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I really hate the whole Tesla angle of "technically we are not lying but we know people are going to mis-remember and misrepresent what we are writing". Take f

by jVinc 9y ago

I really hate the whole Tesla angle of "technically we are not lying but we know people are going to mis-remember and misrepresent what we are writing". Take for instance: > The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive... What this means is that during this incident there were No visual or audible clues that a crash was about to happen What they are saying is that while he was driving there was an earlier point at which the car did not crash, where the car gave a visual and audible clues. And you have to ask? Why the hell is that relevant? It isn't. They are stating it as a fact because they know some people will incorrectly claim that the car warned the driver prior to the crash. With their eager to try to explain what happened why aren't they talking about what actually went wrong? Why did the car drive straight into a barrier. If their claim is that it was cased by the driver not having his hands on the wheel for 5 seconds, then they need to fold the company and give up trying to create self driving cars. That is Not acceptable of a self driving system. The fact that the barrier was damaged intensified the accident, but that does not in any way excuse their system driving straight into it. And no, you can't get out of culpability by claiming statistical superiority. That's like a gang-member drying to get out of jail after killing a rival gang member because his gang statistically kills fewer people. Tesla has put a product in the hands of consumers, when it kills those consumers they need to step up to the plate and be honest about their fuckups, not just blame the drivers, blame the infrastructure and point to statistics.

