20 ms·
A Tragic Loss
- simonsarris 10y ago> What we know is that the vehicle was on a divided highway with Autopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. Tragic no doubt, but I'm relieved that this was not a "Autopilot did something very very wrong" story. Autopilot has the potential to save a large number of lives (I'm sure Tesla execs are thinking about touting "estimated lives saved by autopilot" if the numbers work out, after a few billion miles), so I hope incidents like this don't hamper public perception and therefore research.
- Pxtl 10y agoThat doesn't sound like what happened. "The driver didn't notice" well, that's why they're using autopilot. No matter how many messages people throw at users, any autopilot that doesn't detect that the driver is awake and operating the vehicle is going to be used by sleeping or otherwise unattentive drivers. It's just human nature. So what likely happened was the driver was screwing around and the autopilot completely failed to notice a giant white truck crossing the road and blocking their way until it was too late. edit: reply is quite right, shouldn't speak ill of the dead that way. "Screwing around" is unfair. I just mean that "driver falls asleep/paying attention to other things" is the expected outcome of any autopilot system, and so it's unreasonable of autopilots to have any expectation of drivers for attentiveness.
- mikeash 10y agoFrom the information given, we don't know if the truck pulled out right in front of the car giving the driver no time to react, or if the truck pulled out a minute beforehand and the driver was just oblivious. In the absence of any information either way, it's nasty to just assume the driver was inattentive.
- krschultz 10y agoI don't think it's nasty, I think it's realistic. I also think that it aligns with the research that shows humans take a significant amount of time to adjust to taking back over control from autopilot. This is one of the primary design considerations behind the Google self driving car having absolutely no steering wheel or brake. The illusion of humans being able to be the fallback when they're not physically capable of it is a dangerous situation.
- mikeash 10y agoI don't think it's realistic to rampantly speculate about a situation where so little information is available. And I absolutely think it is nasty to talk ill of the dead when there is zero evidence for what's being said. For all we know the driver had half a second to react before he died. Or maybe he had five minutes. The point is, we don't know. To start from that position and say it's "likely... the driver was screwing around" is pretty crappy.
- krschultz 10y agoFair, I wasn't reading it as a knock on the driver. I read it as a mistake for Tesla to hide behind the driver having ultimate responsibility when the reality is no driver is going to actually be attentive or even capable of taking over.
- Pxtl 10y agoI'll admit that the word "screwing around" was unfair and judgemental, but I'm gonna be honest: I would never want to own a car with this sort of "autopilot with driver fallback" feature because I'd totally fall asleep at the wheel. Completely. So I didn't mean any judgment by it. I could have made the same mistake. In fact, I'm judging the software, if anything. Any autopilot software that doesn't force the driver to be attentive is effectively taking the responsibility for driving onto themselves, and so cannot blame the driver for being inattentive. You can't say "I got this" and then at the last second say "oh shit, I need you driver!" even if you put warnings that you don't really got this, because you're dealing with human beings who do normal human things. Yes, I shouldn't have said the driver was screwing around, you're right. But if the driver fell asleep, and a conscious driver would have avoided this accident? I still think it's Tesla's fault, because he'd be awake and alive in a manual car.
- gjulianm 10y agoFrom the article, it seems that this autopilot checks that the driver is attentive. > When drivers activate Autopilot, the acknowledgment box explains, among other things, that Autopilot “is an assist feature that requires you to keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times," and that "you need to maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle” while using it. Additionally, every time that Autopilot is engaged, the car reminds the driver to “Always keep your hands on the wheel. Be prepared to take over at any time.” The system also makes frequent checks to ensure that the driver's hands remain on the wheel and provides visual and audible alerts if hands-on is not detected. It then gradually slows down the car until hands-on is detected again.
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoIt does but it's not terribly frequent and it's easy to bypass. When you give people a feature they're going to use it however they want regardless of what you tell them. Users are funny like that :)
- gohrt 10y agoWhat if you get into a collision while you are reading all the text in that acknowledgement box?
- mikeash 10y agoI don't think the setting can be changed unless the car is in Park.
- mikeash 10y agoThose "frequent checks" are pretty rare. I've gone 15-20 minutes without seeing one. For a while it was every 3-5 minutes, but they've dialed it back up in newer software updates.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- hueving 10y ago>detect that the driver is awake and operating the vehicle RTFA. It mentions explicitly that autopilot checks for hands on the wheel.
- diamondlovesyou 10y agoI'd say most accidents are the result of the driver "not noticing", especially in the current majority of cars which lack autopilot, so even if this edge case exists in the future, having an autopilot is still an improvement.
- kennysmoothx 10y ago> That doesn't sound like what happened. Everything is speculation at this point so I am not sure how you can assume that's not what happened. > "The driver didn't notice" well, that's why they're using autopilot. If Tesla builds and designs a system to be used as an assistant, explicitly tells and warns the user of it's use case and potential danger of using it as anything other than an assistant, then the excuse that "it's human nature" is null, I don't think it's human nature to leave your safety and well being at the hands of something designed to be nothing more than an assistant. Perhaps the name autopilot exerts to much confidence in its capabilities.
- dvcc 10y agoHow would we ever know that the autopilot acted correctly? Should companies be required to release logs after every crash when a car is in autopilot? Seems fair.
- nomercy400 10y agoBlack box? But logs must be useful for the insurance claim (by either the manufacturer or the driver).
- georgecmu 10y agoAutopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. How is this not an "Autopilot did something very very wrong" story? Tesla autopilot drove the vehicle full-speed into a tractor-trailer, which wasn't registered by its sensor systems. It's great that Tesla already has an explanation for the failure, but the situation as described is far from an improbable edge case. What they are saying is that the autopilot can't detect white objects when a bright light is present -- that's a pretty serious limitation to overlook.
- mikeash 10y agoHuman drivers do this kind of thing with great frequency. As long as the system is at least as good as a human driver at this stuff, I'm happy with it. Actually, scratch that: as long as the system combined with me is at least as good as a human driver, I'm happy with it.
- nomercy400 10y agoHow do tractor trailers drive perpendicular on a highway in a probable case? Still, I agree it is strange that a white/glossy object cannot be detected with radar. Is it a stealth truck?
- simonsarris 10y agoWhere I live some highways have a sign that says: > CAUTION: SOLAR GLARE IN THE A.M. It's serious enough to warrant its own road sign, but its not as much of a realistic issue on a divided highway, so maybe this road didn't have such a sign. This type of danger is probably what the article is describing.
- joemi 10y agoIf the driver didn't notice it either, why is it Autopilot's fault?
- ceejayoz 10y agoThe autopilot may reduce driver attentiveness, making the edge cases in its automation more deadly than they might've been without it.
- rspeer 10y agoThe only situation I can imagine a driver not noticing a huge truck perpendicular to them on the highway, regardless of what color it is, is that they're not paying any attention at all. This peculiar wording is making it sound like the computer made the same mistake as the driver, but it seems much more likely that they made two different mistakes. The computer's mistake was in image recognition, and the person's mistake was trusting the autopilot fully and not paying attention to the road.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- stcredzero 10y agoThe only situation I can imagine a driver not noticing a huge truck perpendicular to them on the highway, regardless of what color it is, is that they're not paying any attention at all. The optical distortions that cause road surface mirages could well entirely hide another vehicle. In this case, since the trailer was painted white, only the wheels and lower chassis would need to be hidden for the image to become unrecognizable. Not saying that's what happened in this case, but there are situations when your forward vision could be compromised. (There is a theory that the colder ocean may have caused a similar optical phenomenon and hidden the iceberg that sunk the Titanic.)
