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Tesla Was Kicked Off Fatal Crash Probe by NTSB
- Semirhage 9y agoIf there was any doubt that Tesla is a bad actor in the self-driving space, this settles it. Imagine if Boeing or Lockheed did this nonsense after a fatal plane crash!
- annerajb 9y agoI fail to see what the issue is? Tesla said it will continue providing technical help and they are still mandated by law. What is the real loss for them to being out of the investigation committee? What does the NTSB lose?
- justicezyx 9y agoLets imagine your software shows constant malfunction and one day stops working, and the engineer who wrote the whole critical piece decided that he will officially leave the investigation group but said he will cooperate. What will happen?
- killjoywashere 9y agoLet's say the pilot walks out of the cockpit to pee, doesn't notice the co-pilot is narc'd out for his knee and back pain, and the plane rolls into a banking spiral. Is it the software's fault? The guy hadn't touched the wheel for six seconds, in traffic. WTF.
- sjm-lbm 9y agoA better real life example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_965 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_965 Basically, distracted/lost pilots accidentally used an autopilot/flight management system to program a flight path that took a jet into the side of the mountain. They did receive a warning in the cockpit, but attempted to recover too late. Now, to your question (from the Wikipeida article linked above): "American Airlines settled numerous lawsuits brought against it by the families of the victims of the accident. American Airlines filed a "third-party complaint" lawsuit for contribution against Jeppesen and Honeywell, which made the navigation computer database and failed to include the coordinates of Rozo under the identifier "R"; the case went to trial in United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami. At the trial, American Airlines admitted that it bore some legal responsibility for the accident. Honeywell and Jeppesen each contended that they had no legal responsibility for the accident. In June 2000, the jury found that Jeppesen was 30 percent at fault for the crash, Honeywell was 10 percent at fault, and American Airlines was 60 percent at fault." So, yes - even in a situation where the automation system in question was much more rigorously tested and the users had much more specialized training, the automation system was found to be partially at fault.
- jklinger410 9y ago>automation system Tesla autopilot is driver assist, not automated driving. If you want to put someone on trial, you first have to establish a crime. If the crime is a bug in autopilot, then yes, Tesla is guilty. If the crime is killing the driver of a vehicle because of an accident, then Tesla is not guilty. We can talk about bugs in software outside of a manslaughter case.
- gamblor956 9y agoFirst and foremost, Tesla itself sells, and still sells, Autopilot as a self-driving system. Not all trials are criminal trials. Some are civil trials, meaning generally that a tort occurred and one person is suing another to recover damages. That is the most likely trial in this situation. If the crime is a bug in Autopilot, then an engineer at Tesla might be guilty of any number of crimes. How the driver dies doesn't particularly matter if the bug causes his death. But more likely, Tesla is liable for product defect resulting in the death of one customer and the near-death experiences of at least 3 other drivers. This isn't a manslaughter case. But it is a product liability case+negligence+libel+invasion of privacy+intentional infliction of emotional distress case when it didn't have to be, and those additional claims will likely destroy Tesla financially. Trial experts have been quoted as saying a verdict in excess of $100 million is likely if Tesla were stupid enough to go to trial (and right now, Musk is definitely being that stupid).
- dbt00 9y ago> The guy hadn't touched the wheel for six seconds This phrasing is Tesla spin, and I recommend being a bit more cautious about accepting what they say about this at face value. A Tesla motors car cannot detect whether or not your hands are on the wheel -- it can only detect torque on the steering column from the driver if it exceeds a specific threshold. Regular Tesla drivers have documented getting frequent false positives on this alert.
- Robotbeat 9y agoThat is the correct behavior. If your hands are not required to impart measurable torque, then it'd be easy to spoof and would lead to more false negatives. So you're suggesting this was a false negative, i.e. that the driver did have his hands on the wheel?
- annerajb 9y agoTorque is the correct measure to be used. If the person is touching the wheel but not applying torque how do I know it's actually not resting his hand at the bottom? I wanna know that the person is there and moving the steering wheel. Since in case of anything happening I need them to move the wheel not rest their hand somewhere.
- jcranmer 9y agoIt is indisputable at this point that Autopilot happily steers cars into the concrete barrier. If Tesla does not share some responsibility (in a legal sense) for this crash, then under what circumstances would they share responsibility?
- sabareesh 9y agoProblem is was it malfunction ? Driver is always required to pay full attention and it is just a driver assist.
- Alain-lf 9y agoWas it a malfunction? Are you serious? The car decided to turn and hit a divider at 60mph without ever attempting to brake. The reason the driver is required to pay full attention is because the software malfunctions in some cases.
- dragonwriter 9y agoIf the car drove itself into a barrier because of malfunction, it's a manufacturing defect. If the car drove itself into a barrier without a malfunction, it's a design defect. If the car didn't drive itself into a barrier, well, that's a different story.
- rohit2412 9y agoIn your worldview, can Autopilot ever malfunction? Because Driver is always supposed to be vigilant. Clearly, by your definition Autopilot cannot malfunction ever. Then why go on raising the point that Autopilot didn't malfunction, when you think it will always be a perfect system, even if it decided to mow down pedestrians
- shkkmo 9y agoThe autopilot can (and probably did) malfunction, but the responsibility rests with the driver.
- amirmc 9y agoExcept that’s not what happened here. In this analogy, that engineer made public statements before the investigation was completed and then the investgating group told them to leave.
- sangnoir 9y ago> What will happen? If you happen to have subpoena power or can otherwise legally compel the engineer to cooperate, then what will happen is that they lose their seat at the table and get downgraded to a code-monkey that gets called in as needed. "What that this widget do?", "It increments the frobbs. The thinking at the -" "That is all we need to know, thank you for your time. You are free to leave." And not to mention, you are the engineering board and your report on this project will have a direct impact on whether they can continue to practice as an engineer.
