Another Tesla Autopilot Crash Reported

People have been causing and enjoying the fruits of the automobile accident since the mid 1800s. I suspect we will continue to enjoy all sorts of fun and interesting ways to maim and terminate ourselves for years to come. People will also continue to enjoy attempting to blame anyone and everyone else but themselves for their foolishness.

Of course this wouldn't be news if this burned petroleum product, but Tesla is interesting. They are a harbinger of unavoidable change, and that scares the shit out of a lot of people. Fortunately those same people are terrified of most change, there aren't that many of them the rest of us will keep on keeping on. Most of us will happily have electric cars when they are completely reliable. By the time my kids are having kids they will probably all have electric cars.

What's more interesting about an electric car is that it might make off grid living solutions more attractive in some areas. A $15K wind turbine doesn't look like such a shitty investment when it can run EVERYTHING.
 
Tesla needs their nuts busted... could you imagine GM trying something like this with a Malibu?
 
aeliusg said:
Tesla doesn't need to change anything. People were having accidents long before Tesla ever implemented this glorified cruise control system, and they'll keep having them until the last human driver is taken off the road.
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100% agree. Autopilot is not to blame here. There are situations where using Autopilot is not practical and or safe (e.g. construction zones), so care and good judgement must always be used. Since neither rule was observed here, it resulted in an accident. What no one is saying though is that there does not appear to be any major injuries or fatalities. I don't know if you could say the same for other non-Tesla SUVs that end up in rollover accidents.
 
NemesisX said:
I agree. Never underestimate human stupidity while driving.
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Exactly. Three Stooges? There's about 7 BILLION of us on this planet. And we're all a victim of soicumstance!!!

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
 
krotch said:
No, I say leave autopilot. This will weed out stupid rich people and only leave smart rich people
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Not saying remove the feature. But stop calling it "autopilot". Call it "driver assist" or something that makes it clear that the driver cannot simply zone himself out of the act of driving.
 
Stereodude said:
GM has a similar system that's coming out in 2017 on the CT6. They call it SuperCruise, which is a much better name than Autopilot. People are used to the idea that they still have to pay attention when using cruise control.
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Precisely.
 
I vote call it 'Sleep Mode' and help this so called evolution thing along.
 
Chas said:
Not saying remove the feature. But stop calling it "autopilot". Call it "driver assist" or something that makes it clear that the driver cannot simply zone himself out of the act of driving.
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Considering they are adding the ability for the car to take off-ramps on Autopilot in the next 8.0 update, I think the name is fine as it is. You can change the name all you want, but you can't fix stupid.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Most of us will happily have electric cars when they are completely reliable. By the time my kids are having kids they will probably all have electric cars.

What's more interesting about an electric car is that it might make off grid living solutions more attractive in some areas. A $15K wind turbine doesn't look like such a shitty investment when it can run EVERYTHING.
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You are really over estimating battery technology and the amount of energy it takes to recharge a battery pack to give you a 200+ mile range.

I just got back form a long driving trip. Less than 5 minutes to stop and fill the gas tank every 400 miles. If we had taken my Hybrid it would have been 700 miles
If it was a Tesla, I'd have to stop every 250 miles (assuming there was a Tesla charging station) and then wait 75 minutes for a full charge.

When people go "off the grid" they tend to use high efficiency appliances and lights (like LED) to minimize electrical usage. Plugging in an electric car to charge would be like running a large central air system all night. Even a massive solar farm wouldn't help, unless you are home and have the car plugged in during the day.

As for your wind turbine, good luck charging your car when the wind isn't blowing.
 
Stereodude said:
Tesla is to blame here, not for a system that isn't foolproof, but for a misleading name and poorly educating their customers what "autopilot" really is. It's a driving aid like cruise control, not a completely autonomous driving system.
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Buyers know what it is, they're just being insanely overconfident in the system due to how effective it appears to work at first. I've visited a Tesla store and the sales reps were extremely knowledgeable, bordering on outright enthusiast level of the product. Tesla doesnt hire just anybody to rep their cars like a typical car dealership does. Nobody spending 100k on a car is so stupid that they dont grasp the fundamentals of the autopilot system. They just dont care is all. They get addicted to the idea of how it works and they want to trust it completely.
 
Verge said:
It's a retarded marketing scheme meant to sell stock.


Yea, Let me turn on autopilot yet keep both hands on the wheel and alert, that's logical. He human brain doesn't work that way. Based on their instructions, your better off just driving the thing yourself. They know good and damn well people weren't going to follow the rules.
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My car's speedometer goes up to 180 mph, with a governor limiting it at 155mph for "safety". Why should I be able to go so fast in my car? Where is the outrage at how car manufacturers are enabling people to drive at suicidal speeds? They know good and damn well people arent going to follow the rules.
 
babadook said:
At which point do I come in and apply the brakes? By the time I realize the Tesla hadn't correctly identified the stopped car in front of me it may very well be too late for my manual correction.
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Yes. Or at any point you detect anything wrong with the system at all. Perhaps the car is leaving the road, perhaps the bridge ahead of you has collapsed but the car doesnt know that, perhaps you see a 747 making an emergency landing on the freeway, whatever. It's no different than any car that suffers a malfunction at some point. Lets say you lose your brakes in your 99 civic, at what point do you deliberately coast into the shoulder? Or run into a sidewall to grind to a hault? Or pop the handbrake? Whenever you deem it necessary.
 