- dismal2 10y agoThis seems like a pretty big oversight, large object that car is too tall to clear safely seems like it could cause a lot of problems. Would the car try to make a lane change while next to a trailer?
- mikeash 10y agoTesla's Autopilot only changes lanes when commanded to by the driver. This is done by putting the turn signal on. If you put the turn signal on while next to a trailer that doesn't have stuff coming down near the ground, then yes, the car will likely change lanes right into it. But it's easy to avoid: just look before you signal.
- mdorazio 10y agoUnless it's changed recently, drivers have to tell the car specifically to change lanes (using the turn signal) or else it won't do so. And yes, this is the same issue as that other fairly recent incident in which a Model S drove itself into a parked trailer when the owner summoned it (supposedly inadvertently) due to the height of the trailer bed above the ground. Very concerning to me given the prevalence of trucks on the road.
- krschultz 10y agoI'll give you that it's not a story of Autopilot driving off a cliff, but it may be a case of someone getting killed due to a problem with Autopilot. While it's factually true that the driver did not notice, what we can't know is if the driver would have noticed if they were more aware without autopilot engaged. Anyone that thinks drivers pay as much attention to the road when Autopilot is enabled is being naive.
- orthoganol 10y agoIf autopilot fails when it's sunny and the obstacle is white, I have doubts about autopilot.
- andrewchambers 10y agoHumans fail for even more stupid reasons.
- sawthat 10y agoTechnologies like autopilot are going to save lives. This was one of around 90 fatal traffic accidents in the US on the same day (based on historical averages). It's going to be hard to make a foolproof system, however anything that makes it less likely for an inattentive drive to crash into something is a win.
- mathattack 10y agoTragic. Good that they own it, though I'm not thrilled with this: It is important to note that Tesla disables Autopilot by default and requires explicit acknowledgement that the system is new technology and still in a public beta phase before it can be enabled. When drivers activate Autopilot, the acknowledgment box explains, among other things, that Autopilot “is an assist feature that requires you to keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times," and that "you need to maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle” while using it. Additionally, every time that Autopilot is engaged, the car reminds the driver to “Always keep your hands on the wheel. Be prepared to take over at any time.” The system also makes frequent checks to ensure that the driver's hands remain on the wheel and provides visual and audible alerts if hands-on is not detected. It then gradually slows down the car until hands-on is detected again.
- jackpirate 10y agoThis statement is also disengenuous: This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles. The wording implies that these numbers are directly comparable, but they are not. I would guess that Autopilot is much more likely to be activated in safe situations. But the other statistics include all situtations.
- BenderV 10y agoYes, and since Tesla explicit ask driver to take over in dangerous situation, the number (fatality/miles) is certainly higher. Still, impressive result by the autopilot. I'm wondering, is there any advanced driving simulation? I'm guessing since they have now lots of data, they could simulate dangerous/extreme situation.
- mozumder 10y agoAlso, the US fatal accident rate is one death per 108 million miles, which includes motorcycles and teens and drunk people. Not only that, you'd expect drivers in the higher-income demographic of US auto customers to have less fatal accidents. The real comparison should between a model S and cars like the Mercedes S-Class, since this is all about car marketing anyways.
- robbiet480 10y agoIt's all over CNBC right now, Tesla is down 2.58% in after hours after closing up 0.99%
- devy 10y agoCare to share a link? Google News doesn't turn up any CNBC results yet as of now.
- robbiet480 10y agoWas watching CNBC live, they devoted maybe 15-20 minutes to it.
- glibgil 10y agohttp://tvgo.xfinity.com/live/network/cnbc http://tvgo.xfinity.com/live/network/cnbc
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- greybox 10y agoEntitled "A tragic loss" but reads like a massive disclaimer. . .
- fixermark 10y agoIt's both.
- maxvu 10y agoI didn't read it like that. It felt like it was addressing directly the Tesla owner spooked at the news. Also, if I were the target of the PR shenanigans pulled on Tesla, I would want to use precise language, too.
- twinkletwinkle 10y ago"If our imperfect software kills you, too, rest assured that we will offer our empty condolences to your family while simultaneously using technical language to absolve ourselves of any possible fault" Do you think that reassures Tesla owners?
- dikaiosune 10y agoI think it would have read a little better if the last paragraph was earlier. It ends up sounding tawdry after the massive disclaimer.
- zallarak 10y agoNo other auto maker would do this. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this makes me respect Tesla even more. It's also a reminder to engineers to have an extremely high bar of excellence. EDIT: thanks for telling me I'm wrong. This was a self-serving blog post on their part to damage control.
- dvcc 10y agoThis was entirely defensive and self-serving on behalf of Tesla. It's a general PR release, companies do these all the time. What made this so special?
- fixermark 10y agothe fact that they could. Imagine how many press releases there'd be per day if another auto company felt compelled to do one for each accident their cars were involved in.
- mhurron 10y agoYou would see a similar release from any company where a technology they have been pushing could be front and center as the cause. This isn't just another horrible car accident on US roads, the car was in charge this time and a technology they've been heralding for it's safety is going to be blamed. That's why there is a federal investigation into it. That's why there is a press release to protect the stock price.
- coralreef 10y agoThis release only happened because Tesla knew it would make headlines, and wanted to get out in front before a sensationalized story gets out first. Other auto accidents are non-interesting to the public, but this one involved automated driving.
- dragontamer 10y agoEhhh? The Tesla suspension issue with non-disclosure agreements also made front pages, just a week or two ago. http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/11/tesla-revises-nondisclosure-clause-as-musk-accuses-customers-of-fraud-on-suspension-claims.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/11/tesla-revises-nondisclosure-c... Tesla's blog is their primary marketing / damage control arm. Anything they publish there becomes instant news.
- return0 10y agoTesla should not allow autopilots. They have nothing to gain by the negative publicity they will get from cases like these. Regardless of how bad luck the driver had, tesla can always be blamed for relaxing the driver's reflexes by giving a false sense of safety. It doesnt matter if it was by default turned off or hidden in menus. What other companies use this kind of driving assist system? The ones i know are only hinting to the driver , and disengage if the driver does not respond. Got to be careful about these things. You don't put beta stuff in cars. It's like your doctor making drug trials on you. They should figure out a way that autopilot engages the driver and keeps his eyes on the road.
- fixermark 10y agoWhat they gain is hours on the road, real-life driving data. That's invaluable for tuning of machine learning systems like this one. They've also, FWIW, gained quite a bit of positive press. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tesla+autopilot+saves+life https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tesla+autopilot...
- BookmarkSaver 10y ago>Tesla should not allow autopilots. They have nothing to gain by the negative publicity they will get from cases like these. This is literally the only way to develop such systems. And regardless of incidents like this, these systems will be developed sometime in the fairly near future and whichever company is on the leading edge of them will command a massive new market that will probably start growing incredibly rapidly right after it takes off.
- mdorazio 10y agoThis is just factually incorrect. Google is developing self-driving tech just fine without releasing it to consumers as a "beta". So is Delphi. So, presumably, is Uber now. Personally I am also of the opinion that releasing autopilot in its current state (especially with the weak sensors) was not a good move in terms of safety for drivers. Great move for PR and gaining data, yes, but we can now make a very plausible argument that it has killed at least one person.