- shkkmo 9y ago> What is the real loss for them to being out of the investigation committee? What does the NTSB lose? According to a former NTSB director, there are downsides for Tesla, but none are mentioned for NTSB. > Companies that no longer have formal status as a party to an NTSB investigation can lose access to information uncovered in the probe and the ability to shape the official record of the incident, said Peter Goelz, a former managing director at the NTSB who is now senior vice president at O’Neill & Associates, a Washington lobbying and public relations firm. He then explicitly states that: "It will by no means stop the investigation, and it will by no means hinder the investigation." I suspect it does make more work for the NTSB though.
- nraynaud 9y agothey did.
- joshstrange 9y agoYes, what a shame it would be if Boeing made public comments about something being investigated by the NTSB... Oh wait they did [0] and the NTSB decided not to kick them off... > The agency stopped short of restricting Boeing’s access to its investigation ... In some previous cases, the NTSB has gone so far as to throw participants off an investigation for violating its rules. In December 2010, the safety board removed American Airlines Inc. from an investigation into a runway accident in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, two days earlier. [0] http://www.heraldnet.com/business/ntsb-scolds-boeing-over-787-comments/ http://www.heraldnet.com/business/ntsb-scolds-boeing-over-78...
- yodon 9y agoPlease don’t use code formatting for quotes. It makes the content unreadable on mobile devices.
- joshstrange 9y agoSorry about that, fixed now
- dingaling 9y agoYes, they did; once. Which is far, far outweighed by the hundreds of investigations in which they did not. The exception which proves the rule. What's Tesla's batting average? 50%?
- bloodorange 9y agoSo many keep quoting this but I fail to see how exceptions prove rules. In fact they contribute to disproving whatever it is that they are an exception for.
- Dylan16807 9y agoPeople misuse it a lot. Sometimes they're implying that if you can only find a handful of counterexamples, then you're showing how strong the rule is overall. Sometimes they're just spewing nonsense. The original meaning goes like this: an exception of "if it's Thursday, you're allowed to have a brownie" proves/implies a rule of "no brownies"
- dumbfounder 9y agoEach fatality from a self-driving car, no matter what level of autonomy, is incredibly high profile right now. It impacts legislation, it impacts stock prices, it impacts public sentiment. That is quite simply not true for any other crashes of cars, even though there are thousands of road crash fatalities worldwide PER DAY. This is a hot topic, and I can understand Musk not wanting to stay quiet for an entire year on each investigation. Yes, he agreed to the terms, but to not agree to the terms means you are not involved in the investigation. You don't have much choice but to agree.
- stefan_ 9y agoSo much for the laissez-faire attitude to regulating self-driving car technology on public streets. Uber straight up hit and killed a pedestrian who had nothing to do with them and Tesla has now killed a number of people, though at least for them we can mitigate it by saying they willingly enabled it.
- Symmetry 9y agoLegally Tesla's "autopilot" is considered a new safety feature like air bags were when they are introduced or such and is regulated as such. If they were considered (or advertised as) self driving cars you couldn't use them throughout the US. And honestly Tesla's aren't self-driving cars despite playing them on TV and don't belong in the same category as Uber, which seems to have just gotten a regulatory death sentence on their self-driving car project.
- ilamont 9y ago“We believe in transparency, so an agreement that prevents public release of information for over a year is unacceptable.” As noted in the article, the information being released includes blaming the victim and other PR spin. This doesn't serve the public or further highway safety; it further's Tesla's commercial goals. If Tesla's withdrawal hampers the investigation, let's hope the agency uses its subpoena power to get the info it needs to determine the cause of the accident and what Tesla needs to do to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
- pooya13 9y agoThey could justify that by saying: Autopilot saves lives. Therefore not setting the record straight as fast as possible could lead to less people using the autopilot and more casualties as the result. (They could also be doing this out of pure financial motives)
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoCan they actually say "Autopilot saves lives"? It's never been proven that Tesla's system is safer than human driving so I would think they would run afoul of some marketing law if they were to claim that.
- sabareesh 9y agohttp://bgr.com/2017/01/19/tesla-autopilot-crash-safety-statistics-report-nhtsa/ http://bgr.com/2017/01/19/tesla-autopilot-crash-safety-stati...
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoThe NHTSA report makes no claims about Tesla's safety relative to human drivers, only that Teslas with TACC + Autosteer are safer than Teslas with TACC alone. The NHTSA never even looks at how often Autosteer is activated so both buckets are filled with tons of human driving miles, from the report: The crash rates are for all miles travelled before and after Autopilot installation and are not limited to actual Autopilot use. Both buckets also have plenty of miles with adaptive cruise control on - the data can't be used for a human vs autopilot comparison. And even taking those considerations into account, there is a lawsuit [1] asking for the data used to come to those findings which NHTSA and Tesla have both resisted. Tesla has never proven that Autopilot is safer than a human driver. [1] https://jalopnik.com/does-teslas-autosteer-really-cut-crashes-by-40-percent-1796548178 https://jalopnik.com/does-teslas-autosteer-really-cut-crashe...
- hyperrail 9y agoThe headline has been updated to say that: > Tesla Was Kicked Off Fatal Crash Probe by NTSB > The National Transportation Safety Board told Tesla Inc. on Wednesday that the carmaker was being removed from the investigation of a fatal accident, prior to the company announcing it had withdrawn from it, according to a person familiar with the discussion. > NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt relayed the decision in a call to Tesla’s Elon Musk that was described as tense by the person because the chief executive officer was unhappy with the safety board’s action. NTSB is expected to make a formal announcement in a release later Thursday, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
- mcguire 9y ago"Tesla, in a statement issued late Wednesday, suggested the company chose to leave the probe." Technically, that's sorta true. By releasing information and opinions about the ongoing investigation, Tesla decided not to be a part of it.