Rapzid 9y ago
Yeah, it's pretty crafty PR. The CPC must be green with envy, while Uber is still ruing their reputation. Such a difference in conversation; so many people laying the blame squarely on the driver(he is ultimately the PIC tbh, but Tesla and particularly CalTrans messed up bad), however Uber is being raked through the coals when somebody literally walked in front of their car.. Just Say'n EDIT: While I believe Tesla and the driver are the ultimate source of the accident, I believe CalTrans messed up worse with that barrier. At least Tesla owns up to the limitations and warns drivers to stay in control, but why the hell was that barrier not replace d?! What systemic mediocracy is playing out there that they have road work signs with dates 3 years old on them, and a critical safety barrier is just missing with traffic flow as usual?!
- pja 9y ago
  somebody literally walked in front of their car.. The analysis I've seen suggested that the self-driving system in the Uber vehicle had 4 or 5 seconds to detect the pedestrian crossing the road in front of them. Driving into a pedestrian on the road in that circumstance is /not/ acceptable for any driver, be they human or automated. Don't be fooled by the video footage Uber released from the in-car camera - the quality is appalling. Compare it with the dashcam footage taken by people driving the same road at the same time & you'll see that visibility should have been perfect & a human driver would easily have avoided the pedestrian who was doing something that all of do every day - crossing the road.
  - Rapzid 9y ago
    It is acceptable though, most people wouldn't even get involuntary manslaughter which still requires criminal negligence. People are really spouting off here and project in their own superiority onto the situation. It's a situation similar to when a child gets left in a car or jumps a zoo fence, "I never take my eye off my kids even for one second even when I'm sleeping. I would never allow that to happen to my kids. Worst parent/person who has ever walked the earth". Not only did the pedestrian instigate that, the failsafe(which are supposed to be very simple to back up complex and more fallable systems) to not getting hit and killed by a car was entirely in the pedestrians area of responsibility; don't walk into traffic.
    - pja 9y ago
      I disagree with your implied belief that cars should have priority on the roads & that in every collision with a pedestrian it's implicitly the pedestrian who is at fault unless it can be proven otherwise. We all owe each other a duty of care. Excuses about 'she just walked out in front of me' are just that: excuses. The driver in this case had plenty of time to slow down and avoid a collision & simply chose not to do so. That's inexcusable. The fact that the driver was a pile of self-driving code doesn't change that one iota.
    - abalone 9y ago
      > It is acceptable though [to drive into a pedestrian] No. Children wander into roads. Drivers have a responsibility to keep an eye out for the unexpected. They are faultless only if they were driving responsibly and had no opportunity to react — neither of which were the case with the Uber.
_ph_ 9y ago
Perhaps they don't know (yet?) what exactly went wrong? The car was heavily destroyed, I am surprised they got any logs retrieved from the car at all. They might be able to reconstruct more information about the accident, but unless they have a complete log including video (unlikely), it will take time to reconstruct. As there is an ongoing investigation about the accident, it is understandable, that they are not making any statements beyond anything they can prove without a doubt at the current point of time.
- Rapzid 9y ago
  Sure, but the ONLY reason many of us can figure for mentioning the previous warnings in the way they did is because the way it would.get interpreted as a sound bite. Could be wrong, but this isn't conspiracy theory territory. These companies have teams of highly paid communications experts(spinsters) engaging in social engineering.
sweden 9y ago
It's widely known that RADAR systems are not able to detect stationary objects, only moving ones. Actually, they are are to detect them but just not where they come from, so a barrier in the middle of the road and a traffic sign on the side of the street, they would look like the same to the RADAR system. But to be honest, I am more worried with the markings of the road rather than the inability of the autopilot of not foreseeing the accident: https://imgur.com/a/hAeQI https://imgur.com/a/hAeQI What's wrong with the US road administration? Why is this even look like a driving line? Where are the obvious markings? It's a very misleading road layout, I am curious the amount of accidents that happen there every year. This is how I expect this kind of thing to look like: https://i.imgur.com/dfZehmd.gif https://i.imgur.com/dfZehmd.gif Given on how the road looks like, it makes more sense why Tesla is reinforcing the fact that the driver wasn't paying attention to the road. Edit: Since people are curious about the limitations of the RADAR, the manual of the car mentions this limitation: "Traffic-Aware Cruise Control cannot detect all objects and may not brake/decelerate for stationary vehicles, especially in situations when you are driving over 50 mph (80 km/h) and a vehicle you are following moves out of your driving path and a stationary vehicle or object is in front of you instead." You can also read here that Volvo's system faces the same problem: https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-why-crash-radar/ https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-why-crash-radar/
- bufferoverflow 9y ago
  > It's widely known that RADAR systems are not able to detect stationary objects, only moving ones. Actually, they are are to detect them but just not where they come from That doesn't make any sense. Radar systems do detect stationary objects just fine. In fact, from the point of view of the moving car, almost nothing is stationary. I wouldn't be surprised if you're correct about the markings on the road, I almost crashed into a temporary barrier driving at night, because there were two sets of lane markings - the old ones, and the ones going around the barrier. Construction workers simply didn't bother to erase the old ones.
  - sweden 9y ago
    It is mentioned in the manual of the car: "Traffic-Aware Cruise Control cannot detect all objects and may not brake/decelerate for stationary vehicles, especially in situations when you are driving over 50 mph (80 km/h) and a vehicle you are following moves out of your driving path and a stationary vehicle or object is in front of you instead." You can also read here that Volvo's system faces the same problem: https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-why-crash-radar/ https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-why-crash-radar/
