intelligence expert Musk has worked with on an unrelated project to lead its autonomous vehicle technology push.

Chris Lattner had just joined Tesla in January, coming from Apple, to become its vice president of Autopilot software and head up the engineering group working on that feature. He confirmed his departure in a tweet late Tuesday.

“Turns out that Tesla isn't a good fit for me after all,” he said...

In January, Tesla had praised "Chris’s reputation for engineering excellence...." He joined the electric-car maker after spending 11 years at Apple.

Musk wants Tesla to be among the first companies to sell fully self-driving vehicles, and plans to keep adding ever greater functionality via wireless software updates over the next couple of years. As a CEO, he's also famously impatient and changes in Tesla's management team have become a frequent occurrence over the past decade...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2017/06/21/tesla-shakes-up-its-automated-driving-team-for-the-second-time-in-6-months/#12d940754239
 
Via IEVS:
Tesla Autopilot 2.0 Gets New, Even Smoother Update
http://insideevs.com/tesla-autopilot-2-new-smoother-update/

Another, smoother Tesla Autopilot 2.0 update seems to be impressing drivers much more than the last one, which some found not nearly as silky as CEO Elon Musk promised.
Last month, Tesla started the rollout of an Autopilot 2.0 update with a new control algorithm that CEO Elon Musk described as a “smooth as silk”. While some stated that it was a definite improvement, there were still many quirks. As you can see from the previous videos that we shared, opinions were mixed, and it mostly boiled down to the situation or road type in which the car was being driven. . . .
There are Videos: urban, freeway, heavy rain.
 
As previously discussed, until BEVs are capable of full autonomy, the most difficult aspect of controlling a vehicle, is controlling the driver...

Tesla Model 3 is equipped with a driver-facing camera for Autopilot and Tesla Network

Well, that’s something Tesla didn’t highlight when unveiling the production version of the Model 3 last week and something that I missed when I test drove the car...

Today, Tesla confirmed to Electrek that the Model 3 is equipped with the camera, but it is not currently active. It will only become active after future software updates, which Tesla didn’t want to elaborate on.

Other automakers, like GM with the Supercruise on the Cadillac CT6, have started implementing similar solutions.

Several autonomous driving experts believe that a driver-facing camera to monitor driver engagement is needed for level 3 autonomous driving – a level of autonomous driving where the driver is basically used as a backup to the autonomous system with a reasonable period of time to transfer the controls.

Tesla’s current Autopilot system enables level 2 autonomous driving, but the company believes that future software updates will enable level 3 to 5 on the existing hardware in its cars today.

The MIT even launched a study on driver interaction with Tesla Autopilot features last year by adding driver-facing cameras to Model S vehicles.

They released some interesting preliminary results and Lex Fridman, the postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Agelab responsible for the study, said that he had been in contact with Tesla about his research and he believes the technology is required to enable more advanced autonomous features...
https://electrek.co/2017/08/01/tesla-model-3-driver-facing-camera-autopilot-tesla-network/

Imagine yourself in court suing TSLA after your tesla crashes while in Autopilot, and TSLA attorneys play the jury their video of you, doing something you wish you hadn't been doing...
 
There have been plenty of cases so far where people have tried to sue Tesla, and they download the black box data proving that what they were claiming was false.. boom, case thrown out. What kills me is the lawyers who take up these cases not bothering to look at prior cases where Tesla does JUST THAT....
 
Durandal said:
There have been plenty of cases so far where people have tried to sue Tesla, and they download the black box data proving that what they were claiming was false.. boom, case thrown out. What kills me is the lawyers who take up these cases not bothering to look at prior cases where Tesla does JUST THAT....
Consider that plaintiff's counsel can't see any data collected by their client's Tesla, until TSLA's attorneys release it.

You may have paid over $150 k for your car, but TSLA owns all the data collected about your trips, and about you and your passengers...

If TSLA is ever to become profitable, I expect it may be largely due to monetizing the information it is able to collect on vehicle occupants.

...Interestingly, the camera in the Model 3 doesn’t only cover the driver, but the whole cabin...
https://electrek.co/2017/08/01/tesla-model-3-driver-facing-camera-autopilot-tesla-network/
 
edatoakrun said:
If TSLA is ever to become profitable, I expect it may be largely due to monetizing the information it is able to collect on vehicle occupants.
...Interestingly, the camera in the Model 3 doesn’t only cover the driver, but the whole cabin...
I can see it now: the Tesla Network's video channel of the "80 MPH Club".
 
Back
Top