Tesla's autopilot, on the road

GRA said:

EVDRIVER said:

A change we all knew was on the way even though everyone freaked out before about it. There will be many changes over time all planned and anticipated yet people will rant that it's a bad design based on what they see now. There are a bunch of new features on the way. something that is actually possible on a car like this and inflexible on others.

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The need for such a capability was obvious before the car ever entered the market, so why did it need to be added? Every car with Cruise Control for the past 30+ years has been able to adjust the CC speed by tapping a lever or button without needing to take your hands off the steering wheel or your eyes off the road. Why on earth would anyone at Tesla feel that forcing the driver to do both simultaneously is acceptable or safe, unless the car is capable of safely driving itself during that time, something Tesla explicitly denies? Stupid design is stupid design, and the fact that they can fix it later doesn't excuse them.

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EVDRIVER said:

GRA said:

EVDRIVER said:

A change we all knew was on the way even though everyone freaked out before about it. There will be many changes over time all planned and anticipated yet people will rant that it's a bad design based on what they see now. There are a bunch of new features on the way. something that is actually possible on a car like this and inflexible on others.

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The need for such a capability was obvious before the car ever entered the market, so why did it need to be added? Every car with Cruise Control for the past 30+ years has been able to adjust the CC speed by tapping a lever or button without needing to take your hands off the steering wheel or your eyes off the road. Why on earth would anyone at Tesla feel that forcing the driver to do both simultaneously is acceptable or safe, unless the car is capable of safely driving itself during that time, something Tesla explicitly denies? Stupid design is stupid design, and the fact that they can fix it later doesn't excuse them.

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It was o the screen they just added it to the wheel. Same reason other features were added.

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EVDRIVER said:

Point is everyone knew it would be on the wheel it was just delayed, and Tesal always planned to put it on the wheel, that I know as a fact. Don't assume it was put there form people complaining. There are a few other things to be added as well and not because of complaints but development and testing.

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GRA said:

EVDRIVER said:

Point is everyone knew it would be on the wheel it was just delayed, and Tesal always planned to put it on the wheel, that I know as a fact. Don't assume it was put there form people complaining. There are a few other things to be added as well and not because of complaints but development and testing.

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And the point is it should never have been released without it. This shouldn't have been a subject of development and test - every manufacturer has known that CC speed adjustment needs to be where the driver can access it while keeping their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel, for decades. Somehow Tesla knew without the need to develop and test that the driver needs to be able to adjust power with the same caveats through use of an accelerator pedal or some over lever, or should we be thankful that they didn't put that function on the touchscreen initially as well, even though they always planned to put it on the wheel at some later point?

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EVDRIVER said:

GRA said:

EVDRIVER said:

Point is everyone knew it would be on the wheel it was just delayed, and Tesal always planned to put it on the wheel, that I know as a fact. Don't assume it was put there form people complaining. There are a few other things to be added as well and not because of complaints but development and testing.

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And the point is it should never have been released without it. This shouldn't have been a subject of development and test - every manufacturer has known that CC speed adjustment needs to be where the driver can access it while keeping their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel, for decades. Somehow Tesla knew without the need to develop and test that the driver needs to be able to adjust power with the same caveats through use of an accelerator pedal or some over lever, or should we be thankful that they didn't put that function on the touchscreen initially as well, even though they always planned to put it on the wheel at some later point?

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Yea, they should have held all the car deliveries. Now you know why Nissan is so slow to build new versions of the LEAF.

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GRA said:

EVDRIVER said:

GRA said:

And the point is it should never have been released without it. This shouldn't have been a subject of development and test - every manufacturer has known that CC speed adjustment needs to be where the driver can access it while keeping their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel, for decades. Somehow Tesla knew without the need to develop and test that the driver needs to be able to adjust power with the same caveats through use of an accelerator pedal or some over lever, or should we be thankful that they didn't put that function on the touchscreen initially as well, even though they always planned to put it on the wheel at some later point?

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Yea, they should have held all the car deliveries. Now you know why Nissan is so slow to build new versions of the LEAF.