- TaylorGood 10y agoAs most of you have already seen, Autopilot has detected similar situations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X-5fKzmy38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X-5fKzmy38
- ModernMech 10y agoI don't know if autopilot really "saved the day" there. Maybe for an incompetent driver (which is most, so this is a net positive for safety). But as a human driver, I would have taken human psychology into account and guessed the turning car was going to take advantage of that gap, thus causing me to approach much more cautiously. I don't know how fast that tesla was going, but I don't think I'd be doing more than 5-10 mph in that kind of traffic. I would also expect cars in the right lane to unexpectedly switch into the left. It seems to me the Tesla was overconfident and going about 25 mph. edit: I feel like my tone here is too harsh (mainly because my personal reaction is that this autopilot feature is professionally irresponsible). Let me pull back my emotions a little and try again: The only reason the autopilot feature here "saved the day" is because it was driving in an irresponsible manner in the first place. As the comment below me points out, it was driving at 45 MPH, compared to the 5-15 MPH you should be driving. For a defensive human driver, there shouldn't have been a close call in the first place. The Tesla is driving irresponsibly because it cannot take into account human behavior. It stopped in time in this scenario, but there's obviously a point at which the stopped car could turn and the Tesla could not physically stop in time. This can happen at any speed, but the 45 MPH collision is much much worse than a 10 MPH collision. I'd also like to point out that the autopilot was likely breaking the law. The speed limit on that road is probably 55 - 65 MPH, but the speed limit indicats the maximum speed in perfect conditions. When it's dark and raining and heavy traffic, going the speed limit is in fact speeding. If the Tesla had hit the turning car, the driver of the Tesla would probably have been cited for speeding, even at 45 MPH.
- iplaw 10y agoIt says in the comments/description that the Tesla was driving at about 45 mph, which is entirely too fast in a situation like this. You have a lane of stopped traffic directly adjacent to an open lane. People constantly swerve out of the stopped lane in situations like this. Further, it would have been common courtesy to stop and allow the car to turn and take advantage of the temporary gap in traffic. People allow me to turn in situations like this all the time, and I return the road karma when I can. Overall, it seems like quite a failing despite the avoidance of the accident.
- petercooper 10y agoNeither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, I'm intrigued that the color is relevant in the car's case - wouldn't it be using some sort of radar to detect and map objects rather than vision? I appreciate I am probably missing something.
- krschultz 10y agoAutopilot uses a forward facing camera & radar. It sounds like the truck came in at a perpendicular angle. It may have been in the cone of sight for the camera but not the radar depending on how those are setup. The 360 degree sensors on the Tesla are for parking only (< 20 feet range). Personally when I worked on a self driving car we were going with 360 degree camera and doing path planning based on that, but Tesla has opted not to do that.
- Johnie 10y agoDoesn't a 360 degree camera require it to be placed on top of the car?
- krschultz 10y agoYou could merge multiple cameras in software, it's actually pretty straightforward to stitch them together in OpenCV. Basically just have to correct for the difference between cameras & their physical locations, but that is trivial since they are statically mounted on the car.
- etangent 10y agoYou can use a radar, a laser, or even a regular camera (which is what Teslas have I believe).
- mikeash 10y agoTesla's Autopilot uses a radar unit, a front-facing camera, and twelve ultrasonic sensors on the front and back bumper. The ultrasonic sensors are short range and are for detecting adjacent cars and obstacles while parking, the camera is used for detecting lanes, and the camera and radar work together to detect cars. The radar is low to the ground and probably doesn't pick up a trailer that's high off the ground. The camera could, but not if contrast is too low. (And I'm not sure if the software is able to recognize the side of a trailer anyway.)
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoI mean I understand Tesla has to make a statement here and I understand they want to ensure everyone that it's not really their fault but to title a post "A Tragic Loss" and then spend the majority of the post discussing all of your car's safety features and how it wasn't your fault just seems tone deaf and distasteful to me. Maybe they had to do it for legal reasons I don't know (I'm certainly not a lawyer) and I'd love to own a Tesla but couldn't they have worded this a little more sympathetic and a little less lawyer?
- Analemma_ 10y agoI agree. I'm starting to get really weirded out by Tesla's immediate "not our fault!" blog posts every time a Tesla is involved in any kind of accident. I could see the necessity the first few times back when it was new technology to a lot of people (and Top Gear had it in for them), but with it happening over and over it seems whiny and a bit callous. How long to they plan to keep doing this?
- toomuchtodo 10y agoAs long as emotions drive short term investors, which influences the stock price, which is extremely important for their success and expansion plans. Already down $6/share in after hours trading.
- dangrossman 10y ago> How long to they plan to keep doing this? So long as every Tesla accident makes the homepage of CNBC, unlike the millions that occur in other makers' vehicles. Tesla puts out an immediate PR, and the breaking news that went up on all the financial sites included quotes from it nearly as fast. http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/30/us-regulators-investigating-tesla-over-use-of-automated-system-linked-to-fatal-crash.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/30/us-regulators-investigating-t...
- prodmerc 10y agoYeah no kidding, thousands of people die every year in Fords and no one gives a shit, 1 guy dies in a Tesla and "these cars are unsafe, run for your lives, hide yo kids and yo wife, sell your stock, return your car!". I fucking hate modern media.
- camkego 10y agoMain issue is that once you take away 90% of the requirement for a human to focus on the task at hand (driving) they are going to ignore the remaining 10% where an exception occurs.
- ebbv 10y agoI count myself as a big Tesla fan but this announcement is too heavy on the disclaimers and ass covering and too little on empathy and sympathy.
- aab0 10y agoThis sounds exactly like the previous Autopilot failure! A high-up truck where the Tesla slides under and crashes.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- scythe 10y ago> Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, So this got me wondering: are there areas where retinae still do better than cameras at certain kinds of discrimination problems? Nature still has human technology beat on hardware in a few categories (particularly joints), but I didn't expect eyes to be one of them. When I look at or near a bright light, I can see objects close to the light much better than I can in a photograph, but I always assumed this was only because I had a cheap camera. The corresponding question is: how expensive is the camera that prevents this accident?
- marvin 10y agoCameras are obviously worse in situations where there is very high contrast (e.g. when you are facing the sun), because the digital representation of color/luminosity has a far more narrow range than that of the eye. Uncertain on whether this has any practical consequences, but it seems likely.
- vkou 10y agoIs this the new motto for autonomous vehicles? Move fast and break bones? With these minor bugs, Tesla seems to be doing a solid job of poisoning the well for self-driving cars. I'd like to see them explain how their competitors should not be tarred with the same brush, once the political backlash hits. It doesn't matter how many disclaimers you give before you turn on autopilot - a driver who focused on driving the car (As opposed to letting autopilot cruise) would have probably noticed a tractor driving across the road on a bright, sunny day. It's a dangerous system. Instead of arguing about the trolley problem, I'd first like to see a car be good at making decisions that save its passengers.
- krschultz 10y agoI'm personally very worried about the poisoning the well angle. Tesla is playing fast and loose with this compared to Google and the results could strangle the whole field.
- johngalt 10y agoThe thing about self driving cars is that every accident will have a wealth of information in regards to how it occurred and the decision making that went into it. Once we understand and correct the problem every subsequent car will be safer. This is not the case with humans whom regularly fail to learn from consequences to other humans. Imagine if the first time someone fell asleep at the wheel and crashed, you could just tell everyone "hey don't fall asleep at the wheel". And it just never happened again.
- yardie 10y agoWow. I'm speechless. I do hope they are able to learn more from this. This is just a bad coincidence of environment meets chance and someone died because of it. I do think computer vision still has a but further to go. A white trailer and a white sky shouldn't be a problem. But everyday I'm impressed with how human sight can find and lock into the most obscure details. Like I've been sunblinded before and yet I knew something was in front of me because I noticed a grey shadow on grey asphalt and immediately hit the brakes. We're almost there but not quite.
- ModernMech 10y ago> I do hope they are able to learn more from this. This is just a bad coincidence of environment meets chance and someone died because of it. Nope, this is completely expected when unproven technology is packaged as a push-button feature and shipped on consumer technology. I don't work for Tesla, but I am a robotics engineer who has worked on exactly this technology, and I saw this coming from a mile away. Tesla should have as well.
