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This is a known issue. Bottom right of page 64: https://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/Model-S-Owners-Manual.pdf#page=64 https://www.teslamotors.com/s

This is a known issue. Bottom right of page 64: https://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/Model-S-Owners-Manual.pdf#page=64 https://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/Model-S-Owne... > Warning: Traffic-aware cruise control may not brake/decelerate for stationary vehicles, especially in situations when you are driving over 50 mph (80 km/h) and a vehicle you are following moves out of your driving path and a stationary vehicle or object is in front of you instead. Always pay attention to the road ahead and stay prepared to take immediate corrective action. Depending on TrafficAware Cruise Control to avoid a collision can result in serious injury or death.

FussyZeus 10y ago
I wouldn't even classify this as an issue, this is CRUISE CONTROL, not auto-pilot. It's meant to meter your speed not your heading, and the heading is what needed adjusting. Driver was clearly not paying attention or he would've followed the car the Tesla was likely tracking for speed. I don't think the tech is at fault here at all, if you were using regular cruise control in this scenario nothing would've changed. I mean if the CC slammed on the brakes every time it passed a bridge pylon or a stationary car THAT would be broken.
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  > this is CRUISE CONTROL, not auto-pilot I give the same response as above. Tesla names this feature 'Autopilot'. The tech is not at fault (though it could be better), but the user expectation and understanding of the tech is faulty, and I think part of this is the name Tesla is using. In this case their ambition is ahead of common sense. See 'Autopilot' as a major feature on their site: https://www.teslamotors.com/models https://www.teslamotors.com/models
jessriedel 10y ago
Is there a technical explanation anywhere for why this is so hard for the system to handle? I get that if a car ahead of you suddenly swerves out of the way, revealing a stopped vehicle that was completely blocked from view previously, that the vehicle (like a human) can't react until it sees it. But it's clear the vehicle had time to react and didn't until the crash was imminent.
- Cshelton 10y ago
  I'm not completely sure but I believe it has to do with the decision to not use LIDAR, in favor of just a camera and some other basic "radar" system. The cost of LIDAR is pretty expensive, yet coming down. I imagine in their AP 2.0 hardware update, it will include LIDAR for all directions. Like Google's car.
  - vctheory 10y ago
    My Subaru (which just uses cameras) definitely would've stopped for this. Perhaps the difference is that the Subaru uses two cameras to get a stereo view, whereas the Tesla is trying to do it from a single camera.
  - pkaye 10y ago
    Some companies are working on solid state lidar in the price range of $250.
- vvanders 10y ago
  Think barriers around a curve. The car doesn't know that you're going to turn so it must ignore stationary objects(for now). To the sensor suite following an S-curve might look the same(car following going right). That said it seems like AP/AEB aren't cross-sharing data and could do better there. [edit] Looks like AEB did engage at the last minute, but that only happens when there will be a collision.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    So at this point that the lane-keeping (automatic steering) wasn't engaged? How did the guy let this happen if he was steering at the time?
jonasty 10y ago
if you have to stay aware of road conditions with a risk of serious injury/death for not doing so, what is the purpose of using an auto-pilot feature? I suppose you could go hands free because in the event of a road hazard you might just have to brake (although coming to a stop on a highway is dangerous - the person behind you might not stop). For me the value of an auto-pilot feature is the gain of time. One can respond to emails, read, field a call w/out risking the safety of themselves or others, etc.
- Cshelton 10y ago
  ...unless said situation above happens and you slam into the back of another vehicle...the traffic slinky effect is harsh.
codemac 10y ago
Good to hear that Tesla knows it's an issue. Bad to hear that they released it knowing this was an issue, because I wouldn't expect myself to be able to react to this. Humans are not capable of handling these types of nuances well at speed. Being an active driver and being an inactive driver that needs to stay alert enough to catch the few cases where you run into "known issues" is just not going to work well. As I'm typing it I'm suddenly having a wave of guilt for all kinds of software bugs I've written where the answer was "it's a known issue".
- aerovistae 10y ago
  This is how the main character's father dies in the movie Disturbia, in the opening scene. The car they're following suddenly swerves aside to reveal a stationary truck. This is why you always leave a large gap between you and the car in front of you. It's almost impossible to avoid otherwise if the car in front of you can't be seen around.
- jsight 10y ago
  Tesla is not a self-driving car at this point. The fact that people rely on this as the primary means of breaking is completely crazy.
  - falcolas 10y ago
    When you only have to brake in 1% of the use cases, and the "Autopilot" handles the other 99%, is it really that crazy that a driver does not instinctively recognize that 1%? Or is it crazy to expect a user to be able to react instantly to the 1% use case?
    - ricardobeat 10y ago
      This is not very different from any normal car with cruise control.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
ucaetano 10y ago
