9 ms·

Add to that, the last bullet point from page 2 of the official preliminary report[1]: At 3 seconds prior to the crash and up to the time of impact with the

by devy 8y ago

Add to that, the last bullet point from page 2 of the official preliminary report[1]: At 3 seconds prior to the crash and up to the time of impact with the crash attenuator, the Tesla’s speed increased from 62 to 70.8 mph, with no precrash braking or evasive steering movement detected. That to me is a strong indicator that Tesla's AP2 can not recognize a crashed attenuator, probably one of the strongest argument that AP2 without LiDAR is unsafe and fatal (let alone of missing the redundancy in sensors and brakes[2]). [1]: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HWY18FH011-preliminary.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/... [2]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/why-selling-full-self-driving-before-its-ready-could-backfire-for-tesla/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/why-selling-full-self-d...

mikeyouse 8y ago
It reads like he was following another car that was driving at a slower speed but once that car left his path, his car began to accelerate to the pre-set speed of 75mph.
- devy 8y ago
  It doesn't matter if he was following another car or not. If there is an obstacle, AP2 should brake and in that case it should brake hard or use evasive turning maneuvers to avoid head-on collision.
  - MBCook 8y ago
    That’s the thing, it clearly didn’t detect the obstacle. Given that there were no (known) obstacles, it behaved correctly. Fix the obstacle detection.
    - fixermark 8y ago
      The problem is it's entirely possible the obstacle detection is un-fixable without swapping out the sensor suite the Tesla ships with. Tesla is quite clearly expecting the problem to be solvable with that sensor suite alone (this is more-or-less the line I was given by a Tesla seller when I was shopping for a car), so it's not going to be in the T-sheet for them to recall every Tesla on the road to fit a LIDAR to them, assuming that's at all feasible.
      - kartik-bh 8y ago
        Yup. I'm guessing that they got too much false positives with their radar system, a car stopping for no reason on the freeway would be a deal-breaker for customers.
ingenieroariel 8y ago
This happens with regular adaptive cruise control on my Ford, when the cruise control set point is a lot higher than the current speed: the car accelerates after another car clears the lane and ram into things.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  To contrast that anecdote, this doesn't happen with my Subaru with EyeSight. It uses parallax for 3D distance, if it detects a solid object ahead (be it vehicle, wall, barrier, or anything else) it will apply the emergency braking system (which may still result in a collision in the given circumstances but at much less fatal speeds). The industry has many highly effective AEB systems, and has for years now. I cannot comment on Ford's because I don't know specifically about its problems.
  - MBCook 8y ago
    I think the parent was talking about in the general case, when there are no obstacles. I imagine the Ford would brake too if it detected an obsticle (and has an AEB system of some sort).
  - mrtron 8y ago
    My Subaru with EyeSight accelerates heavily when it no longer is tracking a car in front. This has happened once or twice in odd circumstances, but since I was paying attention to both the speed increase and road in front I tapped the brakes to disengage.
- devy 8y ago
  Ford didn't call their adaptive cruise control "auto pilot", they call it as it really is: "Adaptive Cruise Control with Stop-and-Go".[1] By contrast, Tesla touted their ACC "auto pilot" with auto steering and clearly in this case it didn't steer correctly and proven fatal (at least 3 times in my memory.) [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnUtjs-jeJA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnUtjs-jeJA
- jonknee 8y ago
  Like all adaptive cruise controls, it will accelerate if you have the max speed set higher, but it will not ram into things since it's on you to steer.
martin_bech 8y ago
A counter argument that HUMAN DRIVERS are unsafe an fatal (let alone missing common sense and alertness). I 100% get your point, but my counterpoint, is that this is what we are going to see, in the future. Autonomous systems that by and large are way safer, than human drivers, but when they fail, the might do so, in circumstances where are human would not. Humans are good at some things, computers/ai/sensor suites are good at others, and that is going to mean different kinds of failures, and we have to learn from this. The gigantic upside, is countless situations where the ai, detecs things, the human would not, and overall better outcomes. (Its also worth nothing, that this incident, was way worse because of the barrier. If the divider was in normal condition, the driver would have lived, in my opinion).
- lern_too_spel 8y ago
  It is not clear that this particular autonomous driving system is better than a human driver.
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    And they play contradictory arguments using statistics "You don't have enough data to say it is dangerous!" while at the same time using the exact same statistics to argue that it is safer. Either the statistics are half-baked or they're ready to draw conclusions with, you cannot have it both ways.
  - cornholio 8y ago
    This is not even an autonomous driving system. Let loose to drive from city A to city B without human supervision, it will crash 9/10 trips.
  - dylan-m 8y ago
    Not to mention repeatedly claiming that "it saves lives", when they're probably either talking about a completely separate collision avoidance system (which has probably stopped several accidents, by definition, but it isn't special and it doesn't move the car on its own); or they're talking out of their asses because the number of independent variables is the kind of thing you need a PhD statistician for and they'll probably just tell you to take a hike.