- ejk314 10y agoOh they know. It's just that the expected value added to their car sales, even factoring in the negative PR and potential lawsuits, is >0
- niftich 10y agoOther premium automakers have automatic braking and pre-collision systems that take effect regardless of whether the (enhanced) cruise control is engaged. We have seen from other incidents that Tesla's autobraking will not engage when autopilot is disabled (potentially by tapping the brakes), which is contrary to widespread user expectation -- disclaimers notwithstanding. However, in this particular case, it was the obstruction detection that failed. Based on their blog post disclaimer, it appears to be a visual sensing system; eye-height radar-based system used by most other manufacturers would have correctly detected the obstruction. Is there an industry standard (yet) for the efficacy and behavior that these systems must meet?
- michalnaka 10y agoWhich manufacturers use eye-height radar-based systems?
- niftich 10y agoI stand corrected about the term 'eye-height' -- apparently no one I could credibly find mounts their radar at eye-height. Mercedes-Benz uses two different radar sensors: "the DISTRONIC radar is configured to monitor three lanes of a motorway to a range of up to 150 metres with a spread of nine degrees, the new [DISTRONIC PLUS] 24-Gigahertz radar registers the situation immediately ahead of the vehicle with aspread of 80 degrees and a range of 30 metres." [1] Volvo has a combination of grill-mounted 15° FOV radar and a 48° FOV greyscale camera behind the top of the windshield [2]. Volkswagen uses radar [3], but not sure where it's mounted. Honda's CMBS is a radar in the grill [4]. Subaru uses two cameras mounted behind the top of the windshield [5], and no radar, albeit radar is used with some of their other safety systems. [1] http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv20/07-0103-O.pdf http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv20/07-0103-O.pdf [2] http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv20/07-0450-o.pdf http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv20/07-0450-o.pdf [3] http://en.volkswagen.com/en/innovation-and-technology/technical-glossary/umfeldbeobachtungssystem_front_assist.html http://en.volkswagen.com/en/innovation-and-technology/techni... [4] https://techinfo.honda.com/rjanisis/pubs/om/JA0606/JA0606O00325A.pdf https://techinfo.honda.com/rjanisis/pubs/om/JA0606/JA0606O00... [5] http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/news/a6852/subaru-camera-controlled-cruise/ http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/news/a6852/subaru-camer...
- BoarAndBuck 10y agoSad
- Artlav 10y agoSomehow this reminds me of Dr. Daystrom defending the M-5 computer, back in the original series.
- spb 10y agoFor reference: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Ultimate_Computer_(episode) http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Ultimate_Computer_(ep...
- CobrastanJorji 10y ago> It is important to note that Autopilot is...still in a public beta phase... No, it's not important to note that. You should not be able to hide behind the word "Beta" for systems that could kill people. Either you're willing to let people risk their lives on your software or you're not, and you were.
- curiousgal 10y agoJudging from the description the accident would've happened either ways.
- vkou 10y agoThe accident probably wouldn't have happened if the driver was focused on driving the car... As opposed on letting the car drive itself. When the autopilot acts correctly 99.9% of the time, you'd get incredibly complacent and inattentive. When you don't have an autopilot, you are paying far more attention to the road.
- CobrastanJorji 10y agoIn this press release, they argue that it's important to note that their feature is in beta. If the accident would have happened either way, then it was not important to mention the beta status.
- gohrt 10y ago> The high ride height of the trailer Is non-standard ride-height a safety failure? Should trailers have crash panels to avoid drive-unders?
- mdorazio 10y agoThey already do in the back of the trailer where most collisions are likely to take place (it's typically a welded set of cross-beams that go down to roughly bumper height). I think that very few collisions are of this side-on type that would make it worthwhile to add side panels as well. It's kind of one of those "how safe is safe enough?" situations where you have to compromise at some point.
- mthoms 10y agoElsewhere in this thread someone mentions that side rails on semis are mandatory in Europe. Makes sense.
- ChuckMcM 10y agoVery sad. I once designed a robot that used infra-red collision detection to avoid obstacles, my home built, and painted flat black, stereo cabinet registered as open space and the robot drove right into it at full speed. It was a quick lesson on sensor fallibility for me. I've also observed human pilots on busy roads nearly colliding with obstacles when driving toward the setting sun, the visor pulled down and still trying to shade their eyes. But robots aren't humans, and they don't have to rely only on vision, there are so many ways to "look" it seems like we should have several different ways of identifying obstacles. Different spectra at least.
- cs2818 10y agoI have had similar experiences working in robotics and I would imagine anyone else who has worked with designing navigation, mapping, or obstacle avoidance for robots would also be well aware of the shortcomings of each type of sensor. Even in the confines of indoor environments with simple problems like transparent surfaces, specific problematic fabrics, and acoustic panels it is necessary to fuse several types of sensor data to provide reasonably reliable detection of the environment. I would hope that as sensors and output analysis techniques continue to be developed and costs decrease, creators of autonomous systems would incorporate a wider variety of sensors into their products.
- jacquesm 10y agoThis is why driving AI is 'all or nothing' for me. Assisted systems will lead to drivers paying less attention as the systems get better. The figures quoted by Tesla seem impressive but you have to assume the majority of the drivers is still paying attention all the time. As auto-pilots get better you'll see them paying attention less and then the accident rate will go up, not down for a while at least until the bugs are ironed out. Note that this could have happened to a non-electric car just as easily, it's a human-computer hybrid issue related to having to pay attention to some instrument for a long time without anything interesting happening. The longer the interval that you don't need to act the bigger the chance that when you do need to act you will not be in time.
- ghaff 10y agoIt's pretty well established that humans (e.g. [1]) that humans have a lot of trouble paying when they don't need to be actively engaged most of the time and also have trouble taking back control. In a consumer driving context, I have zero doubt that, as systems like these develop, people will start watching videos and reading absent draconian monitoring systems to ensure they keep their eyes on the road. I'm not sure how we get past that "uncanny valley." [1] http://hal.pratt.duke.edu/sites/hal.pratt.duke.edu/files/u7/TR%20news%20Cummings%20MAR14.pdf http://hal.pratt.duke.edu/sites/hal.pratt.duke.edu/files/u7/...
- neurotech1 10y agoIts worth pointing out that Prof. Missy Cummings, who authored the paper, is a former F/A-18 pilot who specializes in human-machine interaction research. One option is the Tesla autopilot should have an indication when it approaches "low confidence" areas without disengaging, so the driver is not startled if they have to take back manual control.
- Vik1ng 10y agoThe Mercedes E-Class Drive Pilot seems to do this to some extent. For example even going from demanding the driver to place one hand on the steering wheel to requiring both hands. https://youtu.be/Pq5LDi3-ChU?t=40m5s https://youtu.be/Pq5LDi3-ChU?t=40m5s
- BoarAndBuck 10y agoCondolences to the family. Since he was "a friend to Tesla" there might not be a lawsuit. If every Tesla owner is considered a friend, there might never be a lawsuit. These things are bound to occur. Remember Morrison and "Keep your eyes on the road...and your hands upon the wheel!"
- sverige 10y agoBottom line: Lots of work to do if the car can't see a semi-trailer in front of it. I would be willing to say that it's much more likely that the driver would have noticed in time if Autopilot wasn't on. It's likely that most average drivers will think so too, which pushes the acceptance of this technology somewhere further in the future. And Tesla's statement does nothing to alleviate these reasonable doubts about putting your life and the lives of your family and friends in the hands of automotive software engineers.