- avs733 9y agoThat is, terrifyingly, the same logic my friends use with their young children.
- 8bitsrule 9y agoOnly in this case, it's like a parent giving a kid 'a good shaking' to 'wake them up'. Any 'artificially intelligent' car that can't avoid running straight into something solid right in front of it is dangerously stupid. Elon's age is starting to show.
- git_rancher 9y agoCan we keep age discrimination out of this discussion please?
- avs733 9y agoThe age comment manages to be both a non sequitor and an ad hominem so lets ignore that. The issue at play here is far larger than a car having a crash. The issue I was referring to is the actions of Tesla as they respond to the crash. That is cultural and it affects both the process of creating and releasing products as well as the process of responding to their failure. If your product can kill people, and lets be clear - cars can easily kill people SDV or not - you need to act like professionals when something happens. Playing the blame game, in public, and violating the expectations of a body like the NTSB shouldn't garner trust, no matter who is right at a technical level. EDIT: fixed my abysmal grammar.
- bjl 9y agoMisleading title. Tesla was forcibly kicked off the investigation by the NTST.
- Element_ 9y agoThat was the original title of the article at the time of submission, after more details came out Bloomberg updated the title.
- danepowell 9y agoTesla's terrible response to this and the detrimental effect on its image must be pretty obvious to most of the HN crowd. I have to wonder why they persist. Is their PR spin actually having a positive effect on the public at large?
- JBReefer 9y agoCulture (like shit) runs downhill. Mr. Musk seems like he's becoming increasingly erratic and controlling, and there's a record of him being unable to take criticism. This is a pretty intense form of criticism.
- craig1f 9y agoYour comment seems like trolling.
- smacktoward 9y agoTesla's progress in ramping up production for the Model 3 could charitably be described as "rocky," and there's been a steady drumbeat of news stories over the last couple of months saying Tesla's financials don't look great either. Given all that, it seems fair to assume that Musk is under a lot of pressure at the moment; and stressed-out people make bad decisions.
- Diederich 9y ago
- thisisit 9y agoI am surprised at PR Silicon Valley companies are doing these days. First it was Facebook and now Tesla. They keep trying to avoid responsibility by blaming someone other than themselves. How hard is to just say "we are looking into it" and do a comprehensive test before making a statement.
- skwirl 9y agoWhat if Tesla isn't responsible? I assume you don't expect them to sit quietly for a year+ while they are ravaged in the media in that case. What is the correct course of action? I feel like some of the criticism of tech companies has gone from thoughtful to kneejerk lately.
- greedo 9y agoThe correct course of action is to follow the NTSB guidelines for participating in a probe, and to not continually attack the accident victim in the press. Tesla could survive this accident easily if they handle it properly. Keep mishandling it, and Tesla could be in a world of hurt.
- djur 9y agoThe standard corporate PR response in cases like this is along the lines of "we are cooperating fully with the investigation and will have no further statement on the incident until the investigation has concluded, pursuant to regulation such-and-such". Not only does that keep them in compliance, it also starves the media of new stuff to report on. What Tesla has done is the worst of both worlds -- it puts them at odds with regulators, and it helps sustain the story.
- azernik 9y agoYes. They should do that. Your car gets in a crash, you sit tight and wait for the NTSB to make absolutely sure what the cause was. If you can't take the heat, get out of the safety-critical industry.
- leggomylibro 9y agoYou might be surprised at how many people happily buy into the PR statements, taking them as genuine expressions of intent. I was talking with someone just yesterday about Zuckerberg's Congressional hearings. They don't know a whole lot about technology or the internet, but are generally thoughtful and good at what they do. What do you think their view was? 'Good on him for taking responsibility and apologizing - he seemed sincere and reasonable. I feel much better about the whole thing.' I'm getting better at biting my tongue, but I wanted to suggest that I had a bridge to sell them.
- mtgx 9y agoIt's frustrating to see that car companies see themselves as "partners" to the NTSB or other investigators. Self-driving car companies should have only one obligation: provide all the relevant car crash data to the investigators, then step out of the way, and keep its mouth shut until the investigation concludes. I've been warning since a couple of years ago that this is going to be an issue if not solved early on and that self-driving car companies need to be liable for car crashes (the one who's found at fault by investigators). But we haven't even established this. Also, I think it's inevitable that all "self-driving" that isn't guaranteed by a government body to be Level 4 or higher should be banned from public roads. Sub-Level 4 self-driving is just not safe, and the very situations in which carmakers argue it would help reduce accidents are incompatible with these companies' own ToS. For instance, let's say someone is drunk and has a Level 2 car (like a Tesla). According to Tesla, such a person should enable self-driving, as that will on average reduce the likelihood of crashes compared to if the drunk person drove themselves home. But Tesla's own ToS says such a person would need to be constantly vigilant and with their hands always on the wheel, not fall asleep, and so on. How likely is that going to be with a drunk person? My guess is not very likely. If the Autopilot malfunctioned like it did in the latest crash, that drunk person would die, because there's no way a drunk person could take the wheel and drive safely when even sober people can't seem to do it when they stop paying attention for a while.
- emiliobumachar 9y agoIt's already illegal to drive a car drunk, including a Tesla with Autopilot engaged. This doesn't stop drunk drivers from ending lives every day, including lives of other people who couldn't reasonably do anything to avoid it. We're just used to that. Self-driving cars promise a future of less death, though not complete elimination. It's a good future.