pja 9y ago
And no, you can't get out of culpability by claiming statistical superiority. Quite. Tesla is deliberately comparing their modern vehicle design & wealthy driver base (statistically one of the safest cohorts) with the entirety of the U.S. driving population. This is bad statistics: We expect Tesla vehicles to have far fewer accidents than the mean US vehicle per mile, because Tesla's are expensive modern vehicles with (relatively) wealthy drivers who can afford to keep them maintained & will themselves be in better health than the mean US driver. Don't tell us how safe Tesla's are compared to the entire US driving population: Tell us how safe they are compared to equivalent vehicles from other manufacturers. My working assumption is that Tesla doesn't do that because it would be far less flattering to the 'A Tesla is totally safe, honest' PR boosterism that runs through every Tesla press release.
- kristianc 9y ago
  > Quite. Tesla is deliberately comparing their modern vehicle design & wealthy driver base (statistically one of the safest cohorts) with the entirety of the U.S. driving population. This is bad statistics: We expect Tesla vehicles to have far fewer accidents than the mean US vehicle per mile, because Tesla's are expensive modern vehicles with (relatively) wealthy drivers who can afford to keep them maintained & will themselves be in better health than the mean US driver. You're going to have to explain to me how the wealth of a driver has any bearing on their ability to pilot a self-driving car.
  - fcantournet 9y ago
    Statistically if you're wealthy enough to own a Tesla, you're also way less likely to have to drive when tired/under the influence for example. All sorts of constraints are correlated with wealth that put you in way more risky situations if you're poorer.
    - roesel 9y ago
      Do you have anything to back this claim? It seems to not make sense.
thinkloop 9y ago
And look who fell for it (techcrunch): "However, it seems the driver ignored the vehicle’s warnings to take back control" [1] Followed by the quote from Tesla that at some point in the history of the ride a warning of some sort was given. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/30/tesla-says-fatal-crash-involved-autopilot/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/30/tesla-says-fatal-crash-inv...
- newman8r 9y ago
  yeah that's pretty bad. I wonder if they'll correct it.
mtgx 9y ago
Also, ever notice how in none of the Tesla Autopilot accidents, Tesla finds itself guilty? I don't even read these posts from Tesla anymore because I know each one of them is just justification for how Tesla did nothing wrong, and it's the fault of the stupid human driver for using its Autopilot "wrong" and dying in the process. Meanwhile, Tesla is laughing all the way to the bank selling the usage of Autopilot as one of the primary features of its cars. It almost reminds me of how Coke markets its sugar-filled soda "Drink as much as you can at every meal and at any event...but you know, in moderation (because that's what the government makes us say with its dietary guidelines)". Tesla is kind of like that. It tells people to use Autopilot because it's such a great experience and whatnot, but then stuffs its terms and conditions with stuff like "but don't you dare to actually lay back and enjoy the Autopilot driving. You need to watch the car like a hawk, and if you happen to ignore any of our warnings, well it's your stupid-ass fault for ignoring them, even though we wrote everything there in the 11-point font." It's very irresponsible for any company to do stuff like this. I don't know what the exact process is now, but I wish the authorities would be able to get access to un-tampered logs of the accident after the fact from the self-driving car companies. I don't care if it's a car company that has "Elon Musk's reputation" (who I like) or Uber's reputation. These accidents, especially the deadly ones, should be investigated thoroughly. No company will ever have the incentive to show proof that leads to itself becoming guilty. It's the job of the authorities to independently (and hopefully impartially) verify those facts. I'm a big fan of Tesla and its electric vehicles, big fan of Tesla Energy, big fan of SpaceX. But I've always criticized them for the Autopilot because it was obvious to me from day one that they're being very irresponsible with it and putting the blame on humans, when they were marketing it as a self-driving feature (they did for years, even if they don't do it as much now, but they still use the same name), while its system is far from being anywhere close to a complete self-driving system, and thus putting anyone who uses in danger of dying.
- snarfy 9y ago
  It reminds me of South Park's drink responsibly ad [1]. You could almost replace 'drink' with 'drive' and it would sound like the current autopilot spin. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3osSJSGInQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3osSJSGInQ
- 9y ago
wilun 9y ago
Tesla always blame the "driver" (and publicly so, nonetheless) when they are killed by their "autopilot" (which is actually driving, that is fulfilling the purpose indicated by its name, despite being not very good at it...) -- either directly, or by carefully stating misleading statements that are both technically correct and incredibly dishonest in the context of both the events and the surrounding text. Why people are still using their shit is beyond me. Why they are still authorized to sell it under this marketing (like the name given to it, or the mismatch between the restriction and the practice), I also can't understand: it should be better regulated by the authorities.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  This is probably the worst part about driving a Tesla: Your car is going to testify against you. Because Tesla can and will make a statement like this, and they will always throw you under the bus. Which is a terrible way to treat a customer, as a general practice.
  - ddalex 9y ago
    > Your car is going to testify against you. Presumably Tesla/the car is telling the truth as it saw it. I don't think you're suggesting they're falsifying the logs. > Which is a terrible way to treat a customer I'd assume that Tesla sells you a vehicle, not PR or legal services that protect you in case of an accident. Your expectation that Tesla should take the blame is unreasonable by any standard.