> Depending on TrafficAware Cruise Control to avoid a collision can result in serious injury or death. What is the sense of it then? If you can't depend on it, you need to keep alert constantly, with your hands on the wheel and foot ready to hit the brakes. Which essentially defeats the purpose of TrafficAware Cruise Control. [Edit: a user was kind to point that Tesla's Autopilot ISN'T an autopilot, and should NOT be relied upon to avoid accidents, requiring indeed full attention when driving]
- patcheudor 10y ago
  It's fine and good for everyone to claim that the driver must keep alert constantly and it's their responsibility. However, this feature is inconsistent with that statement as it is damned near impossible for most people to stay engaged and alert when they are not actively engaged in a process. This is a known failure of the human brain and in fact is the reason that on road trips I don't use cruz control and tend to speed because when I'm engaged, I'm paying attention.
- ncallaway 10y ago
  Yes. You are required while driving a vehicle to keep your hands on the wheel and foot ready to hit the brakes. With any semi-autonomous driving system, as a driver, YOU are the one that is responsible for all actions that the vehicle takes.
  - ucaetano 10y ago
    Thanks for the clarification, this actually sounds like a feature I'd stay away from. Not only it doesn't solve all cases enough to let me not worry about it, but also creates the false impression (even if I'm the one creating that impression myself) that I don't need to worry about it. It's almost like american football helmets.
    - ncallaway 10y ago
      I totally agree. I'm curious to see the statistics as the marketing of "semi-autonomous" vehicles gets more widespread, but I suspect there is a dangerous sweet-spot of capability of semi-autonomous vehicles. My concern is that semi-autonomous vehicles become good enough that humans trust them to drive (that is, people consider the vehicle to be driving rather than providing an aide to driving such as automatic-shifting, and standard cruise-control); yet not so capable as to be a true autonomous vehicle. Do these features simply making driving safer across the board, or is there a point where the human stops taking responsibility and accidents increase?
outworlder 10y ago
This would be a bad situation even for a human driver.
- gvb 10y ago
  The car ahead of the Tesla handled the situation just fine.
  - outworlder 10y ago
    It did. The first car in the lane to encounter an obstacle will have no trouble avoiding it. The driver probably saw the obstacle from very far away. However, if you, the human, are following said car, you may have fractions of a second to react, after the car moves out of the way and you can finally see the obstacle.
    - Treblemaker 10y ago
      Granted that with certain exceptions, such as following a large van or truck, it is not possible, but good defensive driving means _also_ paying attention to what's in front of the car in front of you. I often react to things before the driver in front of me does (which means I'm not reacting as abruptly, which means the knucklehead 20 feet behind me also doesn't hit me). EDIT after watching the gif; yeah, this was pretty much the opposite case: big van stopped, clearly visible over the compact car in front. Gross negligence on the part of the driver to not see this and respond _before_ the car did.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  How? Every other driver on that road is able to avoid this obvious obstacle in broad daylight.
Alupis 10y ago
What we have here, is a car that behaves like a T-Rex. It can see and react to moving obstacles, but as soon as something stands still, it loses all perception. In all seriousness, how is this an issue at all? It clearly sees obstacles (like a wall in a curve) and takes corrective action. How does it not do something (if even just applying the brakes) when there's an obvious obstruction right in front of it?
abhi3 10y ago
I can't imagine the amount of anxiety it would cause drivers if they knew this. Rather just drive myself. Its like the Microwave saying that most of the time it'll work fine but may blow up the house sometimes, please pay constant attention and stop immediately if you see smoke.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  But... that's already true. Microwaves burn all the time (for small values of all the time). You DO have to pay attention, at least periodically. I never set it going and leave the room for instance.
NamTaf 10y ago
If anyone thinks that such a warning automatically absolves Tesla of responsbility for ensuring this sort of stuff doesn't happen then they're grossly mistaken. My big rant 2 weeks ago [1] covered exactly this. Real-world design means that you don't just slap a disclaimer or warning sticker on and expect that to be enough. You must, as the designer, anticipate misuse of your design that is encouraged by proper use of it and work to eliminate that capacity of misuse. In the same way that modern web server systems try to sanitise database inputs, etc. rather than just blame the developer for not knowing best-practices themselves, real-world engineering is all about understanding how the system may be misused and designing to eliminate the capacity for misuse. Yes, you'll never eliminate misuse completely, but the court of law is littered with examples that didn't bother to try and so couldn't defend against a claim of negligence in their design engineering process. Simply saying in a manual that 'hey, this may cause you to crash in these circumstances - pay attention!' isn't enough. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11680576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11680576
- diydsp 10y ago
  It's like sugary drinks and smoking cigarettes: You can jump up and down and scream the obvious to people, but they will deny it for short-term pleasure. From a corporation's perspective, in an at-least-partially subsidized healthcare system, such as the U.S. and EU (to different extents, duh!) the health issues are an externalized cost.