- neurotech1 9y ago> It's frustrating to see that car companies see themselves as "partners" to the NTSB or other investigators. That is how the NTSB "party" system is ran[0]. Contrary to what is shown in various movies eg. Flight(2012), Sully (2016), an NTSB investigation is not an adversarial process, and is not a criminal investigation. Additionally, NTSB determined cause (an opinion by the board) cannot be used as evidence in civil litigation. Asiana 214 [2] is a good example of the NTSB being somewhat divided in the opinion of the 777 autopilot having a design flaw vs "pilot human performance" as the cause of the crash. IMHO both the autopilot design and the pilot performance were causal factors in the crash. It is probable the NTSB will determine both the Tesla driver and the autopilot were causal factors in this crash. [0] https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/process/Pages/default.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/process/Pages/default.as... [1] https://www.ntsb.gov/legal/Documents/NTSB_Investigation_Party_Form.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/legal/Documents/NTSB_Investigation_Part... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214
- icc97 9y agoThis goes from bad to worse for Tesla. It's all related to the original PR statement, but I'm guessing that Tesla have made further actions to anger the NTSB. I don't understand why the change. They've already co-operated with the NTSB in the first Autopilot death (back in 2016) [0] with a much simpler PR statement [1] that didn't upset the NTSB. [0]: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2016/INCLA-PE16007-7876.PDF https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2016/INCLA-PE16007-7876.PDF [1]: https://www.tesla.com/blog/tragic-loss https://www.tesla.com/blog/tragic-loss
- Someone1234 9y agoTesla has made three statement about this accident: - Original: https://www.tesla.com/blog/what-we-know-about-last-weeks-accident https://www.tesla.com/blog/what-we-know-about-last-weeks-acc... - Update: https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week%E2%80%99s-accident https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week%E2%80%99s-accide... - Newest: http://abc7news.com/automotive/exclusive-tesla-issues-strongest-statement-yet-blaming-driver-for-deadly-crash/3325908/ http://abc7news.com/automotive/exclusive-tesla-issues-strong... None of which address the multiple videos of people reproducing the accident at the same and different locations, and none take any responsibility for this likely bug (lane centering in non-lanes) introduced in an over the air update. Even Reddit's Tesla Motors sub which used to be a 24/7 Tesla celebrating has been pretty negative about Tesla's handling of this incident, and I'm talking regular posters and verified Tesla owners.
- 282883392 9y agoWhile Tesla's response to the accident has been very aggressive (to the point of being rude), transparency is also important. Not being able to talk about an accident for an entire year would be a disservice to the community and most likely lead to rampant speculation considering how high profile these accidents are. In this case Tesla has handled the entire incident rather poorly, but it makes sense that they would want to abstain from the investigation to be more transparent about what happened. Keep in mind that in a year from now the data about the accident will be mostly irrelevant.
- Analemma_ 9y ago> transparency is also important. It's pretty misleading to defend Tesla in the name of transparency: so far, Tesla has been nothing but opaque regarding this incident. There's a whole lot of spin, unsupported claims, blaming the driver, and refusing to acknowledge Autopilot problems like veering into crash barriers post-update. That's the whole reason why the NTSB "fired" them: they were trying to create confusion around a transparent investigation.
- mcguire 9y ago...but it makes sense that they would want to abstain from the investigation to [place their spin on events before the official investigation has completed]. Yes, yes it does.
- dmitrygr 9y ago> lead to rampant speculation considering > how high profile these accidents are High profile? NTSB routinely handles aircraft crashes with hundreds dead. This is not even moderate profile for them. They do things a certain way because it works. If you start talking publicly, witnesses get intimidated, contractors and manufacturers get tight-lipped, speculation causes changes that are actually not safety-improving. NTSB has ZERO rulemaking power, by design. They have one job only - figure out what happened and make completely non binding suggestions on what could be done to prevent such cases in the future.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y agoGiven how Tesla has handled this fatality, how has your opinion of Tesla changed. Has anybody here decided that they are never going to buy a Tesla? Or do you view this as just overblown and you would still buy a Tesla if you could.
- ovao 9y agoTesla's PR handling of it hasn't really turned me off the idea, nor has the car's action of veering off the correct course (because that's occasionally expected), but the collision itself is disconcerting to me. I would have expected the technology to be sufficient to brake to avoid/reduce the severity of the collision. The horror stories about defects and lengthy repair times haven't exactly helped. It's a bit of a moot issue for me though, as I probably won't be in the market for a new car for the next two or three years.
- Analemma_ 9y ago> Given how Tesla has handled this fatality, how has your opinion of Tesla changed. Just one data point here, but it absolutely has tanked Tesla's reputation in my mind. Even though I was always skeptical of them from a business perspective, I thought they were basically well-meaning and their only crime was being too enthusiastic. These last few months have convinced me that they're no better than Uber: they're being reckless with unproven and inferior technology (Elon's spin notwithstanding, there are good reasons why every other autonomous car program is using LIDAR), and they're trying to use disingenuous PR to pass off the inevitable deaths as someone else's problem. I was vaguely considering getting a Model 3 when the waitlist eased up a little, but now that's definitely not going to happen.
- jklinger410 9y agoI'm still fine buying a Tesla, when I can afford one, because I have never found the capabilities of their vehicles to be confusing. Those who need their hands held about driving assistance and so-on can wait until the government OKs the first fully autonomous vehicle. Which, regardless of the name of Tesla's driver assist technology, has not yet occurred.