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Yes, they should have, for a basic safety issue that was hardly new, and should have been designed in from the start without another thought. One does wonder just how much time they spent designing and developing the touchscreen while ignoring less sexy subjects.

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EVDRIVER said:

GRA said:

EVDRIVER said:

Yea, they should have held all the car deliveries. Now you know why Nissan is so slow to build new versions of the LEAF.

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Yes, they should have, for a basic safety issue that was hardly new, and should have been designed in from the start without another thought. One does wonder just how much time they spent designing and developing the touchscreen while ignoring less sexy subjects.

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Seems like it was a disaster primarily for non-owners.

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jlv said:

I think they should have included the AP stalk in the 3, the way they have it in the S and X. It would have made the CC adjustment the same. I really suspect the reason they didn't include the stalk is because avoiding switches and controls avoid wiring and thus saves cost, and the entire dashboard design of the 3 was to cut as must cost as possible.

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GRA said:

jlv said:

I think they should have included the AP stalk in the 3, the way they have it in the S and X. It would have made the CC adjustment the same. I really suspect the reason they didn't include the stalk is because avoiding switches and controls avoid wiring and thus saves cost, and the entire dashboard design of the 3 was to cut as must cost as possible.

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I suspect you're right, but that would just make their decision akin to GM's : "it would cost us a few pennies more per car to fix the ignition switch, and that's more important than a few customers' health and safety." Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Tesla's priorities, but enough of this; at least it is fixed now.

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Family of Tesla crash victim hires lawyers

The family of a man who died in a fiery Mountain View, Calif., crash involving a Tesla Inc. Model X on Autopilot has hired attorneys to “explore legal options,” a San Francisco law firm said Wednesday.

The family intends to file a wrongful-death lawsuit against Tesla TSLA, -1.97% , Minami Tamaki LLP said in a blog post. A preliminary review has uncovered other complaints by other Tesla drivers of “navigational errors” by Autopilot, Tesla’s suite of advanced driver-assistance systems, Minami Tamaki said.

“The firm believes Tesla’s Autopilot feature is defective and likely caused (Walter) Huang’s death, despite Tesla’s apparent attempt to blame the victim of this terrible tragedy,” the firm said. Huang is survived by a wife and two children, according to the law firm.

Autopilot “may have misread the lane lines on the roadway, failed to detect the concrete median, failed to brake the car, and drove the car into the median,” the firm said...

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Tesla puts blame on driver in fatal autonomous car crash

Tesla Inc. defended its semiautonomous Autopilot system in the wake of a fatal crash last month, blaming the incident on the driver after his family hired a lawyer to explore legal options.

Walter Huang died on March 23 after the Model X sport-utility vehicle he was driving southbound on Highway 101 near Mountain View, Calif., collided with a barrier and was struck by two other vehicles. The auto maker a week later said that the SUV’s Autopilot was activated in the moments leading up to the crash and that the driver’s hands weren’t detected on the wheel for six seconds before the crash.

See also: Tesla stock is due for a 36% slide, says Goldman Sachs

On Wednesday, Tesla TSLA, -1.86% more explicitly assigned blame to the driver. “The crash happened on a clear day with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, which means that the only way for this accident to have occurred is if Mr. Huang wasn’t paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings to do so,” a Tesla spokesman said in a statement...

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Tesla Criticized for Blaming Autopilot Death on Model X Driver

Consumer-safety advocates and autonomous-vehicle experts criticized Tesla Inc. for issuing another statement about the death of a customer that pinned the blame on driver inattentiveness.

Days after publishing a second blog post about the crash involving Walter Huang, a 38-year-old who died last month in his Model X, Tesla issued a statement in response to his family speaking with San Francisco television station ABC7. The company said the “only” explanation for the crash was “if Mr. Huang was not paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings to do so.”

“I find it shocking,” Cathy Chase, president of the group Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said by phone. “They’re claiming that the only way for this accident to have occurred is for Mr. Huang to be not paying attention. Where do I start? That’s not the only way.”...

“Tesla explicitly uses data gathered from its vehicles to protect itself, even if it means going after its own customers,”...