- blinkingled 10y agoI don't feel like Autopilot will ever be able to take over 100% of the time - there are so many corner cases, so many unexpected/illegal maneuvers etc. to deal with that at least in the initial stages it would be wise to accept those limitations and not market it as Autopilot - instead make it DriverAssist or something. It should really only take over in situations the driver failed to handle - asleep at wheel causing car to shift lanes when it is not safe - loud buzzer and lane correction to stay in the lane, not seeing object in the front - auto brake with buzz etc. Then it would be whole different story if it failed - the mistake was driver's to begin with even if driver assist could not correct it. And it will still save a lot of lives no doubt. The whole idea that complex technology like this can guarantee 100% safe and reliable outcome 100% of the times is I think one hell of a over promise that will continue to cause people to become even more unaware and distracted than your usual car driver already is. And as this shows it will not always end well. Edit: A Volvo Engineer had similar opinion - From The Verge - "Some autonomous driving experts have criticized Tesla for introducing the Autopilot feature, with a Volvo engineer saying the system "gives you the impression that it's doing more than it is.". That's exactly right.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- United857 10y agoI couldn't find any other details about the accident, but it seems from the description like it was a side collision at an intersection. In order for that to happen, it's likely that one of the vehicles had to violate a stop sign or red light. Note that the Autopilot isn't aware of these things (it won't stop unless a car in front stops). If the Tesla was the vehicle at fault, then most likely it was unawareness of this limitation on the part of the driver (or complacency thinking there wouldn't be any traffic).
- rsp1984 10y agoNeither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. It appears to me like this is a case that shows the limitations of stereo vision as the main sensor system guiding the Tesla autopilot. I would even venture to say that it could have possibly been avoided using LiDAR technology. According to various interviews however Elon Musk is not a big fan of LiDAR [1]: “I don’t think you need LIDAR. I think you can do this all with passive optical and then with maybe one forward RADAR,” Musk said during at a press conference in October. “I think that completely solves it without the use of LIDAR. I’m not a big fan of LIDAR, I don’t think it makes sense in this context.” [1] http://www.techinsider.io/difference-between-google-and-tesla-driverless-cars-2015-12 http://www.techinsider.io/difference-between-google-and-tesl...
- mandevil 10y agoLIDAR puts pretty severe limits on top speed. Basically, LIDAR has range limitations which means it can't detect anything further than <mumble mumble> away reliably (I last worked on a driving robot project a decade ago, forgot the exact distance). But the range, versus human-comfortable braking distance, works out to a top speed of roughly 30kph. Go faster and your car will detect the obstacle too late to avoid hitting it. Since Autopilot is trying to solve a problem at highway speeds (100kph+), I don't think it's a good fit for what Musk is trying to do. Now whether what Musk is trying to do is a good idea is a different question...
- extrapickles 10y agoLiDAR still has problems getting blinded by direct sunlight, which will swamp any optical sensor system that is safe to human eyes. Its possible to reduce the field of view affected by sunlight down to 0.5 degrees of the sky (the size of the sun), but for any practical system it will much larger than that.
- rasz_pl 10y agowhat stereo vision? there is only one camera afaik
- Splines 10y agoAll I can say is that I would not want to be a Tesla engineer on the Autopilot feature. And I know what you're thinking - it's not because I think some poor engineer is going to get the axe (ok, maybe that's not what you're thinking). It's because I would not want to be responsible for the code that needs to deliver millions of people billions of miles in their car. It's a daunting responsibility.
- agumonkey 10y agoThe situation is a bit confusing, did the tractor cross in a hurry just before impact ? was the victim really blinded by the colors ? maybe it's just vocabulary, a tractor trailer seems huge and hard to ignore. Even though I'm eager to see SDV benefits, Autopilot seems like way too much hassle for such possible consequences. An overengineered auto cruise.
- gordon_freeman 10y agoNobody is talking about whether it is safe to put Beta software of such an advanced autopilot system in real world? I mean they are giving choice to people to turn on this Autopilot functionality as if it were just another driver assistance safety feature like 'Honda Sensing' but in reality it is much more advanced system and it seems Tesla is doing this to use the data to feed to it's upcoming autonomous technology. But at what cost! UPDATE: Just read this news on NYTimes: "The traffic safety agency is nearing the release of a new set of guidelines and regulations regarding the testing of self-driving vehicles on public roads. They were expected to be released in July." Good and much needed step from NHTSA here.
- wrsh07 10y agoTesla doesn't need autopilot to gather data -- just having the sensors on the vehicles is enough. The current cost seems to be about 3/4 as many casualties as one would expect from the # of miles they've driven.
- ceejayoz 10y ago> The current cost seems to be about 3/4 as many casualties as one would expect from the # of miles they've driven. That statistic is misleading, though. Tesla's comparing autopilot miles to all driven miles in other vehicles, but they're not directly comparable. Autopilot can only be engaged in certain (favorable) conditions - no residential streets, no undivided highways, and you're probably not turning it on during a thunderstorm or in snow/ice.
- wrsh07 10y agoSure, it's maybe a bit deflated. My point stands: the cost based on current empirical evidence is negligible. There certainly hasn't been a statistically significant increase in fatal crashes while on autopilot.
- ceejayoz 10y agoI'm very curious about the car insurance implications of using the beta autopilot. I can't imagine Allstate's going to be all that happy paying a $100k claim caused by a product that's explicitly marked as being a beta.
- tachim 10y ago"What we know is that the vehicle was on a divided highway with Autopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied." That's really disingenuous. There's no way to know for certain what the driver did or didn't see, but there are a lot more salient features for them to go by other than the white trailer, like the fact that the cabin has driven across the road or that the wheels of the trailer were square in the driver's lane. A much more likely explanation is that the autopilot set expectations too high, the driver was not paying attention (like in all the youtube videos of the system in action), and the autopilot failed and crashed into the truck.
- alkonaut 10y agoAfter reading a lot of the comments here it's obvious that the best thing Tesla could do for the safety of this feature is to simply rename it "Magic Cruise Control" or "CoPilot" or something to that effect.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- davidiach 10y agoIt seems the driver was Joshua Brown, the guy who posted the viral video of how his Tesla avoided a crash on the highway some months ago. Really sad. http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/30/12072634/tesla-autopilot-crash-autonomous-mode-viral-video http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/30/12072634/tesla-autopilot-c...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kafkaesq 10y agoThis is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Given that Autopilot is generally activated under safer, more routine driving scenarios -- decent weather, regular suburban traffic and so on; for which we can naturally expect significantly lower fatality rates -- it doesn't sound like it's off to a particularly good "batting average" so far. Especially since we've been promised until now that self-driving cars will ultimately be not just incrementally safer, but categorically safer than human-piloted vehicles.
- gpm 10y agoAgreed, but to be fair it isn't exactly statistically significant yet.
- aetherson 10y agoAlso of note: Tesla often claims that their cars perform very well in an accident. It may be that a crash that would result in a fatality in the median vehicle on the road does not produce a fatality in a Tesla. So the salient number is not "fatalities per vehicle mile among all vehicles in the US," it is "fatalities per vehicle mile among non-autopilot-driven Teslas."
- ars 10y agoExactly. And on top of that, how much of the time was it the human who actually prevented the fatality, and not autopilot? I would like to see how many accidents would have happened under Autopilot, but were only prevented because of the human.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- funkysquid 10y agoI don't think they should have said anything at all in this case, beyond their condolences. 1. Autopilot didn't cause the accident, but they're sort of making it sound like it did by bringing it up 2. If people are arguing that autopilot contributed by making the driver feel like they didn't need to pay as much attention, the only way to defend against that is to blame the driver - why would you do that? 3. It's sort of invading the privacy of someone who recently died by detailing the crash, making it about Tesla. I don't believe other car companies would issue a PR release if one of their cars got in a crash, even with accident avoidance features on? It somehow manages to feel self serving and make Tesla look bad at the same time.