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      I'm not saying Tesla is lying. But I am saying that I could spend six figures on a car from a company that is ready and waiting to stab me in the back. Or, I could spend five figures on a Toyota, knowing that Toyota is not going to sell me out if my car crashes. I mean, look, it makes sense Tesla has to defend itself, especially legally, but there's a big difference between pulling out the logs when you need to for the lawyers and the regulators... and making a public blog post blaming the customer.
pentae 9y ago
Don't you think being honest about their fuckups in situations involving death is just a massive lawsuit? You can't do that in America.
amelius 9y ago
I also dislike how Musk is synonymous with Tesla, except in cases like this.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  The defensiveness, narcissism and lack of true leadership stamped all over this press release scream Musk to me.
pooya13 9y ago
>> That is Not acceptable of a self driving system. Yes. But as we all know autopilot is not the same as self-driving. >> And no, you can't get out of culpability by claiming statistical superiority. In fact no one has found Tesla culpable for the accident. You can however defend the safety of your system by referring to statistics. (In fact that is the ONLY way to measure safety level) And your analogy does not hold. It it more like a parachute company saying their parachutes are safer than other brands because it fails less often than the other brands. Which brings me to my final point. Even if it turns out Tesla was culpable and negligent in this accident, it would not be a complete judgment if we leave out the inherent risks in car manufacturing and the incidents attributed to other companies.
fancyfacebook 9y ago
"And no, you can't get out of culpability by claiming statistical superiority" Every MBA student needs this tattoo'd on the back of their hand in order to graduate from now on.
lsaferite 9y ago
>> The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive > What they are saying is that while he was driving there was an earlier point at which the car did not crash, where the car gave a visual and audible clues. And you have to ask? Why the hell is that relevant? I see it being relevant that the driver had his follow distance set to the lowest and that several times in the drive prior to the accident he had to be prompted to maintain his hands on the wheel. This speaks to a driver that wasn't paying attention like they were supposed to be doing. That would increase the likelihood of him missing an upcoming hazard and responding in time. Regardless of that, if he had reported and issue in that area to Tesla, why the hell was he not driving it himself at the time? I know that I personally value my life enough that I wouldn't trust AP if it had been veering into the wall repeatedly in one area.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
Sadly I have to agree with you on the narrative angle. While I am very impressed with what Tesla has accomplished in their autopilot I find the careful construction and omissions in this follow up post to be done poorly. They omit what speed and what lane the car was travelling in. They omit the time at which the car was no longer behaving in the way in which it had (when did it start heading for the crash barrier? At what point did the wheels closest to the barrier move over the line? etc) They have previously mentioned that their cars have navigated this spot many times in the past (over 200 as I recall) did they note the number with and without the crash barrier intact? How many times was the car in the exit lane and how many times in the lane to the right of the exit lane? How many times have they navigated past it with a damaged crash barrier. The driver had driven this route before, it was his commute to work. Had he driven it with this car on that route in autopilot before? Did it work then? How many times? How many seconds were there between when the driver's car was doing something right (in lane etc) and doing something wrong (straddling the lane). The response indicates there were 5 seconds of visibility coming up to the crash barrier, at what point was the autopilot on a collision course? All of those five seconds? or the last 500mS ? Reading the Tesla response I felt I wasn't getting the whole story, and was getting a whole lot of deflection. That isn't the tone that inspires confidence in me. And that makes me sad because they have done much better in the past. I cannot help but speculate that this time they feel they might have been contributory at least and that a full disclosure would be used against them in a civil suit.
danso 9y ago
I'm pretty sympathetic with PR departments doing what they have to do, in terms of putting out the official boilerplate remorse, the promises to cooperate and keep people up to date, as well as publishing the incident data, and then keeping mum until the investigation is finished. But Tesla is shoveling in the bullshit pretty early on. Besides the fuzzy and deliberately vague stats (why is the mileage attributed to Tesla's "equipped with Autopilot hardware"?), this graf is just despicable: > Tesla Autopilot does not prevent all accidents – such a standard would be impossible – but it makes them much less likely to occur. It unequivocally makes the world safer for the vehicle occupants, pedestrians and cyclists. "unequivocally" has an actual meaning: leaving no doubt. And yet it's used following the paragraph that pretends Tesla's and all U.S. vehicles are directly comparable. I know it sounds silly to focus on that word but someone in Tesla PR thought it needed to be used with the pile of crap numbers. Such blatant and pointless deception -- "significantly" would work just as well for that inane sentence -- feels like a strong a signal to doubt the rest of the info given, as if the evidence weren't already so obviously dubious.
plainOldText 9y ago
Like you’ve predicted, first headline on Techmeme: “Tesla says Autopilot was engaged during fatal Model X crash on Mar. 23, and the driver didn’t respond to warnings to take control of the car before the crash”. Although the linked article has a different title; might’ve been changed.
JimmaDaRustla 9y ago
> What they are saying is that while he was driving there was an earlier point at which the car did not crash, where the car gave a visual and audible clues. And you have to ask? Why the hell is that relevant? It isn't. Vehicle notifies the driver it's having difficulty operating the driver elected auto pilot mode based on the conditions. Driver elects to continue using the failing operating mode despite being warned. I fail to understand how "It isn't" relevant that the driver chose not to take manual control when warned that conditions were not ideal.

