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They also provide numbers without any context. Is a crash every 85,000 times in that intersection means the Autopilot is safe or is it a death trap? There are

They also provide numbers without any context. Is a crash every 85,000 times in that intersection means the Autopilot is safe or is it a death trap? There are over 200,000 cars a day driving at that stretch of highway, if a car crashes there once a week, then the Tesla Autopilot is an order of magnitude more dangerous than a human driver.

greglindahl 9y ago
How is Tesla supposed to know, yet, if Autopilot actually made the maneuver? They're saying what they know. Edit: in a posting today, Tesla has said more: https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week’s-accident https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week’s-accident but at the time of the earlier blog posting, Tesla says they did not know yet.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  They definitely know. They collect your driving data even when auto pilot is off, so I'd imagine they collect everything when the autopilot is actually engaged.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    Tesla specifically said that the information was in the car and wasn't transmitted to HQ, so they didn't know. If what you say is true, they're lying to the USG. Let me share an example. I had an accident in a Model S, front-end, which didn't cause a loss of power. Tesla called me a couple of minutes later, saying that they knew I'd had an airbag-deploying accident, and asking if I needed an ambulance. From the description of this accident, power to the Tesla was lost before there was time to phone home.
- brfox 9y ago
  From their blog: "In the US, there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers. For Tesla, there is one fatality, including known pedestrian fatalities, every 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware. If you are driving a Tesla equipped with Autopilot hardware, you are 3.7 times less likely to be involved in a fatal accident." Notice it says one fatality per "320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware." But, how many of those miles (or what percent of the time) does a Tesla driver use Autopilot? Also, maybe those good stats are due to the structural safety features and not the autopilot. It may be more fair to compare to other cars with excellent crash protection but no autopilot. I think it would be a great service to the world to improve driving safety, but maybe we need to really start looking at the stats and get some more hubris as we transition to full autopilot. For example, require that drivers keep their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. When more cars have autopilot, then mesh behavior between vehicles, and e-road features, then maybe we'll be more ready for driver-less cars.
  - mozumder 9y ago
    > In the US, there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers. Also note that this includes trucks and motorcycles, which have much, much higher fatality rates than passenger cars. Motorcycles are around 10x-50x higher fatality rate than cars! So already Tesla's blog is doing a misleading comparison to more deadly vehicle classes. Additionally, there could be all sorts of other variables that make it hide even comparison. Are Tesla drivers physically comparable to regular drivers? Are they older? Younger? Both elderly and young kids have a higher accident rates. Are Teslas driven in rural areas and urban areas the same as regular cars? Because rural areas have a higher fatality rate. So we need to make sure that the Tesla driver matches driving conditions of typical cars to make autopilot comparisons valid. Right now, it appears Tesla's autopilot is a death-trap.
    - kss238 9y ago
      And don't forget to only compare against 2012+ luxury sedans. The median age of U.S. passenger cars is nearly 12 years. There are exactly 0 autopilot equipped 12 year old cars. As vehicles have become significantly safer in the past 12 years, I wouldn't be surprised if the fatality rate of 2012 and newer luxury sedans was a third of the U.S. median.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - arcticfox 9y ago
      > Right now, it appears Tesla's autopilot is a death-trap. I agree with all the holes you poked in their stats, but then with the last sentence you just went way off the deep end. What does "death trap" mean to you? To me, it seems likely the Autopilot engaged is about as dangerous as disengaged.
      - tzakrajs 9y ago
        Do you find yourself veering dangerously close to a traffic barrier on a regular basis (waiting for the day that the crash attenuator becomes defunct so you can slam into it)? I don't and any machine that does that qualifies as a death trap.
- oldgradstudent 9y ago
  They are trying to defend a themselves disingenuously, they provide numbers that sound impressive, but lack any meaning because context is lacking.
- taneq 9y ago
  > For Tesla, there is one fatality, including known pedestrian fatalities, every 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware. If you are driving a Tesla equipped with Autopilot hardware, you are 3.7 times less likely to be involved in a fatal accident. That's very curious wording. The important number would seem to be "millions of miles per fatality while Autopilot is enabled", not "millions of miles per fatality in Autopilot-equipped vehicles". The way it's phrased, I wonder what part of that 3.7x multiplier is unrelated to Autopilot and is just due to the car's high safety rating in a collision, recent release (no long tail of older, less safe models contributing to the statistics), and luxury status (more likely to be driven conservatively by old rich people.)
  - otalp 9y ago
    I think there's automatic collision avoidance always on that uses the autopilot sensors. So even if you're not actively using autopilot, the car can avoid hitting an obstacle it sees on the road.
    - rowyourboat 9y ago
      True, but most cars in the luxury-sedan segment (and quite a few compact cars) can do that, so this is not autopilot-specific.
      - makomk 9y ago
        Yeah, and automatic emergency braking is a clear-cut enough win for safety that there's been talk of making it mandatory on all new cars in a few years' time. Tesla seem to have adopted a deliberate strategy of conflating the safety benefits of an uncontroversial feature many cars have with the much more questionable safety of their autopilot mode in order to promote the latter. The big example Elon Musk was pushing of Autopilot preventing an accident and likely saving someone's life was the result of automatic emergency braking in conditions very far from those autopilot mode could be used in (heavy rain in an urban area at night, if I remember correctly).
        9y ago

greglindahl 9y ago

How is Tesla supposed to know, yet, if Autopilot actually made the maneuver? They're saying what they know. Edit: in a posting today, Tesla has said more: https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week’s-accident https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week’s-accident but at the time of the earlier blog posting, Tesla says they did not know yet.