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edatoakrun said:

Now that Tesla has confirmed that last week's fatal model X crash was due to autopilot error, this is probably the best thread to discuss the incident.

IMO, the biggest news is that Tesla has acknowledged that the Tesla left its lane, and proceeded toward the fatal encounter with the concrete lane divider, while under control of the AP.

AFAIK, as reported by TSLA, all previous autopilot crashes (at least all those with fatalities) occurred with undetected vehicles or objects in the vehicle's intended lane of travel.

Tesla says crashed vehicle had been on autopilot prior to accident

LOS GATOS, California (Reuters) - Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) said on Friday that a Tesla Model X involved a fatal crash in California last week had activated its Autopilot system, raising new questions about the semi-autonomous system that handles some driving tasks.

Tesla also said vehicle logs from the accident showed no action had been taken by the driver soon before the crash and that he had received earlier warnings to put his hands on the wheel.

“The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken,” Tesla said.

The statement did not say why the Autopilot system apparently did not detect the concrete divider.

The fatal crash and vehicle fire of the Tesla near Mountain View, California, involved two other cars and delayed traffic for hours. The 38-year-old Tesla driver died at a nearby hospital shortly after the crash.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which launched an investigation into the crash earlier this week, did not immediately comment late Friday. The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating the fatal crash.

Autopilot allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel for extended periods under certain conditions. Tesla requires users to agree to keep their hands on the wheel “at all times” before they can use autopilot, but users routinely tout the fact they can use the system to drive hands-free...

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-crash/tesla-says-crashed-vehicle-had-been-on-autopilot-prior-to-accident-idUSKBN1H7023

TSLA's most recent account:

https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week%E2%80%99s-accident

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Tesla Was Kicked Off Fatal Crash Probe by NTSB

....NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt relayed the decision in a call to Tesla’s Elon Musk that was described as tense by the person because the chief executive officer was unhappy with the safety board’s action. NTSB is expected to make a formal announcement in a release later Thursday, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The unusual move followed public statements by the company blaming the driver of a Tesla Model X who died in a March collision, in apparent violation of agency protocols. The NTSB guards the integrity of its investigations closely, demanding that participants adhere to rules about what information they can release and their expected cooperation. These so-called parties to investigations must sign legal agreements laying out their responsibilities...

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Tesla booted from investigation into fatal Autopilot crash

The NTSB says Tesla is oversharing; the company says it’s going to file a complaint with Congress

Tesla has been removed from the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into a fatal Autopilot accident that happened in March, the agency announced today. The NTSB says it took the action because Tesla had released “investigative information before it was vetted and confirmed by” the agency. The news was first reported by Bloomberg.

“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 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 NTSB said Tesla is still a party in two other ongoing investigations into non-fatal accidents: one from January 22nd, 2018 involving Autopilot, and one from last summer involving a battery fire.

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EVDRIVER said:

GRA said:

jlv said:

I think they should have included the AP stalk in the 3, the way they have it in the S and X. It would have made the CC adjustment the same. I really suspect the reason they didn't include the stalk is because avoiding switches and controls avoid wiring and thus saves cost, and the entire dashboard design of the 3 was to cut as must cost as possible.

Click to expand...

I suspect you're right, but that would just make their decision akin to GM's : "it would cost us a few pennies more per car to fix the ignition switch, and that's more important than a few customers' health and safety." Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Tesla's priorities, but enough of this; at least it is fixed now.

Click to expand...

The AP was always intended to be on the wheel controls which is very functional. Comparing this to GM and the ignition is nonsense. Because a feature implementation was delayed does not mean it was an afterthought or they were being cheap at the cost of safety. Most speculation here is just that and the system has a design goal. Unlike Nissan, Tesla knows what they can implement and they are not locked into the initial release, many non-Tesla owners don't understand this. Regardless this was a short term solution that would be on limited cars based on roll out. Unlike Nissan, if something was not ready one would have to wait many years to get the feature.