by jVinc 9y ago

Rapzid 9y ago

Yeah, it's pretty crafty PR. The CPC must be green with envy, while Uber is still ruing their reputation. Such a difference in conversation; so many people laying the blame squarely on the driver(he is ultimately the PIC tbh, but Tesla and particularly CalTrans messed up bad), however Uber is being raked through the coals when somebody literally walked in front of their car.. Just Say'n EDIT: While I believe Tesla and the driver are the ultimate source of the accident, I believe CalTrans messed up worse with that barrier. At least Tesla owns up to the limitations and warns drivers to stay in control, but why the hell was that barrier not replace d?! What systemic mediocracy is playing out there that they have road work signs with dates 3 years old on them, and a critical safety barrier is just missing with traffic flow as usual?!

pja 9y ago
somebody literally walked in front of their car.. The analysis I've seen suggested that the self-driving system in the Uber vehicle had 4 or 5 seconds to detect the pedestrian crossing the road in front of them. Driving into a pedestrian on the road in that circumstance is /not/ acceptable for any driver, be they human or automated. Don't be fooled by the video footage Uber released from the in-car camera - the quality is appalling. Compare it with the dashcam footage taken by people driving the same road at the same time & you'll see that visibility should have been perfect & a human driver would easily have avoided the pedestrian who was doing something that all of do every day - crossing the road.
- Rapzid 9y ago
  It is acceptable though, most people wouldn't even get involuntary manslaughter which still requires criminal negligence. People are really spouting off here and project in their own superiority onto the situation. It's a situation similar to when a child gets left in a car or jumps a zoo fence, "I never take my eye off my kids even for one second even when I'm sleeping. I would never allow that to happen to my kids. Worst parent/person who has ever walked the earth". Not only did the pedestrian instigate that, the failsafe(which are supposed to be very simple to back up complex and more fallable systems) to not getting hit and killed by a car was entirely in the pedestrians area of responsibility; don't walk into traffic.
  - pja 9y ago
    I disagree with your implied belief that cars should have priority on the roads & that in every collision with a pedestrian it's implicitly the pedestrian who is at fault unless it can be proven otherwise. We all owe each other a duty of care. Excuses about 'she just walked out in front of me' are just that: excuses. The driver in this case had plenty of time to slow down and avoid a collision & simply chose not to do so. That's inexcusable. The fact that the driver was a pile of self-driving code doesn't change that one iota.
  - abalone 9y ago
    > It is acceptable though [to drive into a pedestrian] No. Children wander into roads. Drivers have a responsibility to keep an eye out for the unexpected. They are faultless only if they were driving responsibly and had no opportunity to react — neither of which were the case with the Uber.

_ph_ 9y ago

Perhaps they don't know (yet?) what exactly went wrong? The car was heavily destroyed, I am surprised they got any logs retrieved from the car at all. They might be able to reconstruct more information about the accident, but unless they have a complete log including video (unlikely), it will take time to reconstruct. As there is an ongoing investigation about the accident, it is understandable, that they are not making any statements beyond anything they can prove without a doubt at the current point of time.