- awa 9y ago
- mikerathbun 9y agoI get frustrated when Tesla blames the driver for these crashes by saying that they aren't touching the wheel or are ignoring messages. It is extremely common for my car to warn me to keep my hands on the when WHILE I have my hands on the wheel. Even shaking it a little will sometimes not cancel out the warnings. It doesn't seem to matter if my hands are on the top or bottom of the wheel. Anything short of a deathgrip and constant jiggling of the wheel doesn't seem to consistantly register as keeping your hands on the wheel. Anyone who has used Autopilot for a significant amount of time has been beeped at for not having their hands on the wheel even though they are. And yes, the car will make crazy maneuvers at times that no driver in their right mind would make. I still like it and am glad I opted for it, but it is far from earning its namesake.
- AckSyn 9y agoBeen driving one on long drives regularly the past year and I've never experienced the problems you describe before.
- thebluehawk 9y agoSame. My other annoyance about every single one of these threads are people making comments about how unsafe it is when you can tell they've never even driven a car equipped with it.
- chapium 9y agoI’d be really concerned about the news then. Will you react quickly if the car decides to drive towards a post?
- ovao 9y agoInteresting. Have you reported those issues to Tesla?
- uncoder0 9y agoIt's a widely reported issue over at /r/teslamotors. I see a thread or mention of it at least once a week.
- dsabanin 9y ago> Tesla said that the Model X driver’s hands weren’t on the steering wheel for six seconds prior to the fatal crash Call me a sceptic, but saying that with absolute certainty is troubling. As an engineer, knowing how a lot of software and hardware systems are actually implemented, 6 seconds is such a minuscule time frame. Data about hand position could be in a write cache somewhere waiting to be flushed, inside monitoring service, inside OS, inside RAID controller, inside storage controller, or even de-prioritized by a busy IO scheduler. Then at a moment of a crash that the data might never make it to the storage for recovery. I'm not saying that it is, but if the hand monitoring service is glitching out, it will take a lot of time to resolve the issues completely, mostly because just looking at the data as a remote observer (without camera installed in a car) it would just look like the hands were not on the wheel. Also it doesn't help that for Tesla it seems to be a nice way out of this kind of crashes – they can just say that driver's hands were not on the wheel and that's that. Who even has the data and can decode it? How can we make sure the data was not tampered with? This needs to be investigated properly and not just by Tesla, they are a biased party.
- eridius 9y agoYou're making the assumption here that it's only recording when the hands are on the wheel. Presumably it also records when the hands are off the wheel. So if the crash happened at (to completely make up a timestamp) 13:24:01.123, and the latest log entry says at 13:24:01.108 the hands were off the wheel, that would be good reason to say that the driver did not have their hands on the wheel at the time of the crash. Of course, I don't actually know what the logs look like, but I'd rather err on the side of assuming that the designers of a real-time system for monitoring something related to driver safety took into account the idea that, when the car is involved a severe crash, they should have as much accurate data recorded as possible rather than leaving it sitting around for ages in un-flushed caches.
- whyever 9y agoA driver of a Tesla car has mentioned in this thread that the car sometimes doesn't register the hands on the wheel.
- dekhn 9y agoTesla's actions in this case, and before, have convinced me they are not a company I would want to buy a car from.
- gkya 9y agoTesla has done one really important and useful thing: demonstrate fully electric cars are not only possible, but also feasible. The rest has been a shitshow. They should've focused on range instead. But oh this is one of the companies meant to fund the incredibly useful mission to send speaking monkeys to mars to see if mr. Musk can go there too.
- NelsonMinar 9y agoNTSB does an excellent job in its investigations in getting to the root cause of accidents. The only way they can do that is in a depoliticized atmosphere where they can focus on getting to the truth of something, not worrying about one of the parties to the accident spinning things for their commercial advantage. Tesla trying to corrupt an NTSB investigation like this is the worst kind of bad faith. Particularly for a technology as important as self-driving cars.
- unityByFreedom 9y ago> NTSB ... The only way they can do that is in a depoliticized atmosphere where they can focus on getting to the truth of something And, if there is evidence Tesla has been negligent, the only way they can win is by not being forced to release this evidence, perhaps by attacking the NTSB as being biased against Tesla.
- jaclaz 9y agoIt is interesting (to me at least) to compare the "first update": https://www.tesla.com/blog/what-we-know-about-last-weeks-accident https://www.tesla.com/blog/what-we-know-about-last-weeks-acc... with the "last update" (the one that triggered the NTSB reaction): https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week’s-accident https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week’s-accident as it allows to easily identify the "boilerplate" parts, but, more than that, the "first update" closes with: "Out of respect for the privacy of our customer and his family, we do not plan to share any additional details until we conclude the investigation. We would like to extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of our customer." So, logically, either the respect for the family vanished or Tesla concluded their investigation (in three days time).
- slivym 9y agoI think as mentioned in the article - the family started making public statements and Tesla figured "Oh, you don't want PRIVACY (read: to STFU) then we're going to be TRANSPARENT (read: slander your dead relative to boost our shareprice)"
- avs733 9y agoI always see this framed as between Tesla and the driver of whatever vehicle has crashed. That framing is irresponsible and should stop. When a Tesla owner chooses to use autopilot, it has a potential impact on other drivers and pedestrians around them - not just driver. Part of the reason we have regulations about seatbelts and airbags isn't just that they keep passengers safe its that they make crashes safer for others on the roads. With a human driver, others are on the same page and can do things like make eye contact or assess the behavior of another driver. In an accident, they can hold that driver responsible. It is not other drivers nor pedestrians role to accept the risk for a Tesla driver wh omay or may not understand the specific nuances of a specific software patch. Thats why we regulate vehicles and license drivers. As a society we choose to do that because the organizations that do so are an enormous efficienty and capability improvement in assessment as compared to asking each individual driver to do the same. I don't really want to make this political but frankly the seeming lack of understanding strikes me as very software/app/tech mindset and very much a product of the intermingled libertarian leanings. Cars are not software.