OMG look at this totally non-autopilot vintage truck that is otherwise 100% safe causing what could have easily been a huge traffic accident. People are morons. Accidents will always happen. The question is will they happen less with autopilot? I think the answer is a resounding yes.

This video was taken from the victim of the crash in this article on a previous date.
 
Sufu said:
100% agree. Autopilot is not to blame here. There are situations where using Autopilot is not practical and or safe (e.g. construction zones), so care and good judgement must always be used. Since neither rule was observed here, it resulted in an accident. What no one is saying though is that there does not appear to be any major injuries or fatalities. I don't know if you could say the same for other non-Tesla SUVs that end up in rollover accidents.
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Well technically in this circumstance autopilot most likely was to blame, as the vehicle plowed right underneath a big rig tractor trailer that was crossing ahead of him merely because the rig was higher than usual and blended with the sky. It's pretty unlikely a human driver could make such a mistake unless they weren't looking at the road at all (which incidentally is precisely what the driver using autopilot was most likely doing in the first place)
 
nysmo said:
Well technically in this circumstance autopilot most likely was to blame, as the vehicle plowed right underneath a big rig tractor trailer that was crossing ahead of him merely because the rig was higher than usual and blended with the sky. It's pretty unlikely a human driver could make such a mistake unless they weren't looking at the road at all (which incidentally is precisely what the driver using autopilot was most likely doing in the first place)
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Technically yes; to be fair though it probably sensed that the trailer was an overhead sign or something similar, because of the radar return signature. At least that's what Tesla and Mobileye have said. I still find it suspicious that the driver never even hit the brakes, as tragic as the consequences of those actions were.
 
Steve said:
Tesla needs to just remove the Autopilot mode until it is completely finished and people aren't such morons. If it were up to me, I wouldn't even bother with autopilot until people are completely removed from the equation.

In his crash report, Vukovich stated that Scaglione's car was traveling east near mile marker 160, about 5 p.m. when it hit a guard rail "off the right side of the roadway. It then crossed over the eastbound lanes and hit the concrete median." After that, the Tesla Model X rolled onto its roof and came to rest in the middle eastbound lane.
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I'm not sure how you get improvements to the system without testing like this. I don't think it's feasible to go from nothing to pure auto-drive, there has to be a progression.
 
How does one open a Falcon Wing door in the event of a roll over? How about using the jaws of life to rescue occupants?

Looking through the Model X's Emergency Manual, you can't just go to town with the jaws of life. You first have to cut the First Responder's High Voltage Disconnect Loop located in the frunk, which could be very difficult in the event of a roll over. Furthermore, you have to remove the speaker grill to get to the manual release of the Falcon Wing doors (which may or may not work in the event of a roll over?)

The SLS AMG has charges that will blow the Gullwing's hinges and latches out just by pulling the door handle if the car is upside down.
 
Since the autopilot feature clearly has some bugs, why not disable it and make anyone who wants to opt-in for it have to get their car retrofitted (free) with an eye tracking cam in the dash?

Look away from the road for X seconds and warning beep goes off. Keep looking away and the car pulls over.

It also adds an extra data point to the car.
 
I test drove a Tesla P90D on Tuesday. While on the highway, the "salesman" said I can take my hands off of the wheel. Although he did say, that it's best to keep my hands ON the wheel while using the autopilot anyway for control (Which I agree). I did ask him about the whole crash thing and he said that his suspicion is that the light / time of day caused the trucks side to be basically invisible to the sensors of the Tesla. But he also mentioned that he had heard the driver had a DVD player and may have been watching that as well when the crash happened.

It was a little trippy / weird to give the car complete control of driving. Tap the turn signal and the car will automatically check and change lanes for you. I found myself still checking blind spots while it did this.

I will say this... Being in ludicrous mode..... WOW. I mashed the pedal to the floor and the car effortlessly went from 0-60 in no time with 4 full sized adults in the car. The kick back was insane.

The whole experience just reinforced my desire to buy a Tesla at some point.
 
Tiberian said:
The problem with that line of thinking is that the person inside the Tesla or whatever autonomous vehicle will more than likely not be the only person that sustains injuries or potentially dies.

If dumb rich people want to off themselves I don't give a fuck but when they choose a method to do such things and other people suffer for their stupidity that's when I've got a major problem as I would expect anyone to.

"Smart rich people..." is practically an oxymoron nowadays. :)
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Ya, that's true. These things could slam into other ppl's cars or pedestrians.
 
nysmo said:
My car's speedometer goes up to 180 mph, with a governor limiting it at 155mph for "safety". Why should I be able to go so fast in my car? Where is the outrage at how car manufacturers are enabling people to drive at suicidal speeds? They know good and damn well people arent going to follow the rules.
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STRAW MAN!!!! I've missed you
 
One crash involving autopilot where the blame wasn't even determined. That doesn't stop the luddites from wanting to ban autopilot. Yet I don't see anyone wanting to ban humans from driving, yet they cause tens of thousands of crashes daily.

The best course of action for tesla, is to use their tracking features to only enable autopilot on sections of roads where it is proven to be able to drive safely. And if there is road works or any other anomaly on that strech of road dynamically disable the autopilot.

Just like DRS in formula 1.
 
Verge said:
STRAW MAN!!!! I've missed you
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Where is the straw man? The argument I attacked was whether or not it is acceptable for Tesla to introduce features that might be dangerous. So I pointed out cars already have features which are dangerous, probably much more so than autopilot, yet nobody bats an eye.
 
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