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That is very significant! Your comment suggests that Tesla's claims about the driver having his hands off the wheel for x seconds before a crash could be wrong

That is very significant! Your comment suggests that Tesla's claims about the driver having his hands off the wheel for x seconds before a crash could be wrong. If the sensors detect the drivers hands are not on the wheel when they actually are on the wheel, then data logged about how long the driver's hands were off the wheel should be considered suspect. I hope that's being investigated. Personally, I'm having trouble believing the driver who died in the recent accident ignored the warnings for six seconds before the head-on collision, especially when he knew Autopilot didn't work well at that section of road. I'm not familiar with how the system works. If the warning engages, is there a guarantee that the driver will have to take over shortly? Or are there scenarios when the warning turns off by itself and so the driver could have been waiting to see if the car would correct? [Edit: lolc and Vik1ng pointed out that the warning isn't related to unsafe conditions as I implied. It's used whenever the sensors think the driver's hands are off the wheel.]

lolc 8y ago
The warning is not a reaction to unsafe conditions. It comes on when the system detects (rightly or wrongly) that the driver doesn't hold the wheel.
Vik1ng 8y ago
> ignored the warnings for six seconds There were never warnings at that time. Tesla just worded it like that to mislead people. It only talks about videos early in the drive.
- shkkmo 8y ago
  I think the wording is pretty clear, but I think people didn't take the time to fully read the press release, just skimmed it. This seems pretty clear: "The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision."
robotcookies 8y ago
That's the point of the investigation. Many things could have happened. Maybe the driver fell asleep, maybe he tried to move the wheel and it got stuck. Maybe the car slipped on a patch and had nothing to do with autopilot. We don't know yet. It takes time to review witnesses, multiple sources of information and that's the NTSB's job. Tesla seems to think they know exactly what happened after only reviewing data collected from the car. They see what they want to see and have become blind to any other possibility. I think that's terrifying. I couldn't trust an automaker with that kind of arrogance.
- kosievdmerwe 8y ago
  Given that this video exists, I'm putting my bet on the Tesla actively swerving into the barrier: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8a0jfh/autopilot_barrier_lust_201812/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8a0jfh/autopil...
  - asn0 8y ago
    In that video, it looks like the driver had about 1 second to react to the Tesla's mistake, to avoid hitting the barrier. Dumb question: if I have to constantly stay vigilant with 1-second reaction time because at any time my assisted-driving car might try to kill me (exactly how changes every time the software updates) -- isn't it less effort to just drive my car myself, so I mostly just have to worry about the drivers around me?
    - nugi 8y ago
      Not dumb at all, it is the big unspoken elephant in the room. It is clear that the current, and next iteritave version of autopilot, self driving, etc. are woefully behild the hype. While in theory a "perfect" ai driver is better, is it true in the chaos of real world traffic? Will drivers even want to be subject to NTSB level scrutiny when an accident happens? There are more questions than answers still.
    - JKCalhoun 8y ago
      Hell, I don't even like letting cars shift for me. /sticksnob ;-)
MertsA 8y ago
Tesla didn't claim that he didn't have his hands on the wheel, they claimed that it wasn't detected. Tesla knows how inaccurate that is. Tesla has always been shamefully misleading with all of their victim blaming PR pieces. I get that there's plenty of "unintended acceleration" cases where the driver straight up lies about hitting the wrong pedal but they included that information about what the driver did earlier in the trip and the time he would have had a view of the barrier solely to imply that it's his fault that autopilot killed him. That's never an okay thing to do yet it seems like this is Tesla's modus operandi when there's some high profile accident. Who cares if he had 5 seconds to see the barrier if he only had 0.5 seconds to realize that the car went into casual murder mode right as it veers into the barrier. They make it sound like it had to have been driver error with facts that are irrelevant to the question at hand. Your assumption that Tesla claimed he didn't have his hands on the wheel at the time of the accident is exactly what I'm talking about, Tesla's PR release is filled with weasel words to do exactly that. I'm not even trying to suggest that Autopilot is less safe than an alert human driver, but one thing is clear, we certainly can't trust Tesla to determine how safe it is.
- shkkmo 8y ago
  > Tesla claimed that the driver had his hands off earlier in the drive, not at the time of the collision. You are wrong: "the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision." see: https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week%E2%80%99s-accident https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week%E2%80%99s-accide... Perhaps you shouldn't attack Tesla for using "weasel words" in their press release if you don't take the time to read it. Edit: You seem to have edited your post without any disclaimer. Your edits were not visible when I responded. Most people on HN will edit their comments with an "Edit: I was wrong about ____" rather than ninja editing the mistaken claim away. This help make discussions easier to follow and limits misunderstandings.
  - MertsA 8y ago
    I already corrected that, but the point still stands that their press release is intentionally misleading and Tesla knows very well that detecting hand presence on the wheel has problems. Read the press release in full and tell me that it isn't misleading. Originally when this was posted there was concern over if "prior to the collision" was talking about the 6 seconds before the collision or earlier in the drive. In any case, Tesla is implying that the victim wasn't driving responsibly and there's no data released to the public that would back up such a claim.
kosievdmerwe 8y ago
It could also be that a false warning took the driver's attention off the road in the second or two they had to save their life.

lolc 8y ago

The warning is not a reaction to unsafe conditions. It comes on when the system detects (rightly or wrongly) that the driver doesn't hold the wheel.