- azernik 9y ago> Cars are not software. Software is also not software (in this framing). I think the Facebook elections fiasco has shown that even something as innocuous as social media has consequences beyond the strictly user<->company relationship.
- _Codemonkeyism 9y agoEssentially a Tesla car tries to kill you by following the wrong road markings over and over again (as remarked by the wife of the dead driver). Tesla puts the focus on you to detect ever time when the car wants to kill you and act fast enough. If you like that, buy Tesla.
- danso 9y agoA little OT, but given the nature of this bug, I'm surprised we haven't heard of many more of these types of accidents, given the possible number of highways on which road lines may be ambiguous. Is it a problem of underreporting? Are all the other Tesla drivers just that much more attentive when using Autopilot?
- jvolkman 9y agoLetter from NTSB to Tesla regarding its removal: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/HWY18FH011-TeslaPartyRemovalNotificationLetter-041218.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/HWY18FH011-Tes...
- inverse_pi 9y agoTesla's autopilot system is no different than a self driving car with a safety driver and should be subjected to the same regulation. In a self driving car (Waymo, Cruise, etc) driver turns on autonomous mode when the driver thinks it's safe to do so. All drivers are thoroughly trained for the safety of themselves and other people on the road. Companies must obtain permits to have cars on the road and report annually on safety of the system. I'm not comfortable driving in the road knowing Tesla's drivers are not trained, the company is not subjected to the same laws as self driving system even though the drivers can turn on Autopilot ANYTIME they want, and the car can do WHATEVER.
- fastball 9y agoDrivers actually cannot turn on Autopilot anytime they want: it prevents you from doing so in noticeably adverse conditions.
- iamleppert 9y agoRiding in a Tesla with autopilot turned on is like driving with a new teenage driver: you’re terrified at any minute it’s going to do something crazy like steer you into a concrete wall. There are certain situations that you can quickly get into via steering inputs to the car that cannot be recovered, so the point of even keeping your hands on the steering wheel as an argument for legal liability is moot: before you even realize what’s happening to take over and apply corrective action it will often times simply be too late. Additionally, most people, save for professional drivers, do not have enough experience to know what corrective steering inputs to perform during an emergency situation. In many cases, any corrective action via steering, brake or acceleration control input from the human driver will be incorrect and thus lead to an unpredictable and dangerous situation. By this logic, Tesla needs to be held accountable for any accidents where they argue human intervention would help.
- fastball 9y agoLiterally moving the wheel or stepping on the gas stops Autopilot -- I'm not sure how that is unknown if such an action will be "correct".
- Robotbeat 9y agoHere's the thing about autopilot all the way up through self-driving cars: A perfect system would never have a fatality. EVERY problem that ends in fatality can ALWAYS be traced to some flaw or inadequacy. Every. Single. One. That is why self-driving cars will eventually be far safer than any human driver (because every fatality can be stopped), and why the natural human tendency will be to crucify any company who attempts to enter the market[0,1], which will mean millions of more unnecessary deaths at the hands of human drivers because we'll delay deploying self-driving technology until it's perfect. [0]Even if they, accurately, point out the driver is still responsible and that overall safety is improved. Accuracy doesn't matter, emotional resonance does. That's victim blaming! [1]At the same time, this intense focus--while it's "unfair" given the masses of car deaths every day--is also what will drive the massive improvements of safety. So the inaccurate outcry can actually be a good thing. Provided that original player doesn't give up or go out of business first. This dynamic can help explain why airlines in the developed world are so ridiculously safe (...but also perhaps why airliner technology has been stagnant for half a century, with only safety and incremental efficiency/cost improvements).
- cma 9y ago> A perfect system would never have a fatality. EVERY problem that ends in fatality can ALWAYS be traced to some flaw or inadequacy. Every. Single. One. I've been in a wreck on the highway from a random tire blow out. Happens all the time. While an AI will ultimately be able to handle that situation way better than a human, I don't see it eliminating all risk without just always driving slower.
- Robotbeat 9y ago>...random tire blowout... I'm not saying your point isn't valid, however... http://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html http://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design: "25. (Bowden's Law) Following a testing failure, it's always possible to refine the analysis to show that you really had negative margins all along." Your tire blowout wasn't "random," from this perspective, it occurred due to a failure at some point: inadequately tight manufacturing tolerances, a regulator system or system integrator that accepted such tolerances, a random thing in the road (which AI could've picked up on), a temperature spike (which AI could've picked up on), a change in tire dynamics immediately preceding the incident which you didn't notice (which AI could've picked up on), incomplete inspections, etc. Even if that specific failure is NOT directly something that AI would solve, the elimination of basically every human driving error would bring focus to any other problems. Right now, random tire blowouts are not the predominant cause of death and so people don't focus much on it, but if all other causes were eliminated, then all of a sudden everyone would be focusing on better engineered tires. This is the same dynamic as in airline safety. Every airliner failure in developed countries is plastered over the media for months simply because it's so rare, therefore any remaining deficiency is brought into tight focus. I can see the headline: "Tesla owner DIES in random tire blowout! Shoddy quality to control to blame; sharks circle as Tesla tanks!" (High media coverage is a double-edged sword for Tesla...) > I don't see it eliminating all risk without just always driving slower. ...it's worth noting that airliners use tires at hundreds of miles per hour, yet fatalities basically never happen. Things can be engineered to be arbitrarily safe.