FussyZeus 10y ago

I wouldn't even classify this as an issue, this is CRUISE CONTROL, not auto-pilot. It's meant to meter your speed not your heading, and the heading is what needed adjusting. Driver was clearly not paying attention or he would've followed the car the Tesla was likely tracking for speed. I don't think the tech is at fault here at all, if you were using regular cruise control in this scenario nothing would've changed. I mean if the CC slammed on the brakes every time it passed a bridge pylon or a stationary car THAT would be broken.

robotresearcher 10y ago
> this is CRUISE CONTROL, not auto-pilot I give the same response as above. Tesla names this feature 'Autopilot'. The tech is not at fault (though it could be better), but the user expectation and understanding of the tech is faulty, and I think part of this is the name Tesla is using. In this case their ambition is ahead of common sense. See 'Autopilot' as a major feature on their site: https://www.teslamotors.com/models https://www.teslamotors.com/models

jessriedel 10y ago

Is there a technical explanation anywhere for why this is so hard for the system to handle? I get that if a car ahead of you suddenly swerves out of the way, revealing a stopped vehicle that was completely blocked from view previously, that the vehicle (like a human) can't react until it sees it. But it's clear the vehicle had time to react and didn't until the crash was imminent.

Cshelton 10y ago
I'm not completely sure but I believe it has to do with the decision to not use LIDAR, in favor of just a camera and some other basic "radar" system. The cost of LIDAR is pretty expensive, yet coming down. I imagine in their AP 2.0 hardware update, it will include LIDAR for all directions. Like Google's car.
- vctheory 10y ago
  My Subaru (which just uses cameras) definitely would've stopped for this. Perhaps the difference is that the Subaru uses two cameras to get a stereo view, whereas the Tesla is trying to do it from a single camera.
- pkaye 10y ago
  Some companies are working on solid state lidar in the price range of $250.
vvanders 10y ago
Think barriers around a curve. The car doesn't know that you're going to turn so it must ignore stationary objects(for now). To the sensor suite following an S-curve might look the same(car following going right). That said it seems like AP/AEB aren't cross-sharing data and could do better there. [edit] Looks like AEB did engage at the last minute, but that only happens when there will be a collision.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  So at this point that the lane-keeping (automatic steering) wasn't engaged? How did the guy let this happen if he was steering at the time?

jonasty 10y ago

if you have to stay aware of road conditions with a risk of serious injury/death for not doing so, what is the purpose of using an auto-pilot feature? I suppose you could go hands free because in the event of a road hazard you might just have to brake (although coming to a stop on a highway is dangerous - the person behind you might not stop). For me the value of an auto-pilot feature is the gain of time. One can respond to emails, read, field a call w/out risking the safety of themselves or others, etc.

Cshelton 10y ago
...unless said situation above happens and you slam into the back of another vehicle...the traffic slinky effect is harsh.

codemac 10y ago

Good to hear that Tesla knows it's an issue. Bad to hear that they released it knowing this was an issue, because I wouldn't expect myself to be able to react to this. Humans are not capable of handling these types of nuances well at speed. Being an active driver and being an inactive driver that needs to stay alert enough to catch the few cases where you run into "known issues" is just not going to work well. As I'm typing it I'm suddenly having a wave of guilt for all kinds of software bugs I've written where the answer was "it's a known issue".

aerovistae 10y ago
This is how the main character's father dies in the movie Disturbia, in the opening scene. The car they're following suddenly swerves aside to reveal a stationary truck. This is why you always leave a large gap between you and the car in front of you. It's almost impossible to avoid otherwise if the car in front of you can't be seen around.
jsight 10y ago
Tesla is not a self-driving car at this point. The fact that people rely on this as the primary means of breaking is completely crazy.
- falcolas 10y ago
  When you only have to brake in 1% of the use cases, and the "Autopilot" handles the other 99%, is it really that crazy that a driver does not instinctively recognize that 1%? Or is it crazy to expect a user to be able to react instantly to the 1% use case?
  - ricardobeat 10y ago
    This is not very different from any normal car with cruise control.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

ucaetano 10y ago

> Depending on TrafficAware Cruise Control to avoid a collision can result in serious injury or death. What is the sense of it then? If you can't depend on it, you need to keep alert constantly, with your hands on the wheel and foot ready to hit the brakes. Which essentially defeats the purpose of TrafficAware Cruise Control. [Edit: a user was kind to point that Tesla's Autopilot ISN'T an autopilot, and should NOT be relied upon to avoid accidents, requiring indeed full attention when driving]