by devy 8y ago

mikeyouse 8y ago

It reads like he was following another car that was driving at a slower speed but once that car left his path, his car began to accelerate to the pre-set speed of 75mph.

devy 8y ago
It doesn't matter if he was following another car or not. If there is an obstacle, AP2 should brake and in that case it should brake hard or use evasive turning maneuvers to avoid head-on collision.
- MBCook 8y ago
  That’s the thing, it clearly didn’t detect the obstacle. Given that there were no (known) obstacles, it behaved correctly. Fix the obstacle detection.
  - fixermark 8y ago
    The problem is it's entirely possible the obstacle detection is un-fixable without swapping out the sensor suite the Tesla ships with. Tesla is quite clearly expecting the problem to be solvable with that sensor suite alone (this is more-or-less the line I was given by a Tesla seller when I was shopping for a car), so it's not going to be in the T-sheet for them to recall every Tesla on the road to fit a LIDAR to them, assuming that's at all feasible.
    - kartik-bh 8y ago
      Yup. I'm guessing that they got too much false positives with their radar system, a car stopping for no reason on the freeway would be a deal-breaker for customers.

ingenieroariel 8y ago

This happens with regular adaptive cruise control on my Ford, when the cruise control set point is a lot higher than the current speed: the car accelerates after another car clears the lane and ram into things.

Someone1234 8y ago
To contrast that anecdote, this doesn't happen with my Subaru with EyeSight. It uses parallax for 3D distance, if it detects a solid object ahead (be it vehicle, wall, barrier, or anything else) it will apply the emergency braking system (which may still result in a collision in the given circumstances but at much less fatal speeds). The industry has many highly effective AEB systems, and has for years now. I cannot comment on Ford's because I don't know specifically about its problems.
- MBCook 8y ago
  I think the parent was talking about in the general case, when there are no obstacles. I imagine the Ford would brake too if it detected an obsticle (and has an AEB system of some sort).
- mrtron 8y ago
  My Subaru with EyeSight accelerates heavily when it no longer is tracking a car in front. This has happened once or twice in odd circumstances, but since I was paying attention to both the speed increase and road in front I tapped the brakes to disengage.
devy 8y ago
Ford didn't call their adaptive cruise control "auto pilot", they call it as it really is: "Adaptive Cruise Control with Stop-and-Go".[1] By contrast, Tesla touted their ACC "auto pilot" with auto steering and clearly in this case it didn't steer correctly and proven fatal (at least 3 times in my memory.) [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnUtjs-jeJA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnUtjs-jeJA
jonknee 8y ago
Like all adaptive cruise controls, it will accelerate if you have the max speed set higher, but it will not ram into things since it's on you to steer.

martin_bech 8y ago

A counter argument that HUMAN DRIVERS are unsafe an fatal (let alone missing common sense and alertness). I 100% get your point, but my counterpoint, is that this is what we are going to see, in the future. Autonomous systems that by and large are way safer, than human drivers, but when they fail, the might do so, in circumstances where are human would not. Humans are good at some things, computers/ai/sensor suites are good at others, and that is going to mean different kinds of failures, and we have to learn from this. The gigantic upside, is countless situations where the ai, detecs things, the human would not, and overall better outcomes. (Its also worth nothing, that this incident, was way worse because of the barrier. If the divider was in normal condition, the driver would have lived, in my opinion).

lern_too_spel 8y ago
It is not clear that this particular autonomous driving system is better than a human driver.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  And they play contradictory arguments using statistics "You don't have enough data to say it is dangerous!" while at the same time using the exact same statistics to argue that it is safer. Either the statistics are half-baked or they're ready to draw conclusions with, you cannot have it both ways.
- cornholio 8y ago
  This is not even an autonomous driving system. Let loose to drive from city A to city B without human supervision, it will crash 9/10 trips.
- dylan-m 8y ago
  Not to mention repeatedly claiming that "it saves lives", when they're probably either talking about a completely separate collision avoidance system (which has probably stopped several accidents, by definition, but it isn't special and it doesn't move the car on its own); or they're talking out of their asses because the number of independent variables is the kind of thing you need a PhD statistician for and they'll probably just tell you to take a hike.