- gpm 9y agoTesla's done a shitty job of handling PR related to this crash. But I think the NTSB is in the moral (not legal) wrong on this particular issue. The NTSB's job is to investigate accidents, and as part of that to maintain their own reputation. Their job is not to pressure companies into not saying anything. By attempting to do so they are just hampering the ability to investigate the accident. If Tesla had said "and the NTSB investigation is going in this direction" I would have agreed with the decision. But as boneheaded as Tesla's PR has been it hasn't done anything of the sort, the NTSB has no reason to fear for their own reputation as a result of this.
- gsnedders 9y agoTheir job often involves interviewing many people, and to do that and get useful results you want them unbiased (for the same reason as you want a jury that doesn't already know about the trial).
- gpm 9y agoSure, but how does working less closely with Tesla result in more unbiased people?
- azernik 9y agoA couple of things: 1. Having Tesla keep their mouths shut results in more unbiased people. Kicking Tesla off the investigation is in large part a deterrent, not a corrective action. 2. This change also involves giving Tesla less access to data that they might leak. Information collected from the car's logs is under NTSB control (in past cases, for example, American Airlines was punished for making its own copy of the black box before handing it over). You can reduce these issues by not sharing information with an unreliable party.
- gpm 9y ago> 1. Having Tesla keep their mouths shut results in more unbiased people. Kicking Tesla off the investigation is in large part a deterrent, not a corrective action. This purpose is in plain violation of the principles of freedom of speech, and the first amendment. The government is not permitted, morally or legally, to punish people for speaking. As such I'm not counting it. > 2. This change also involves giving Tesla less access to data that they might leak. Information collected from the car's logs is under NTSB control (in past cases, for example, American Airlines was punished for making its own copy of the black box before handing it over). You can reduce these issues by not sharing information with an unreliable party. This could be a legitimate purpose, but it seems so minor that short of the NTSB mentioning it I'm skeptical. The gain doesn't seem to be worth the loss of working closely with the manufacturer...
- tomohawk 9y agoWhy would a party like Tesla, with an obvious conflict of interest, be part of the investigation? They should be on the receiving end of the investigation, not part of it. It's like having Enron be part of the investigation. It really doesn't matter what spin Tesla puts on this. Their car drove into a concrete wall. They can talk about hands on the wheel or off. They can talk about how it's only called autopilot, but it really isn't. It doesn't change the fact that their software drove the vehicle into a concrete wall. Was it asleep? Perhaps it had an attention lapse? Perhaps it mistook a solid, immovable object for something else? If you have something called autopilot, the one thing it should never, ever do is drive into a solid, immovable object, that is easy to not hit.
- wilburTheDog 9y agoSo I can't help but wonder. If the Tesla autopilot system has forward looking radar with a 160m range, why wouldn't it notice it was about to drive into something and apply the brakes? I've read these systems work by assigning probability to each of the sensor inputs and choosing the most likely guess at what's really happening (or something like that). But shouldn't even a low probability of "you're about to crash and die" have more weight than a high probability of "it looks like the road goes this way".
- ibdf 9y agoI had the same thought after reading the news. It should be called pilot assistant or something similar.
- timewarrior 9y agoI see many comments wondering why does Tesla not recognize stationary objects when it has a forward looking radar. The radar can't distinguish between overhead signs, trees and things on the side of road. It only track moving things, otherwise there would be too many false positives and the car will keep braking every few minutes. Other Level 2 autonomous systems have the same limitation. You might recall, Tesla hit a stationary fire truck in Jan [0]. This was caused due to a similar limitation in their software. Tesla was following a car at a slow speed. When that car suddenly moved out of the way to avoid hitting the Fire truck, Tesla AutoPilot accelerated to match the set speed and hit the fire truck. To summarize, if a moving car suddenly moves out of the way, Tesla will almost always hit whatever is stopped further down the lane. They even call this out in their User Manual. Tesla is hoping that it would be able to get it's Vision capabilities to the point where it would be able figure out obstructions using cameras working in conjunction with the radar. But there is no committed timeline for this. LIDAR is able to avoid this by using directed LASERs to build a 3d outline of all the surrounding objects. A system relying on LIDAR would have challenges in RAIN and falling snow. However under natural conditions (where most Tesla deaths with Autopilot have occurred - hitting a SEMI from side, hitting the barrier recently), LIDAR would be able to completely avoid the accidents. However, if and when, Tesla vision capabilities are able to detect obstructions, they might be much cheaper and more effective than LIDAR in all kind of weather condition. Hoping they can get there soon. And I also wish they would fix their marketing to more accurately reflect the capabilities of the driver assist system and stop misleading the public. [0] https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/22/tesla-on-autopilot-slams-into-parked-fire-truck-on-freeway/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/22/tesla-on-autopilot-sl...
