5 ms·

New car, 5 days old, seems from the onset that it is driver error as someone was in the vehicle behind the wheel. New vehicles are a major change to routine. Sp

New car, 5 days old, seems from the onset that it is driver error as someone was in the vehicle behind the wheel. New vehicles are a major change to routine. Speculation... the data might reveal that the wife lied to cover crashing a 5 day old car.

arcticfox 10y ago
This story will certainly be more interesting once Tesla publishes the data from their side.
- dragontamer 10y ago
  The story is already interesting because Tesla does this, and no other car company seems to. Tesla monitors your driving behavior so that they can save face and blame the driver if things go bad. I don't know of any other car company that does this. Those monitors are installed to protect the company image, not you. Its like you're buying a $100,000 piece of spyware. The car isn't your possession. Its sensor data belongs to Tesla the company, and not you. Despite your purchase of the vehicle. And that's assuming that Tesla's secret black-box technology is actually legitimate, and that they're not making stuff up / hiding the truth from us.
  - blktiger 10y ago
    I believe you can opt-out of the data sharing if you want, though nobody does. In any event, I doubt Tesla is storing this data just to protect their company image. It may be a nice side benefit, but they have repeatedly said that the data is for training their automatic driving systems.
    - dragontamer 10y ago
      Literally EVERY single one of these accident reports have been followed by Tesla reporting the driver log data on their blog. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Look, I get not trusting reporters in a lease of a review model (especially when said reporters were rather shady to begin with). But... we're onto customers and the general public now. The fact that Tesla is still engaging in this behavior is concerning to me.
  - hardwaresofton 10y ago
    This is true, and while I do despise the invasion of privacy, and everything that comes with owning a $100,000 piece of spyware, I do appreciate that barring conspiracy and a flagrant disregard for the law someone somewhere has some sort of technical data unlikely to be vulnerable to human memory/eyewitness accounts related to the crash. Tesla has also convinced me that it is the type of company whose employees that would not seek to hide something data it correctly clearly supported. That's a completely unverifiable (and most likely incorrect) assertion on my part, and of course a result of brand-cultivation on theirs, but still some companies just can't claim that at all, and I think Tesla has a leg to stand on still.
    - dragontamer 10y ago
      > someone somewhere has some sort of technical data unlikely to be vulnerable to human memory/eyewitness accounts related to the crash. I can agree with this. Having this information recorded should be a standard feature for cars of this price-range. However, the information should be in the customer's control (which should also be fairly passed onto Tesla through a subpoena if necessary). Its a basic tenant of "ownership". If you don't have primary control of the data, you really don't own it.
  - arcticfox 10y ago
    True, and when Tesla doesn't release a report on an incident like this it will be telling. As for the legitimacy of their recorders, I think it would be best to have it audited etc. That said, doing anything shady with it is a risk way bigger than any potential rewards, so I'm not that suspicious. It would be worse for their credibility than VW's emission cheating if they were falsifying their recordings and then using them to blame customers.
  - djloche 10y ago
    This is why I hope that Lyft/Uber/? purchase and run their autonomous fleets as planned. I can keep my gas engine car for longer trips while taking advantage of super low cost robot transport for day to day stuff.
  - chvid 10y ago
    I dunno why you are getting downvoted for saying this. Seems like a very legitimate concern.
- Animats 10y ago
  And more interesting when the air bag controller is dumped by a neutral third party. That's not under Tesla's control; it's a Takata unit, self-contained, with no network connection. When the air bags fire, the controller saves the last 8 seconds of vehicle speed, brake light switch, engine speed, throttle position, acceleration, and seat belt use. It's basic data for crash analysis. There are companies which do this and analyze the info, such as Failure Analysis Associates and Crash Forensics. Bosch makes a readout tool for this.[1] If the vehicle isn't too badly damaged, the data can be retrieved by plugging into the OBD port. Worst case, you have to get the airbag controller out of the vehicle (it's a tough device, designed to survive a crash) and connect it to the readout tool. [1] http://www.crashdatagroup.com/ http://www.crashdatagroup.com/
mikeash 10y ago
Or the wife might be telling the truth, but be mistaken about what happen. It's fairly common for people to press the accelerator by accident thinking it's the brake, then press it harder in a panic since it's clearly not working. The result is exactly as described here, with the car suddenly accelerating forward and the driver insisting that they were hard on the brakes but they didn't work.