Rapzid 9y ago
Sure, but the ONLY reason many of us can figure for mentioning the previous warnings in the way they did is because the way it would.get interpreted as a sound bite. Could be wrong, but this isn't conspiracy theory territory. These companies have teams of highly paid communications experts(spinsters) engaging in social engineering.

sweden 9y ago

It's widely known that RADAR systems are not able to detect stationary objects, only moving ones. Actually, they are are to detect them but just not where they come from, so a barrier in the middle of the road and a traffic sign on the side of the street, they would look like the same to the RADAR system. But to be honest, I am more worried with the markings of the road rather than the inability of the autopilot of not foreseeing the accident: https://imgur.com/a/hAeQI https://imgur.com/a/hAeQI What's wrong with the US road administration? Why is this even look like a driving line? Where are the obvious markings? It's a very misleading road layout, I am curious the amount of accidents that happen there every year. This is how I expect this kind of thing to look like: https://i.imgur.com/dfZehmd.gif https://i.imgur.com/dfZehmd.gif Given on how the road looks like, it makes more sense why Tesla is reinforcing the fact that the driver wasn't paying attention to the road. Edit: Since people are curious about the limitations of the RADAR, the manual of the car mentions this limitation: "Traffic-Aware Cruise Control cannot detect all objects and may not brake/decelerate for stationary vehicles, especially in situations when you are driving over 50 mph (80 km/h) and a vehicle you are following moves out of your driving path and a stationary vehicle or object is in front of you instead." You can also read here that Volvo's system faces the same problem: https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-why-crash-radar/ https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-why-crash-radar/

bufferoverflow 9y ago
> It's widely known that RADAR systems are not able to detect stationary objects, only moving ones. Actually, they are are to detect them but just not where they come from That doesn't make any sense. Radar systems do detect stationary objects just fine. In fact, from the point of view of the moving car, almost nothing is stationary. I wouldn't be surprised if you're correct about the markings on the road, I almost crashed into a temporary barrier driving at night, because there were two sets of lane markings - the old ones, and the ones going around the barrier. Construction workers simply didn't bother to erase the old ones.
- sweden 9y ago
  It is mentioned in the manual of the car: "Traffic-Aware Cruise Control cannot detect all objects and may not brake/decelerate for stationary vehicles, especially in situations when you are driving over 50 mph (80 km/h) and a vehicle you are following moves out of your driving path and a stationary vehicle or object is in front of you instead." You can also read here that Volvo's system faces the same problem: https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-why-crash-radar/ https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-why-crash-radar/

pja 9y ago

And no, you can't get out of culpability by claiming statistical superiority. Quite. Tesla is deliberately comparing their modern vehicle design & wealthy driver base (statistically one of the safest cohorts) with the entirety of the U.S. driving population. This is bad statistics: We expect Tesla vehicles to have far fewer accidents than the mean US vehicle per mile, because Tesla's are expensive modern vehicles with (relatively) wealthy drivers who can afford to keep them maintained & will themselves be in better health than the mean US driver. Don't tell us how safe Tesla's are compared to the entire US driving population: Tell us how safe they are compared to equivalent vehicles from other manufacturers. My working assumption is that Tesla doesn't do that because it would be far less flattering to the 'A Tesla is totally safe, honest' PR boosterism that runs through every Tesla press release.

kristianc 9y ago
> Quite. Tesla is deliberately comparing their modern vehicle design & wealthy driver base (statistically one of the safest cohorts) with the entirety of the U.S. driving population. This is bad statistics: We expect Tesla vehicles to have far fewer accidents than the mean US vehicle per mile, because Tesla's are expensive modern vehicles with (relatively) wealthy drivers who can afford to keep them maintained & will themselves be in better health than the mean US driver. You're going to have to explain to me how the wealth of a driver has any bearing on their ability to pilot a self-driving car.
- fcantournet 9y ago
  Statistically if you're wealthy enough to own a Tesla, you're also way less likely to have to drive when tired/under the influence for example. All sorts of constraints are correlated with wealth that put you in way more risky situations if you're poorer.
  - roesel 9y ago
    Do you have anything to back this claim? It seems to not make sense.

thinkloop 9y ago

And look who fell for it (techcrunch): "However, it seems the driver ignored the vehicle’s warnings to take back control" [1] Followed by the quote from Tesla that at some point in the history of the ride a warning of some sort was given. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/30/tesla-says-fatal-crash-involved-autopilot/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/30/tesla-says-fatal-crash-inv...

newman8r 9y ago
yeah that's pretty bad. I wonder if they'll correct it.