- wilburTheDog 9y agoIf this is true then how can we have had Collision Avoidance systems[1] in cars for years that are able to automatically apply the brakes to prevent this sort of accident? And If the answer is 'autopilot doesn't work that way' then why not use both systems, with the collision avoidance system taking precedence as it deems necessary? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_avoidance_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_avoidance_system
- Animats 9y agoTesla has totally botched this. What Tesla has run into is the approach to safety that makes commercial air travel safe - figure out exactly what went wrong and fix it so it stays fixed. The aviation community is used to this. "Flying" magazine publishes crash reports in most issues.[1] Pilots read those. Manufacturers read those. People in aerospace read those. NASA collects near-miss reports to keep tabs on why close calls happened. The aviation industry has experience with aircraft automation leading pilots into trouble, and so does the NTSB. Here's a former head of the NTSB commenting on the Asiana crash at SFO in 2014:[2] “How do we design this whole human-machine system to work better so we don’t lose the professionalism in the humans who are doing this?” Crash investigators are very aware of the problems of a poor man-machine interface leading pilots into a bad situation. That is the kind of thinking needed to make these kinds of systems work. It's not about blame. Most air crashes have multiple causes. That's because the single points of failure were fixed long ago. This is somewhat different than the traffic law enforcement approach. The NTSB's previous investigation of a Tesla collision resulted in Tesla changing their system to enforce the hands-on-wheel requirement. That may not be enough. Playing hardball with the NTSB is not going to work. The NTSB rarely uses it, but they have broad authority in investigations. They can get subpoenas. They can inspect Tesla's facilities, hardware, and software: "An officer or employee of the National Transportation Safety Board ... can ... during reasonable hours, may inspect any record, process, control, or facility related to an accident investigation under this chapter." The NTSB even has the authority to publicly disclose corporate trade secrets if necessary.[3] Aviation companies routinely cooperate, knowing this, and the NTSB seldom has to compel disclosure. Incidentally, lying to the NTSB is a federal crime. The CEO of Platinum Jet Services tried to cover up some safety violations that resulted in a crash. He became Federal Prisoner #77960-004 from 2007 to 2013.[4] [1] https://www.flyingmag.com/tags/aftermath https://www.flyingmag.com/tags/aftermath [2] https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2014/october/21/acting-ntsb-chief-says-automation-affects-professionalism https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2014/october/21... [3] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/1114#b https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/1114#b [4] http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/16/new.jersey.charter.conviction/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/16/new.jersey.charter.convi...
- jumelles 9y ago
- dingo_bat 9y agoI wish more federal agencies did this to more arrogant corps. People have died and tesla is responding by blaming the dead people for everything! Not even a semblance of a good investigation. Elon Musk should intervene and apologize if he has even a bit of humanity.
- brisance 9y agoTesla is using the orange dotard defense: "no collusion!" NTSB did right by me.
- thetruthseeker1 9y agoI like Tessa. I hope they succeed as a company. That said, their claim that the driver had his hands of the steering wheel for 6 seconds implying that they are absolved of any wrong doing seems hard to buy. They may eventually be absolved of wrong doing legally, however I think that statement is bad from PR point of view in addition to casting a bad light on the autopilot tech (It got confused within 6 seconds of him taking his hands off)!
- hirundo 9y ago> Companies that no longer have formal status as a party to an NTSB investigation can lose access to information uncovered in the probe and the ability to shape the official record of the incident ... It's absurd that the normal process does give companies the ability to shape the official record of the incident. They should never be a party to the NTSB investigation to begin with, because they cannot be neutral with respect to their own acts and omissions. Their role should always have been what it is now: technical assistance.
- fastball 9y agoMany people in these threads are stating very loudly "well if Tesla didn't want to be culpable they shouldn't call it Autopilot". Two things: 1. Regardless of the name, Tesla has never marketed this as a product which allows you to at any point stop paying attention to the road or take your hands off the wheel. At least to my knowledge. 2. The name. "Autopilot". The only time I'd ever heard the term "autopilot" before Tesla used it was in Airplanes. I'm not entirely sure how everyone is forgetting this, but planes have had "autopilot" for decades and all passenger planes still have pilots. Commercial jets have TWO pilots (at least) who are highly paid and have a huge amount of flight time in order to ensure that someone is paying attention at all times. All of these aforementioned jets have "autopilot". Tesla is absolutely not holding their drivers to a higher standard than they should given the name "autopilot". I'm not sure why this is so often parroted but it's nonsense.
- productiveacct 9y agoAutopilot means self-piloting. How many average people know the extent to which autopilot on airplanes is used, and what exactly it does? I would imagine a good bit of people think that autopilot does everything and that the pilot is just there in case of an emergency. If you translate that to cars, given the number of people with driver's licenses (not exactly a specialty like being a pilot is), I think it's dangerous to use the name autopilot.
- fastball 9y agoAutopilot has never been used to describe a system which does the entirety of control functions on its own. Ever. Autopilot is an aeronautics term, and every system ever described as autopilot has meant the ability to maintain course. That is all. In actual fact, because Tesla's Autopilot has lane change capability, it actually goes above and beyond the conventional definition[1] of "Automatic Pilot". Anyone with half a brain doesn't even expect a "hoverboard" in 2018 to actually hover, and that is a bastardization of the term. I'm honestly struggling to understand why people are having such a hard time with this. 1: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/automatic-pilot http://www.dictionary.com/browse/automatic-pilot
- JustJay613 8y agoI neither like nor dislike Tesla but most of you are missing the point. The cars are semi-autonomous not fully. They are hardware ready and one day will get a firmware upgrade as such. It is very, very clearly stated that you are still responsible for driving the vehicle. If you choose to focus on your phone or watch a movie or read a book, etc, well bad things can happen. Slamming on the brakes or taking evasive action is not appropriate for a semi-autonomous car to do. What if the Tesla driver survived but an innocent person in another car was killed. Wow, would everyone be screaming. We always like to blame something and not take responsibility. Last year a woman made a left hand turn in front of a slow moving transport as I was driving in the lane beside the transport. She drove right in to the drivers door and then tried to tell the police it was my fault. Until something is proven otherwise this looks like someone taking the tech for granted and not watching the road inspire if instructions and warnings. Tesla is I no way at fault at this time.
- memeweaver 8y agoAutopilot is a terrible marketing term. Should not be trusted in any sort of complex highway situation. Reliance on road lines is so risky...
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