dingo_bat 9y ago
They definitely know. They collect your driving data even when auto pilot is off, so I'd imagine they collect everything when the autopilot is actually engaged.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  Tesla specifically said that the information was in the car and wasn't transmitted to HQ, so they didn't know. If what you say is true, they're lying to the USG. Let me share an example. I had an accident in a Model S, front-end, which didn't cause a loss of power. Tesla called me a couple of minutes later, saying that they knew I'd had an airbag-deploying accident, and asking if I needed an ambulance. From the description of this accident, power to the Tesla was lost before there was time to phone home.
brfox 9y ago
From their blog: "In the US, there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers. For Tesla, there is one fatality, including known pedestrian fatalities, every 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware. If you are driving a Tesla equipped with Autopilot hardware, you are 3.7 times less likely to be involved in a fatal accident." Notice it says one fatality per "320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware." But, how many of those miles (or what percent of the time) does a Tesla driver use Autopilot? Also, maybe those good stats are due to the structural safety features and not the autopilot. It may be more fair to compare to other cars with excellent crash protection but no autopilot. I think it would be a great service to the world to improve driving safety, but maybe we need to really start looking at the stats and get some more hubris as we transition to full autopilot. For example, require that drivers keep their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. When more cars have autopilot, then mesh behavior between vehicles, and e-road features, then maybe we'll be more ready for driver-less cars.
- mozumder 9y ago
  > In the US, there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers. Also note that this includes trucks and motorcycles, which have much, much higher fatality rates than passenger cars. Motorcycles are around 10x-50x higher fatality rate than cars! So already Tesla's blog is doing a misleading comparison to more deadly vehicle classes. Additionally, there could be all sorts of other variables that make it hide even comparison. Are Tesla drivers physically comparable to regular drivers? Are they older? Younger? Both elderly and young kids have a higher accident rates. Are Teslas driven in rural areas and urban areas the same as regular cars? Because rural areas have a higher fatality rate. So we need to make sure that the Tesla driver matches driving conditions of typical cars to make autopilot comparisons valid. Right now, it appears Tesla's autopilot is a death-trap.
  - kss238 9y ago
    And don't forget to only compare against 2012+ luxury sedans. The median age of U.S. passenger cars is nearly 12 years. There are exactly 0 autopilot equipped 12 year old cars. As vehicles have become significantly safer in the past 12 years, I wouldn't be surprised if the fatality rate of 2012 and newer luxury sedans was a third of the U.S. median.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - arcticfox 9y ago
    > Right now, it appears Tesla's autopilot is a death-trap. I agree with all the holes you poked in their stats, but then with the last sentence you just went way off the deep end. What does "death trap" mean to you? To me, it seems likely the Autopilot engaged is about as dangerous as disengaged.
    - tzakrajs 9y ago
      Do you find yourself veering dangerously close to a traffic barrier on a regular basis (waiting for the day that the crash attenuator becomes defunct so you can slam into it)? I don't and any machine that does that qualifies as a death trap.
oldgradstudent 9y ago
They are trying to defend a themselves disingenuously, they provide numbers that sound impressive, but lack any meaning because context is lacking.
taneq 9y ago
> For Tesla, there is one fatality, including known pedestrian fatalities, every 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware. If you are driving a Tesla equipped with Autopilot hardware, you are 3.7 times less likely to be involved in a fatal accident. That's very curious wording. The important number would seem to be "millions of miles per fatality while Autopilot is enabled", not "millions of miles per fatality in Autopilot-equipped vehicles". The way it's phrased, I wonder what part of that 3.7x multiplier is unrelated to Autopilot and is just due to the car's high safety rating in a collision, recent release (no long tail of older, less safe models contributing to the statistics), and luxury status (more likely to be driven conservatively by old rich people.)
- otalp 9y ago
  I think there's automatic collision avoidance always on that uses the autopilot sensors. So even if you're not actively using autopilot, the car can avoid hitting an obstacle it sees on the road.
  - rowyourboat 9y ago
    True, but most cars in the luxury-sedan segment (and quite a few compact cars) can do that, so this is not autopilot-specific.
    - makomk 9y ago
      Yeah, and automatic emergency braking is a clear-cut enough win for safety that there's been talk of making it mandatory on all new cars in a few years' time. Tesla seem to have adopted a deliberate strategy of conflating the safety benefits of an uncontroversial feature many cars have with the much more questionable safety of their autopilot mode in order to promote the latter. The big example Elon Musk was pushing of Autopilot preventing an accident and likely saving someone's life was the result of automatic emergency braking in conditions very far from those autopilot mode could be used in (heavy rain in an urban area at night, if I remember correctly).
      - 9y ago