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Personally I dislike Tesla because I think Autopilot causes preventable deaths.

by MegaButts 7y ago

KptMarchewa 7y ago
Humans driving cars cause preventable deaths.
- Angostura 7y ago
  It’s not a monetised feature, though.
  - jayd16 7y ago
    Driving a car is indeed a monetized feature of cars. He's saying even if a self driving car is more dangerous than a human, a human driven car is still dangerous and we all accept that. So its not about whether the deaths were preventable. We accept human driven cars therefore we accept preventable death. We're now forced to consider the fact that this is an argument about the fuzzy math of risk vs reward as we have crossed the threshold of preventable deaths long ago.
- schuke 7y ago
  I guess OP means preventable by others who are knowledgeable of the preventability?
- threeseed 7y ago
  What is the point of this comment ? Humans doing anything cause preventable deaths. That has nothing to do with whether or not a new, potentially life threatening technology should be on the market.
- aquadrop 7y ago
  I think it's like saying "I don't like surgery, because mistakes during surgeries cause preventable deaths"
bsaul 7y ago
I don’t understand the downvotes. This was actually the same reason for me that changed my perception of the company and of musk, from something fantastic to something dangerous. When they went from saying « we’re aiming at self driving car in the future » to « our car are able to do it right now », leaving all kinds of ambiguity just for the sake of hyping the brand, they crossed the red line.
jnwatson 7y ago
Musk’s hubris is annoying, but how many lives did he save by not waiting until the autopilot was “ready”? It is probably in the dozens at this point.
- MegaButts 7y ago
  I'm not sure why you think that. While this is a very dense document, it details a lot about the fatality statistics around Teslas and Autopilot. The short version is that Teslas are actually not very safe cars (relatively speaking), and Autopilot is probably much more dangerous than manual driving (although Tesla won't release the data, so we don't know for sure). https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ESnyJ4b7m96OCjs3GSQ6EGF7YOMuv0XV-ROXTYIazTs/htmlview# https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ESnyJ4b7m96OCjs3GSQ6...
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    That's a list of all fatalities involving Teslas reported in the media, including ones caused by human Tesla drivers or the drivers of other vehicles involved in the collision, and speculation trying to associate that with a number of miles driven. Then they have "miles per death" numbers in the 150M-240M range, but the US average is less than 100M per death (typically stated as the inverse, deaths per 100M miles[1]), so according to your data they're apparently better than average, though collecting it through media reports this way is questionable anyway. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... I see a column for deaths attributed to autopilot, but it sums to 4 in the US, which is too small to be a good statistical sample even if we knew how many miles per death that was, but I don't see any data for miles driven on autopilot regardless.
    - MegaButts 7y ago
      The thing about comparisons is you need to compare like to like as much as possible. Demographics are an essential part of actuarial statistics. I think the best comparison is between Tesla and luxury vehicles, and here is an article showing Teslas are much more dangerous: https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-rate-is-more-than-triple-that-of-luxury-cars-and-likely-even-higher-433670ddde17 https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-r... I'm not sure if you noticed (I didn't the first time I saw that document), but there are multiple tabs and that's under the 'Resources' section. That said, the data is obviously incomplete. Only Tesla really knows. While it's obviously a guess, I think the most damning evidence is that Tesla isn't releasing their own data to the contrary, because I think Elon Musk of all people would be ecstatic to shutup the haters such as myself.
hoseja 7y ago
Do you dislike drunk-drivers and phone-drivers with the same passion and focus? Do you expect them to gradually become better and better at driving through natural evolution?
- MegaButts 7y ago
  I hate drunk drivers way more than I hate Tesla. That stuff never shows up on HN though, whereas Tesla is on the front page all the time. Autopilot (and by extension Tesla) is also a lot more controversial than drunk driving, and by extension more interesting to discuss.
- Maakuth 7y ago
  No car company implies that drunk driver would be safer than myself behind the wheel, and I should let her drive instead.
Tepix 7y ago
If we arrive at a working solution faster (i.e. something that prevents more deaths than it causes), it makes sense to speed up its development to get to that state faster. The question remains if we accept a death by software bug (i.e. human software developer error) in the same way we accept a death by human driving error.
- notahacker 7y ago
  > The question remains if we accept a death by software bug (i.e. human software developer error) in the same way we accept a death by human driving error. The closest thing Hacker News has to consensus is "certainly not if it's Boeing, probably not if it's Uber but definitely if it's Tesla..."