mtgx 9y ago

Also, ever notice how in none of the Tesla Autopilot accidents, Tesla finds itself guilty? I don't even read these posts from Tesla anymore because I know each one of them is just justification for how Tesla did nothing wrong, and it's the fault of the stupid human driver for using its Autopilot "wrong" and dying in the process. Meanwhile, Tesla is laughing all the way to the bank selling the usage of Autopilot as one of the primary features of its cars. It almost reminds me of how Coke markets its sugar-filled soda "Drink as much as you can at every meal and at any event...but you know, in moderation (because that's what the government makes us say with its dietary guidelines)". Tesla is kind of like that. It tells people to use Autopilot because it's such a great experience and whatnot, but then stuffs its terms and conditions with stuff like "but don't you dare to actually lay back and enjoy the Autopilot driving. You need to watch the car like a hawk, and if you happen to ignore any of our warnings, well it's your stupid-ass fault for ignoring them, even though we wrote everything there in the 11-point font." It's very irresponsible for any company to do stuff like this. I don't know what the exact process is now, but I wish the authorities would be able to get access to un-tampered logs of the accident after the fact from the self-driving car companies. I don't care if it's a car company that has "Elon Musk's reputation" (who I like) or Uber's reputation. These accidents, especially the deadly ones, should be investigated thoroughly. No company will ever have the incentive to show proof that leads to itself becoming guilty. It's the job of the authorities to independently (and hopefully impartially) verify those facts. I'm a big fan of Tesla and its electric vehicles, big fan of Tesla Energy, big fan of SpaceX. But I've always criticized them for the Autopilot because it was obvious to me from day one that they're being very irresponsible with it and putting the blame on humans, when they were marketing it as a self-driving feature (they did for years, even if they don't do it as much now, but they still use the same name), while its system is far from being anywhere close to a complete self-driving system, and thus putting anyone who uses in danger of dying.

snarfy 9y ago
It reminds me of South Park's drink responsibly ad [1]. You could almost replace 'drink' with 'drive' and it would sound like the current autopilot spin. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3osSJSGInQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3osSJSGInQ
9y ago

wilun 9y ago

Tesla always blame the "driver" (and publicly so, nonetheless) when they are killed by their "autopilot" (which is actually driving, that is fulfilling the purpose indicated by its name, despite being not very good at it...) -- either directly, or by carefully stating misleading statements that are both technically correct and incredibly dishonest in the context of both the events and the surrounding text. Why people are still using their shit is beyond me. Why they are still authorized to sell it under this marketing (like the name given to it, or the mismatch between the restriction and the practice), I also can't understand: it should be better regulated by the authorities.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
This is probably the worst part about driving a Tesla: Your car is going to testify against you. Because Tesla can and will make a statement like this, and they will always throw you under the bus. Which is a terrible way to treat a customer, as a general practice.
- ddalex 9y ago
  > Your car is going to testify against you. Presumably Tesla/the car is telling the truth as it saw it. I don't think you're suggesting they're falsifying the logs. > Which is a terrible way to treat a customer I'd assume that Tesla sells you a vehicle, not PR or legal services that protect you in case of an accident. Your expectation that Tesla should take the blame is unreasonable by any standard.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    I'm not saying Tesla is lying. But I am saying that I could spend six figures on a car from a company that is ready and waiting to stab me in the back. Or, I could spend five figures on a Toyota, knowing that Toyota is not going to sell me out if my car crashes. I mean, look, it makes sense Tesla has to defend itself, especially legally, but there's a big difference between pulling out the logs when you need to for the lawyers and the regulators... and making a public blog post blaming the customer.

pentae 9y ago

Don't you think being honest about their fuckups in situations involving death is just a massive lawsuit? You can't do that in America.

amelius 9y ago

I also dislike how Musk is synonymous with Tesla, except in cases like this.

rdiddly 9y ago
The defensiveness, narcissism and lack of true leadership stamped all over this press release scream Musk to me.

pooya13 9y ago

>> That is Not acceptable of a self driving system. Yes. But as we all know autopilot is not the same as self-driving. >> And no, you can't get out of culpability by claiming statistical superiority. In fact no one has found Tesla culpable for the accident. You can however defend the safety of your system by referring to statistics. (In fact that is the ONLY way to measure safety level) And your analogy does not hold. It it more like a parachute company saying their parachutes are safer than other brands because it fails less often than the other brands. Which brings me to my final point. Even if it turns out Tesla was culpable and negligent in this accident, it would not be a complete judgment if we leave out the inherent risks in car manufacturing and the incidents attributed to other companies.