- daveguy 10y agoA direct reply from Elon Musk on twitter about why radar did not recognize the white side of a trailer across the road when the camera missed it: "Radar tunes out what looks like an overhead road sign to avoid false braking events" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/748620607105839104 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/748620607105839104 EDIT: When the "overhead sign" comes down below overhead clearance of the vehicle the signal should not be masked. There should have been some braking action in this case. If there was not then the tesla autopilot is unsafe. This is the same blind spot discussed a few months ago that caused a tesla to run into a parked trailer using summon mode: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11677760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11677760 This seems like a serious flaw in autopilot functionality. Trailers are not that rare. I would be interested if "autobrake/autofollow" functions of other car companies have similar problems.
- sampo 10y agoAlso an interesting comment: This is why trailers require safety guards in the EU. Cars simply cannot get underneath them. https://twitter.com/jn_cn/status/748626793180069888 https://twitter.com/jn_cn/status/748626793180069888
- zarriak 10y agoSeems odd to me that the autopilot doesn't use them together, as it would seem that the autopilot would easily be able to see with the camera whether it was a sign, as at least in the United States they seem a somewhat uniform green.
- daveguy 10y agoI think the likely answer is Tesla "autopilot" is a glorified cruise control + lane assist + data collection for future intelligent controls. Google probably has close to this capability, but they are at the leading edge of image recognition. In order to depend on it the AI would have to be able to distinguish 99.9+% and would have to be able to tell the difference between a green truck and a road sign. I honestly think self driving cars will require intelligence indistinguishable from artificial general intelligence. This was state of the art in 2014 (improved in 2015, but this paper is on arxiv and gives the idea): http://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.0575 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.0575 Even top scoring Google had classification errors over 6% of the time in 2014. Object localization was much worse. Even if it is at 99% that means 1 of every 100 object will be misidentified. You probably identify that many random (non-car, non-sign, etc) objects in a week driving, maybe in a day. That kind of error is unacceptable in self-driving cars and it is state of the art. That is one of the reasons they are still testing and not selling self-driving cars at Google. Better than human may not require quite 99.9+% object classification, but I do wonder how great the self-driving car records would be if someone wasn't always there to take the controls. It certainly wouldn't be "better than human" at this point.
- davidw 10y agoI'm not particularly a Tesla fan and have no skin in that game, but I think people can both be defensive of the technology and genuinely, humanly sad about the loss of life. I don't see this as being cynical.
- Animats 10y ago"Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied." Now that's blaming the user for a design flaw. There is no excuse for failing to detect the side of a semitrailer. Tesla has a radar. Did it fail, was its data misprocessed, or is the field of view badly chosen? The single radar sensor is mounted low on the front of the vehicle, and if it lacks sufficient vertical range, might be looking under a semitrailer. That's no excuse; semitrailers are not exactly an uncommon sight on roads. I used an Eaton VORAD radar in the 2005 Grand Challenge, and it would have seen this. That's a radar from the 1990s. I want to see the NTSB report. The NTSB hasn't posted anything yet.
- neurotech1 10y agoNTSB would only investigate a major road transportation crash, unless specifically requested. This mishap doesn't appear on their docket.[0] Tesla is under a regulatory requirement to report all relevant mishaps to the NHTSA, even if they occur outside the US. [0] http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/highway.aspx http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/hig...
- studentrob 10y ago> NTSB would only investigate a major road transportation crash, unless specifically requested. This mishap doesn't appear on their docket.[0] It seems to be on their radar now, http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2016/07/08/ntsb-launches-probe-fatal-autopilot-tesla-crash/86873328/ http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2016/07/08/n...
- archagon 10y agoThis is on the road to being off topic, but still relevant given some of the commentary in this thread: It makes me a bit sad that the political zeitgeist in the tech community is leaning towards "acceptable losses" when it comes to accidents in automated cars, to the point of pre-emptively expressing disdain at ordinary people reacting negatively to such news. I sense it's going to become harder and harder for us to talk about our worries and skepticism regarding automated driving, since the louder voices claim it will all be worth it in the end. Surely — surely — you're on the side of less death? But personally, I find the utilitarian perspective distasteful. We're perfectly happy to let technology (literally) throw anonymous individuals under the bus as long as less people die overall, but what if it's you that gets hit by an auto? What if it's someone you care about, not Anonymous Driver On TV? The point is that humanity is not a herd to be taken as a whole; every life has rights, including the right not to be trampled by algorithmic decisions or software bugs for the betterment of all. (Sure, you could argue just as well that we have the right not to be run over by drunk and otherwise negligent drivers, but at least this kind of death is not methodical and has some legal recourse.) I feel this perspective needs a strong voice in the tech community too, to counter the blind push forward at the expense of human lives. Now, this isn't necessarily what happened in this case, but I find Tesla's behavior in these kinds of situations to be creepy and self-serving, at best. Is every death going to come with a blog post describing how much safer automated features are compared to human drivers? Every auto-related casualty is, and should be, a massive event, not a minus-one-point on some ledger in Elon Musk's office.
- bqe 10y agoWhen I was in college, the I-35W bridge collapsed and many people died. In my differential equations class the next day, my professor was handing back our tests and told us–a class of engineers–that every red mark on our tests was another dead body. You might scoff and say that's hyperbole, or scaremongering, and you might be right, but I took it as a warning. It is our responsibility as ethical engineers to ensure that people aren't harmed by the technology we create. It's true that self-driving cars will likely be safer than human-driven cars, but that doesn't absolve us of responsibility. In fact, it makes it all the more poignant.
- spenvo 10y agoThe top comment in another comment thread, which has been "duped"[0] pointed out how marking a feature in cars as "beta" is irresponsible. What's beyond the pale IMO is that when auto-pilot was first demonstrated (at the unveil event) - "hands on the wheel" was not part of the story. Journalists and (what appeared to be) Tesla employees were using the feature without hands on the wheel. It looked like Tesla cashing-in on the positive PR without correctly framing the limitations of the tech. Furthermore, Tesla includes sensors to map the entire surroundings of their cars, but why can't they include sensors to ensure customers have hands on the wheel? (update: comment says they do, but the check frequency is low. why can't it be high?!) It's not just the driver's life at stake, it's everyone else on the road--Tesla should disable this feature on cars [unless it ensures] drivers' hands are on the wheel. Engineers/execs at other companies taking a more responsible approach must be furious at the recklessness on display. One death is too many. Tesla Auto-pilot fail videos: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tesla+autopilot+fail https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tesla+autopilot... It's incredibly unfair to other drivers on the road to let someone else use beta software that could cause a head-on-collision. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12011635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12011635
- Vik1ng 10y ago> but they can't include sensors to ensure customers have hands on the wheel? They can and the car already does that. It just do not check very frequently compared to some of the competitors.
- fdsaaf 10y ago> hey do the check frequency is low. why can't it be high?! Because that makes it less useful. I am a Tesla owner. I am an adult capable of monitoring the car and taking control when autopilot gets confused. My hand being on the wheel at all times is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for verifying that I am paying attention and am ready to take over control. > One death is too many. I am sick and tired of absolutist statements about risk. Why do you allow cars on the road at all? Why allow cars to have cupholders? Why are drive-through restaurants legal? You make utility-risk trade-offs all the fucking time.