patcheudor 10y ago
It's fine and good for everyone to claim that the driver must keep alert constantly and it's their responsibility. However, this feature is inconsistent with that statement as it is damned near impossible for most people to stay engaged and alert when they are not actively engaged in a process. This is a known failure of the human brain and in fact is the reason that on road trips I don't use cruz control and tend to speed because when I'm engaged, I'm paying attention.
ncallaway 10y ago
Yes. You are required while driving a vehicle to keep your hands on the wheel and foot ready to hit the brakes. With any semi-autonomous driving system, as a driver, YOU are the one that is responsible for all actions that the vehicle takes.
- ucaetano 10y ago
  Thanks for the clarification, this actually sounds like a feature I'd stay away from. Not only it doesn't solve all cases enough to let me not worry about it, but also creates the false impression (even if I'm the one creating that impression myself) that I don't need to worry about it. It's almost like american football helmets.
  - ncallaway 10y ago
    I totally agree. I'm curious to see the statistics as the marketing of "semi-autonomous" vehicles gets more widespread, but I suspect there is a dangerous sweet-spot of capability of semi-autonomous vehicles. My concern is that semi-autonomous vehicles become good enough that humans trust them to drive (that is, people consider the vehicle to be driving rather than providing an aide to driving such as automatic-shifting, and standard cruise-control); yet not so capable as to be a true autonomous vehicle. Do these features simply making driving safer across the board, or is there a point where the human stops taking responsibility and accidents increase?

outworlder 10y ago

This would be a bad situation even for a human driver.

gvb 10y ago
The car ahead of the Tesla handled the situation just fine.
- outworlder 10y ago
  It did. The first car in the lane to encounter an obstacle will have no trouble avoiding it. The driver probably saw the obstacle from very far away. However, if you, the human, are following said car, you may have fractions of a second to react, after the car moves out of the way and you can finally see the obstacle.
  - Treblemaker 10y ago
    Granted that with certain exceptions, such as following a large van or truck, it is not possible, but good defensive driving means _also_ paying attention to what's in front of the car in front of you. I often react to things before the driver in front of me does (which means I'm not reacting as abruptly, which means the knucklehead 20 feet behind me also doesn't hit me). EDIT after watching the gif; yeah, this was pretty much the opposite case: big van stopped, clearly visible over the compact car in front. Gross negligence on the part of the driver to not see this and respond _before_ the car did.
honkhonkpants 10y ago
How? Every other driver on that road is able to avoid this obvious obstacle in broad daylight.

Alupis 10y ago

What we have here, is a car that behaves like a T-Rex. It can see and react to moving obstacles, but as soon as something stands still, it loses all perception. In all seriousness, how is this an issue at all? It clearly sees obstacles (like a wall in a curve) and takes corrective action. How does it not do something (if even just applying the brakes) when there's an obvious obstruction right in front of it?

abhi3 10y ago

I can't imagine the amount of anxiety it would cause drivers if they knew this. Rather just drive myself. Its like the Microwave saying that most of the time it'll work fine but may blow up the house sometimes, please pay constant attention and stop immediately if you see smoke.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
But... that's already true. Microwaves burn all the time (for small values of all the time). You DO have to pay attention, at least periodically. I never set it going and leave the room for instance.

NamTaf 10y ago

If anyone thinks that such a warning automatically absolves Tesla of responsbility for ensuring this sort of stuff doesn't happen then they're grossly mistaken. My big rant 2 weeks ago [1] covered exactly this. Real-world design means that you don't just slap a disclaimer or warning sticker on and expect that to be enough. You must, as the designer, anticipate misuse of your design that is encouraged by proper use of it and work to eliminate that capacity of misuse. In the same way that modern web server systems try to sanitise database inputs, etc. rather than just blame the developer for not knowing best-practices themselves, real-world engineering is all about understanding how the system may be misused and designing to eliminate the capacity for misuse. Yes, you'll never eliminate misuse completely, but the court of law is littered with examples that didn't bother to try and so couldn't defend against a claim of negligence in their design engineering process. Simply saying in a manual that 'hey, this may cause you to crash in these circumstances - pay attention!' isn't enough. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11680576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11680576

diydsp 10y ago
It's like sugary drinks and smoking cigarettes: You can jump up and down and scream the obvious to people, but they will deny it for short-term pleasure. From a corporation's perspective, in an at-least-partially subsidized healthcare system, such as the U.S. and EU (to different extents, duh!) the health issues are an externalized cost.