Vik1ng 8y ago

> ignored the warnings for six seconds There were never warnings at that time. Tesla just worded it like that to mislead people. It only talks about videos early in the drive.

shkkmo 8y ago
I think the wording is pretty clear, but I think people didn't take the time to fully read the press release, just skimmed it. This seems pretty clear: "The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision."

robotcookies 8y ago

That's the point of the investigation. Many things could have happened. Maybe the driver fell asleep, maybe he tried to move the wheel and it got stuck. Maybe the car slipped on a patch and had nothing to do with autopilot. We don't know yet. It takes time to review witnesses, multiple sources of information and that's the NTSB's job. Tesla seems to think they know exactly what happened after only reviewing data collected from the car. They see what they want to see and have become blind to any other possibility. I think that's terrifying. I couldn't trust an automaker with that kind of arrogance.

kosievdmerwe 8y ago
Given that this video exists, I'm putting my bet on the Tesla actively swerving into the barrier: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8a0jfh/autopilot_barrier_lust_201812/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8a0jfh/autopil...
- asn0 8y ago
  In that video, it looks like the driver had about 1 second to react to the Tesla's mistake, to avoid hitting the barrier. Dumb question: if I have to constantly stay vigilant with 1-second reaction time because at any time my assisted-driving car might try to kill me (exactly how changes every time the software updates) -- isn't it less effort to just drive my car myself, so I mostly just have to worry about the drivers around me?
  - nugi 8y ago
    Not dumb at all, it is the big unspoken elephant in the room. It is clear that the current, and next iteritave version of autopilot, self driving, etc. are woefully behild the hype. While in theory a "perfect" ai driver is better, is it true in the chaos of real world traffic? Will drivers even want to be subject to NTSB level scrutiny when an accident happens? There are more questions than answers still.
  - JKCalhoun 8y ago
    Hell, I don't even like letting cars shift for me. /sticksnob ;-)

MertsA 8y ago

Tesla didn't claim that he didn't have his hands on the wheel, they claimed that it wasn't detected. Tesla knows how inaccurate that is. Tesla has always been shamefully misleading with all of their victim blaming PR pieces. I get that there's plenty of "unintended acceleration" cases where the driver straight up lies about hitting the wrong pedal but they included that information about what the driver did earlier in the trip and the time he would have had a view of the barrier solely to imply that it's his fault that autopilot killed him. That's never an okay thing to do yet it seems like this is Tesla's modus operandi when there's some high profile accident. Who cares if he had 5 seconds to see the barrier if he only had 0.5 seconds to realize that the car went into casual murder mode right as it veers into the barrier. They make it sound like it had to have been driver error with facts that are irrelevant to the question at hand. Your assumption that Tesla claimed he didn't have his hands on the wheel at the time of the accident is exactly what I'm talking about, Tesla's PR release is filled with weasel words to do exactly that. I'm not even trying to suggest that Autopilot is less safe than an alert human driver, but one thing is clear, we certainly can't trust Tesla to determine how safe it is.

shkkmo 8y ago
> Tesla claimed that the driver had his hands off earlier in the drive, not at the time of the collision. You are wrong: "the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision." see: https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week%E2%80%99s-accident https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week%E2%80%99s-accide... Perhaps you shouldn't attack Tesla for using "weasel words" in their press release if you don't take the time to read it. Edit: You seem to have edited your post without any disclaimer. Your edits were not visible when I responded. Most people on HN will edit their comments with an "Edit: I was wrong about ____" rather than ninja editing the mistaken claim away. This help make discussions easier to follow and limits misunderstandings.
- MertsA 8y ago
  I already corrected that, but the point still stands that their press release is intentionally misleading and Tesla knows very well that detecting hand presence on the wheel has problems. Read the press release in full and tell me that it isn't misleading. Originally when this was posted there was concern over if "prior to the collision" was talking about the 6 seconds before the collision or earlier in the drive. In any case, Tesla is implying that the victim wasn't driving responsibly and there's no data released to the public that would back up such a claim.

kosievdmerwe 8y ago

It could also be that a false warning took the driver's attention off the road in the second or two they had to save their life.