- _vk_ 10y agoThis sucks, but it seems likely that we've had the first victim of autopilot-induced inattentiveness. From the deceased's viral video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I5rraWJq6E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I5rraWJq6E): >I actually wasn't watching that direction and Tessy (the name of my car) was on duty with autopilot engaged. I became aware of the danger when Tessy alerted me with the "immediately take over" warning chime and the car swerving to the right to avoid the side collision. Combine this with the strange claim that Tesla put in their press release: >Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. It's hard to see how one can miss a tractor trailer "against a brightly lit sky" when one is paying attention. The human visual system isn't that bad. A likelier explanation is that he just wasn't looking. :(
- itg 10y agoThe fact that Tesla will blame their users for anything that goes wrong makes me avoid considering one. Alone with all the hype they try to sell. But what disappoints me the most is how the "tech" crowd will defend Tesla every time.Someone lost their life because Tesla can't put out a decent semi-autonomous driving systems and we are supposed to brush it aside?
- rasz_pl 10y agoWorks for Apple every time. BTW iPhone 6/6+ will probably get a recall in couple of years (if sheep complain loud enough) because again there is a design defect (like in every other Apple product, nvidia gpus, you hold it wrong, no cooling in laptops, moisture sensitive parts positioned right next to ports etc), Touch IC is not supported by metal rf shield like in all previous phones and cracks joints due to normal usage flex of whole phone body = grey bar on top of lcd and dead touch.
- fdsaaf 10y agoI'm really not looking forward to the moralistic haranguing that's going to happen over the next few days. One commentator complained that the tech community is adapting an "acceptable losses" posture. I don't see a problem with this attitude --- anything else is unrealistic and is an argument against technological progress. If our ancestors had adopted the attitude that we could do nothing not perfectly safe, we'd have never left the damn savanna. We'd have certainly never allowed aircraft to fly.
- hristov 10y agoI am not sure what happened in this situation, but I have to warn any HNers that have teslas or might get behind the wheel of one -- do not rely on the autopilot!!! If you are using the autopilot you must be in a heightened sense of alert, not lowered. The autopilot can get you into a dicey situation, and then you have to take over control and react very fast.
- DennisAleynikov 10y agoI hope you read the release and find out what happens, I look forward to a thorough investigation into the sensors that failed in this case. I may be wrong, but a majority of HN readers with teslas understand that it's a glorified cruise-control that can stay within a lane up to a certain degree. It's an autopilot in the same sense that autopilots exist for airplanes - and airliners are NOT WITHOUT PROFESSIONAL PILOTS. It might be that the bar needs to be raised for drivers licenses for semi-autonomous vehicles.
- mxfh 10y agoIt's a blind spot. Dozens of cyclist get mowed down by right turning trucks every year in Germany alone and nobody cares about implementing a mandatory technological solution (beyond upgrading mirrors and optional camera systems) for that well defined space and situation at relative slow speeds, because costs to the logistic companies. At least with the autonomous cars everybody still seems to care about eliminating more or less rare errors all together, because we seem less forgiving to technological than human error. And adding a fitting sensors and detection algorithms to eliminate that blind spot is relatively easy and cheap if the car has already a sensor network infrastructure. I doubt that similar accidents with human drivers would even get their own statistical category.
- brianstorms 10y agoAs a pre-autopilot S owner, I've been skeptical of autopilot since the day it was announced. I think folks put too much trust in it, and edge cases, as anyone who's developed software/hardware knows are the gremlins that are almost impossible to completely account for. Edge cases are the things that have kept me from being excited about autopilot. Even 99.99999% reliability means eventually you run into an edge case. Simple math. I also think that Tesla does not do anywhere near enough to educate brand-new owners, especially the non-techie later-adopter owners that are starting to buy Teslas in droves. They're turned loose with these cars and there are enough weirdnesses with the usability and user experience of driving and operating the car that it catches up on people. Add to that the cognitive distractions of 21st century life (esp mobile devices) and you have the makings of new kinds of "normal accidents." I suspect that some time soon it will be a requirement that either DMVs issue new rules for having a license to operate a vehicle with autonomous capability, or, they'll require the manufacturer to certify that the buyer has gone through a certified course of instruction and training offered by the manufacturer or its designate. It may well be that in this case, the victim, who was clearly a Tesla enthusiast and knew a lot about autopilot, may have passed any such testing by DMV or manufacturer with flying colors. Not the point. In general, as Tesla and other manufacturers make autonomy more mainstream, we're going to see these edge case situations more frequently. Me, I view autopilot as a dangerous feature that I would never, ever trust. As a set of incredible SENSORS that help me with second-by-second situational awareness while driving, fine. As a replacement for my driving, hell no.
- TheMagicHorsey 10y agoI think it's a bit ridiculous that the Tesla feature is called an autopilot when it only covers a subset of circumstances a human could handle. I don't see how a human being would not apply brakes when they see a truck perpendicular across a highway ... it can't be missed. The guy was not paying attention simply because the Tesla smoothly handles 95% of circumstances ... something in the other 5% occurred and he relied on the machine because of the smooth previous experience ... and died. The robot led him to believe it was more competent than it really was.
- YeGoblynQueenne 10y agoSo, reading this made me finally realise what I don't like about autonomous cars. tl;dr: stupid bugs can now kill you dead. You know how AI systems, when they fail, they really, really fail? Like, when you ask Google Image Search for "unprofessional hair" and it returns images of black womens' hair because it doesn't have a clue? Or when you ask Google Translate to translate "swallows" to Greek and it comes back with the Greek work for "swallowing" (true story) because it has no idea what either word means, just that they're somehow similar, ish? That sort of thing. When AI fails, it fails in ways that nothing with a brain will ever deign to fail. People don't crash into the sides of barns because they mistook them for the open sky. People don't run over old ladies because they thought they were flowerbeds. Human drivers fail in situations where they don't have time to react- but even given all the time in the world there are situations where a program will simply derp, and derp and derp again until the end of time. And if this happens in the middle of a life or death situation, people die. The same happens with autopilots on planes. So this is what, well, bugs me. I don't guess I get to choose how I die (unless I do it myself) but I'm pretty sure I don't want to die because of a dumb bug in a stupid machine. Therefore, I don't want no cars being "smart" around me. I don't want to be the one driving them and I don't want others driving them around me. The current tech simply can't avoid completely brain-dead mistakes and no road vehicle should be given autonomy until that changes.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mercurialshark 10y agoThe loss is of Joshua D. Brown, 40, of Canton, Ohio. A former Navy SEAL and technologist. Josh was a member of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team Six) prior to founding Nexu Innovations. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/ohio/obituary.aspx?pid=179994314 http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/ohio/obituary.aspx?pid=1799...
- java-man 10y agoI could never understand why Tesla needed the auto-pilot feature. They have too much on their plate already. What possible benefit could it bring to justify adding such a high risk decision?
- tr1ck5t3r 10y agoStrip out the youngest & inexperienced drivers who drag the statistics down quite substantially and you will soon see these automated cars are not as safe as experienced drivers. The way the blog posting is written comparing miles driven per fatality, you are led to believe these cars are 38% safer than they really are. The figure being touted by Tesla counting miles driven doesnt tell you that those are interrupted miles driven where the software couldnt decide what to do and hands back immediately to the driver for a period of time, unlike a human who in essence is performing uninterrupted driving miles. I wouldnt trust a dead duck in any of these automated cars at the moment but then a fool is easily parted with their money and I have noticed the United States IQ is in decline. Must be all the sugar consumed.
- dang 10y agoTurning that into a national slur was quite distasteful and not allowed here. Please don't do it again. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12012001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12012001 and marked it off-topic.