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GRA said:

EVDRIVER said:

GRA said:

I suspect you're right, but that would just make their decision akin to GM's : "it would cost us a few pennies more per car to fix the ignition switch, and that's more important than a few customers' health and safety." Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Tesla's priorities, but enough of this; at least it is fixed now.

Click to expand...

The AP was always intended to be on the wheel controls which is very functional. Comparing this to GM and the ignition is nonsense. Because a feature implementation was delayed does not mean it was an afterthought or they were being cheap at the cost of safety. Most speculation here is just that and the system has a design goal. Unlike Nissan, Tesla knows what they can implement and they are not locked into the initial release, many non-Tesla owners don't understand this. Regardless this was a short term solution that would be on limited cars based on roll out. Unlike Nissan, if something was not ready one would have to wait many years to get the feature.

Click to expand...

Introducing a car with controls which manifestly decrease the driver's ability to watch the road when you intend to reduce that later, rather than waiting to do it right from the beginning because you're worried about your income flow/public opinion, is exactly the same sort of money vs. risk to customer decision that GM made. GM would have re-designed the ignition for the next generation of car, but decided not to fix it as soon as they knew it was an issue.

How does this differ from Tesla, who knew it was an issue before they introduced the car in the first place? Was any extra wiring or hardware required to implement this? No. Or was Tesla so busy working on the design interface of the touch screen because of the high-tech gee whiz factor that they didn't have the personnel or the interest to take care of the basics, and said "we'll just put off this until later; the AP is intended to be on the wheel controls which is very functional; it's just a short term solution that will be on limited cars based on roll out, and only a few people will be put at risk. We are willing to have them take that risk."

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EVDRIVER said:

GRA said:

EVDRIVER said:

The AP was always intended to be on the wheel controls which is very functional. Comparing this to GM and the ignition is nonsense. Because a feature implementation was delayed does not mean it was an afterthought or they were being cheap at the cost of safety. Most speculation here is just that and the system has a design goal. Unlike Nissan, Tesla knows what they can implement and they are not locked into the initial release, many non-Tesla owners don't understand this. Regardless this was a short term solution that would be on limited cars based on roll out. Unlike Nissan, if something was not ready one would have to wait many years to get the feature.

Click to expand...

Introducing a car with controls which manifestly decrease the driver's ability to watch the road when you intend to reduce that later, rather than waiting to do it right from the beginning because you're worried about your income flow/public opinion, is exactly the same sort of money vs. risk to customer decision that GM made. GM would have re-designed the ignition for the next generation of car, but decided not to fix it as soon as they knew it was an issue.

How does this differ from Tesla, who knew it was an issue before they introduced the car in the first place? Was any extra wiring or hardware required to implement this? No. Or was Tesla so busy working on the design interface of the touch screen because of the high-tech gee whiz factor that they didn't have the personnel or the interest to take care of the basics, and said "we'll just put off this until later; the AP is intended to be on the wheel controls which is very functional; it's just a short term solution that will be on limited cars based on roll out, and only a few people will be put at risk. We are willing to have them take that risk."

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Put at risk. Seriously. Have you spent much time driving one? What is your personal experience?

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lorenfb said:

EVDRIVER said:

GRA said:

Introducing a car with controls which manifestly decrease the driver's ability to watch the road when you intend to reduce that later, rather than waiting to do it right from the beginning because you're worried about your income flow/public opinion, is exactly the same sort of money vs. risk to customer decision that GM made. GM would have re-designed the ignition for the next generation of car, but decided not to fix it as soon as they knew it was an issue.

How does this differ from Tesla, who knew it was an issue before they introduced the car in the first place? Was any extra wiring or hardware required to implement this? No. Or was Tesla so busy working on the design interface of the touch screen because of the high-tech gee whiz factor that they didn't have the personnel or the interest to take care of the basics, and said "we'll just put off this until later; the AP is intended to be on the wheel controls which is very functional; it's just a short term solution that will be on limited cars based on roll out, and only a few people will be put at risk. We are willing to have them take that risk."

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Put at risk. Seriously. Have you spent much time driving one? What is your personal experience?

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You're really Elon Musk, right? Sounds like a response he would make.

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