arcticfox 10y ago

This story will certainly be more interesting once Tesla publishes the data from their side.

dragontamer 10y ago
The story is already interesting because Tesla does this, and no other car company seems to. Tesla monitors your driving behavior so that they can save face and blame the driver if things go bad. I don't know of any other car company that does this. Those monitors are installed to protect the company image, not you. Its like you're buying a $100,000 piece of spyware. The car isn't your possession. Its sensor data belongs to Tesla the company, and not you. Despite your purchase of the vehicle. And that's assuming that Tesla's secret black-box technology is actually legitimate, and that they're not making stuff up / hiding the truth from us.
- blktiger 10y ago
  I believe you can opt-out of the data sharing if you want, though nobody does. In any event, I doubt Tesla is storing this data just to protect their company image. It may be a nice side benefit, but they have repeatedly said that the data is for training their automatic driving systems.
  - dragontamer 10y ago
    Literally EVERY single one of these accident reports have been followed by Tesla reporting the driver log data on their blog. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Look, I get not trusting reporters in a lease of a review model (especially when said reporters were rather shady to begin with). But... we're onto customers and the general public now. The fact that Tesla is still engaging in this behavior is concerning to me.
- hardwaresofton 10y ago
  This is true, and while I do despise the invasion of privacy, and everything that comes with owning a $100,000 piece of spyware, I do appreciate that barring conspiracy and a flagrant disregard for the law someone somewhere has some sort of technical data unlikely to be vulnerable to human memory/eyewitness accounts related to the crash. Tesla has also convinced me that it is the type of company whose employees that would not seek to hide something data it correctly clearly supported. That's a completely unverifiable (and most likely incorrect) assertion on my part, and of course a result of brand-cultivation on theirs, but still some companies just can't claim that at all, and I think Tesla has a leg to stand on still.
  - dragontamer 10y ago
    > someone somewhere has some sort of technical data unlikely to be vulnerable to human memory/eyewitness accounts related to the crash. I can agree with this. Having this information recorded should be a standard feature for cars of this price-range. However, the information should be in the customer's control (which should also be fairly passed onto Tesla through a subpoena if necessary). Its a basic tenant of "ownership". If you don't have primary control of the data, you really don't own it.
- arcticfox 10y ago
  True, and when Tesla doesn't release a report on an incident like this it will be telling. As for the legitimacy of their recorders, I think it would be best to have it audited etc. That said, doing anything shady with it is a risk way bigger than any potential rewards, so I'm not that suspicious. It would be worse for their credibility than VW's emission cheating if they were falsifying their recordings and then using them to blame customers.
- djloche 10y ago
  This is why I hope that Lyft/Uber/? purchase and run their autonomous fleets as planned. I can keep my gas engine car for longer trips while taking advantage of super low cost robot transport for day to day stuff.
- chvid 10y ago
  I dunno why you are getting downvoted for saying this. Seems like a very legitimate concern.
Animats 10y ago
And more interesting when the air bag controller is dumped by a neutral third party. That's not under Tesla's control; it's a Takata unit, self-contained, with no network connection. When the air bags fire, the controller saves the last 8 seconds of vehicle speed, brake light switch, engine speed, throttle position, acceleration, and seat belt use. It's basic data for crash analysis. There are companies which do this and analyze the info, such as Failure Analysis Associates and Crash Forensics. Bosch makes a readout tool for this.[1] If the vehicle isn't too badly damaged, the data can be retrieved by plugging into the OBD port. Worst case, you have to get the airbag controller out of the vehicle (it's a tough device, designed to survive a crash) and connect it to the readout tool. [1] http://www.crashdatagroup.com/ http://www.crashdatagroup.com/

mikeash 10y ago

Or the wife might be telling the truth, but be mistaken about what happen. It's fairly common for people to press the accelerator by accident thinking it's the brake, then press it harder in a panic since it's clearly not working. The result is exactly as described here, with the car suddenly accelerating forward and the driver insisting that they were hard on the brakes but they didn't work.