- suprgeek 10y agoHere is the meat of the Post: "Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. The high ride height of the trailer combined with its positioning across the road and the extremely rare circumstances of the impact caused the Model S to pass under the trailer, with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S" 1) The Sensors did not "see" the trailer due to Bright sunlight & <XYZ> 2) The Collision was at the WindShield Level and above but not to the Front Neither of these sound like "Extremely Rare" occurrences. That part is just pure PR Spin. Request for TESLA - You are doing great things to move the whole industry forward. Do not F* it up by being too aggressive here. 1) Do not rely on purely Visual cues use (multiple) Radars/LiDARs/Some thing that works irrespective of Visible Light conditions - so an additional Radar unit on Top that is checking for obstacles at the height of the car would make sense. 2) Improved Crash sensors Till then DISABLE the system except in very limited circumstances even if the owner tries to activate it. This is NOT a "Move Fast and Break things" situation. Some poor soul lost his life because of Tesla's inability to foresee this situation lulled him into a false sense of complacency (and partly his own inattention).
- vinceguidry 10y agoIf Autopilot had been on the truck, the accident would have never happened.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ikeboy 10y agohttp://electrek.co/2015/12/22/man-dies-tesla-model-s-crash-dump-truck-first-death/ http://electrek.co/2015/12/22/man-dies-tesla-model-s-crash-d... Interesting, says model s was rated the safest of any car tested.
- danso 10y agoWorth pointing out that this crash happened on May 7: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/self-driving-tesla-fatal-crash-investigation.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/self-driving-tesl... It's a little bit odd that the press release's sole specific reference to time -- "We learned yesterday" -- is in its 3rd word...which, for me, made me think the accident happened yesterday, or shortly before...Not two months before.
- ChicagoBoy11 10y agoI wrote this on a comment thread 260 days ago when the autopilot features were introduced. >A common phrase in aircraft cockpits nowadays is "What the heck is it doing now?" as pilots have migrated from actually flying the plane to simply being glorified systems managers. While planes have become so, so, so much safer because of all this automation, pilots uncertainty regarding autopilot functioning is a major concern nowadays, and the reason for several accidents. There are very interesting HCI challenges around properly communicating to the pilot/driver "what the heck it is doing" and clearly communicating just how much control the human has or doesn't have at any given point. This "announcement" certainly doesn't inspire any confidence that they have really thought this through deeply enough (I think they probably have, but it should be communicated like it). As a huge Tesla fan, I can't help but feel like I need to hold my breath now and make sure something terrible doesn't happen because of this, and it ends up leading to even more regs setting us back on the path to full car automation. I really hate having been right. But from the ensuing discussion here about the rightness or wrongness about labeling features "beta" in the car, to the disconnect of how the technology was "meant" to be used versus how it was portrayed by the company itself, it is pretty clear they really fucked up. The huge discrepancy between the cautionary tone of this press release and everything that came before it is a great reminder that while some of us may be really worried about preventing AI from having unintended consequences in our society, there are at the same time many more pressing issues that we must address that are very much caused by very human motivations and actions.
- Animats 10y agoHere's the NHTSA investigation information. This is the beginning of the process that leads to recalls. INVESTIGATION Subject : Automatic vehicle control systems Date Investigation Opened: JUN 28, 2016 Date Investigation Closed: Open NHTSA Action Number: PE16007 Component(s): FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE Manufacturer: Tesla Motors, Inc. SUMMARY: ODI has identified, from information provided by Tesla and from other sources, a report of a fatal highway crash involving a 2015 Tesla Model S operating with automated driving systems (?Autopilot?) activated. This preliminary evaluation is being opened to examine the design and performance of any automated driving systems in use at the time of the crash.[1] INVESTIGATION RESUME Manufacturer: Tesla Motors, Inc. Products: 2015 Tesla Model S Population: 25,000 (Estimated) Problem Description: A fatal highway crash involving a 2015 Tesla Model S which, according to Tesla, was operating with automated driving systems (“Autopilot”) engaged, calls for an examination of the design and performance of any driving aids in use at the time of the crash.[2] [1] http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/owners/RecentInvestigations http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/owners/RecentInvestigations [2] http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/cs/jaxrs/download/doc/UCM530776/INOA-PE16007-7080.PDF http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/cs/jaxrs/download/doc/UCM5...
- UnoriginalGuy 10y agoTesla sat on this for two months and then released it on the 30th of June. Why is that date important? It is the end of the third quarter in the US which runs from the 1st of April until today. It is also a holiday weekend. So while, unsurprisingly, everyone here wants to defend Tesla's tone it is hard not to look at the date of this release with a lot of cynicism. They've waited for a great day to bury bad news, and to hide any financial costs. No doubt all the replies below will claim this is coincidence that Tesla announced this at the end of a quarter on a holiday weekend late in the day.
- ascotan 10y agoBeing an early adopter for something that can kill you seems quite risky.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoAnd yet, folks take restless-leg syndrome pills and Viagra without a second thought. As a society we're OK with some risk.
- JTenerife 10y agoThe reason why most other manufacturers haven't released their autonomous driving is not that their systems aren't as sophisticated as Tesla's, but that all systems out there aren't ready yet. Tesla is stellar in many ways but to release their autopilot was way to risky.
- chdir 10y agoIf autonomous cars can lead to a significant reduction in road fatalities, then we aren't we in the right direction ? I was hoping that the discussion here would consider the outcome of autonomous vs non-autonomous cars in totality instead of having an emotionally charged outburst against a big corporation. Yes, maybe this is not the right time for Tesla to go all defensive but that's expected & that's how almost any company would respond. Why waste all the energy discussing that only. Yes, people will get careless with autonomous cars, but don't they do it with regular cars too ? Cellphone, coffee, makeup, etc. So I disagree that autonomous cars have to be perfect. An automobile is like a weapon in the driver's hand. If they aren't careful, they can hurt someone including themselves. Autonomous systems are there to help reduce the chances of mundane accidents due to the driver being distracted or less than capable. They are not their to replace a human yet. My point of view is that if a human can't avoid a collision, don't expect the autonomous system to fill the gap. It's their to catch "some" of the errors that a human might make, it's not a foolproof safety net.
- mjevans 10y agoI disagree. We design automation in an attempt to do things, more easily, better, faster, or longer than humanly possible. I do believe that Tesla's cars are likely an aid to, and in many cases better than, a human driver. I think, however, that a more full sensor package will be desired: one that can detect changes at multiple elevations and in many directions. One that is more than humanly ability offers.
- userbinator 10y agoYes, people will get careless with autonomous cars, but don't they do it with regular cars too ? Cellphone, coffee, makeup, etc. So I disagree that autonomous cars have to be perfect. Yes they do, but trying to do something else while driving is additional cognitive load --- they still have to be paying some attention to driving, whereas "it just drives itself" automation allows a complete diversion of attention. In other words, the automation encourages carelessness.
- chdir 10y ago> automation encourages carelessness Is that a hypothesis or are there statistics on accidents & fatalities to back it up. Curious, not denying what you say. I don't have statistics either.
- dgudkov 10y agoIt's a big mistake to allow autonomous driving with speeds that are potentially fatal -- the technology is still not tested enough. It should've been a good decade of autonomous driving with speeds strictly not more than 10-20mph(15-30kph), and only then gradually increasing it. It was clearly a marketing rush for sensational features to ensure sales.
- mariust 10y agoI think that the radar is broken in terms of the angle that it does it scan, it should be 180 per 180 degrees from left to right and from road surface to top. I have a hunch that now it's just 180 left to right and somewhere around 30-45 road to top.
- a3n 10y ago> It is important to note that Tesla disables Autopilot by default and requires explicit acknowledgement that the system is new technology and still in a public beta phase before it can be enabled. The driver of the truck wasn't asked to sign that.