fancyfacebook 9y ago

"And no, you can't get out of culpability by claiming statistical superiority" Every MBA student needs this tattoo'd on the back of their hand in order to graduate from now on.

lsaferite 9y ago

>> The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive > What they are saying is that while he was driving there was an earlier point at which the car did not crash, where the car gave a visual and audible clues. And you have to ask? Why the hell is that relevant? I see it being relevant that the driver had his follow distance set to the lowest and that several times in the drive prior to the accident he had to be prompted to maintain his hands on the wheel. This speaks to a driver that wasn't paying attention like they were supposed to be doing. That would increase the likelihood of him missing an upcoming hazard and responding in time. Regardless of that, if he had reported and issue in that area to Tesla, why the hell was he not driving it himself at the time? I know that I personally value my life enough that I wouldn't trust AP if it had been veering into the wall repeatedly in one area.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

Sadly I have to agree with you on the narrative angle. While I am very impressed with what Tesla has accomplished in their autopilot I find the careful construction and omissions in this follow up post to be done poorly. They omit what speed and what lane the car was travelling in. They omit the time at which the car was no longer behaving in the way in which it had (when did it start heading for the crash barrier? At what point did the wheels closest to the barrier move over the line? etc) They have previously mentioned that their cars have navigated this spot many times in the past (over 200 as I recall) did they note the number with and without the crash barrier intact? How many times was the car in the exit lane and how many times in the lane to the right of the exit lane? How many times have they navigated past it with a damaged crash barrier. The driver had driven this route before, it was his commute to work. Had he driven it with this car on that route in autopilot before? Did it work then? How many times? How many seconds were there between when the driver's car was doing something right (in lane etc) and doing something wrong (straddling the lane). The response indicates there were 5 seconds of visibility coming up to the crash barrier, at what point was the autopilot on a collision course? All of those five seconds? or the last 500mS ? Reading the Tesla response I felt I wasn't getting the whole story, and was getting a whole lot of deflection. That isn't the tone that inspires confidence in me. And that makes me sad because they have done much better in the past. I cannot help but speculate that this time they feel they might have been contributory at least and that a full disclosure would be used against them in a civil suit.

danso 9y ago

I'm pretty sympathetic with PR departments doing what they have to do, in terms of putting out the official boilerplate remorse, the promises to cooperate and keep people up to date, as well as publishing the incident data, and then keeping mum until the investigation is finished. But Tesla is shoveling in the bullshit pretty early on. Besides the fuzzy and deliberately vague stats (why is the mileage attributed to Tesla's "equipped with Autopilot hardware"?), this graf is just despicable: > Tesla Autopilot does not prevent all accidents – such a standard would be impossible – but it makes them much less likely to occur. It unequivocally makes the world safer for the vehicle occupants, pedestrians and cyclists. "unequivocally" has an actual meaning: leaving no doubt. And yet it's used following the paragraph that pretends Tesla's and all U.S. vehicles are directly comparable. I know it sounds silly to focus on that word but someone in Tesla PR thought it needed to be used with the pile of crap numbers. Such blatant and pointless deception -- "significantly" would work just as well for that inane sentence -- feels like a strong a signal to doubt the rest of the info given, as if the evidence weren't already so obviously dubious.

plainOldText 9y ago

Like you’ve predicted, first headline on Techmeme: “Tesla says Autopilot was engaged during fatal Model X crash on Mar. 23, and the driver didn’t respond to warnings to take control of the car before the crash”. Although the linked article has a different title; might’ve been changed.

JimmaDaRustla 9y ago

> What they are saying is that while he was driving there was an earlier point at which the car did not crash, where the car gave a visual and audible clues. And you have to ask? Why the hell is that relevant? It isn't. Vehicle notifies the driver it's having difficulty operating the driver elected auto pilot mode based on the conditions. Driver elects to continue using the failing operating mode despite being warned. I fail to understand how "It isn't" relevant that the driver chose not to take manual control when warned that conditions were not ideal.