Personally I dislike Tesla because I think Autopilot causes preventable deaths.

KptMarchewa 7y ago

Humans driving cars cause preventable deaths.

Angostura 7y ago
It’s not a monetised feature, though.
- jayd16 7y ago
  Driving a car is indeed a monetized feature of cars. He's saying even if a self driving car is more dangerous than a human, a human driven car is still dangerous and we all accept that. So its not about whether the deaths were preventable. We accept human driven cars therefore we accept preventable death. We're now forced to consider the fact that this is an argument about the fuzzy math of risk vs reward as we have crossed the threshold of preventable deaths long ago.
schuke 7y ago
I guess OP means preventable by others who are knowledgeable of the preventability?
threeseed 7y ago
What is the point of this comment ? Humans doing anything cause preventable deaths. That has nothing to do with whether or not a new, potentially life threatening technology should be on the market.
aquadrop 7y ago
I think it's like saying "I don't like surgery, because mistakes during surgeries cause preventable deaths"

bsaul 7y ago

I don’t understand the downvotes. This was actually the same reason for me that changed my perception of the company and of musk, from something fantastic to something dangerous. When they went from saying « we’re aiming at self driving car in the future » to « our car are able to do it right now », leaving all kinds of ambiguity just for the sake of hyping the brand, they crossed the red line.

jnwatson 7y ago

Musk’s hubris is annoying, but how many lives did he save by not waiting until the autopilot was “ready”? It is probably in the dozens at this point.

MegaButts 7y ago
I'm not sure why you think that. While this is a very dense document, it details a lot about the fatality statistics around Teslas and Autopilot. The short version is that Teslas are actually not very safe cars (relatively speaking), and Autopilot is probably much more dangerous than manual driving (although Tesla won't release the data, so we don't know for sure). https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ESnyJ4b7m96OCjs3GSQ6EGF7YOMuv0XV-ROXTYIazTs/htmlview# https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ESnyJ4b7m96OCjs3GSQ6...
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  That's a list of all fatalities involving Teslas reported in the media, including ones caused by human Tesla drivers or the drivers of other vehicles involved in the collision, and speculation trying to associate that with a number of miles driven. Then they have "miles per death" numbers in the 150M-240M range, but the US average is less than 100M per death (typically stated as the inverse, deaths per 100M miles[1]), so according to your data they're apparently better than average, though collecting it through media reports this way is questionable anyway. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... I see a column for deaths attributed to autopilot, but it sums to 4 in the US, which is too small to be a good statistical sample even if we knew how many miles per death that was, but I don't see any data for miles driven on autopilot regardless.
  - MegaButts 7y ago
    The thing about comparisons is you need to compare like to like as much as possible. Demographics are an essential part of actuarial statistics. I think the best comparison is between Tesla and luxury vehicles, and here is an article showing Teslas are much more dangerous: https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-rate-is-more-than-triple-that-of-luxury-cars-and-likely-even-higher-433670ddde17 https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-r... I'm not sure if you noticed (I didn't the first time I saw that document), but there are multiple tabs and that's under the 'Resources' section. That said, the data is obviously incomplete. Only Tesla really knows. While it's obviously a guess, I think the most damning evidence is that Tesla isn't releasing their own data to the contrary, because I think Elon Musk of all people would be ecstatic to shutup the haters such as myself.

hoseja 7y ago

Do you dislike drunk-drivers and phone-drivers with the same passion and focus? Do you expect them to gradually become better and better at driving through natural evolution?

MegaButts 7y ago
I hate drunk drivers way more than I hate Tesla. That stuff never shows up on HN though, whereas Tesla is on the front page all the time. Autopilot (and by extension Tesla) is also a lot more controversial than drunk driving, and by extension more interesting to discuss.
Maakuth 7y ago
No car company implies that drunk driver would be safer than myself behind the wheel, and I should let her drive instead.

Tepix 7y ago

If we arrive at a working solution faster (i.e. something that prevents more deaths than it causes), it makes sense to speed up its development to get to that state faster. The question remains if we accept a death by software bug (i.e. human software developer error) in the same way we accept a death by human driving error.

notahacker 7y ago
> The question remains if we accept a death by software bug (i.e. human software developer error) in the same way we accept a death by human driving error. The closest thing Hacker News has to consensus is "certainly not if it's Boeing, probably not if it's Uber but definitely if it's Tesla..."