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Troubles with Tesla's automated parking summon safety regulators

38 points by stablemap 7y ago

bob33212 7y ago
How much authority do they have on private property? If I buy a farm who has the authority to stop me from driving remote control or autonomous cars on that farm? If i make that farm accessible to the public to buy my vegetables how does that change?
- danso 7y ago
  NHTSA investigates vehicle safety; whether the accident occurs on private or public property is irrelevant. e.g. when actor Anton Yelchin was killed by his Jeep in his own driveway, the NHTSA issued a statement: https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2016/06/20/jeep-recall-spotlight-after-actor-anton-yelchins-death/86140930/ https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2016/06/20/j...
- flowerlad 7y ago
  What happens on your private property is your business... up until the point you allow public access. If public has access then normal laws governing motor vehicles are applicable even on your private property.
  - slg 7y ago
    >If public has access then normal laws governing motor vehicles are applicable Laws certainly apply, but not necessarily "normal laws governing motor vehicles". For example, you probably can't be ticketed for running a stop sign in a parking lot on private property. However, you would almost certainly be liable for damage if running that stop sign caused an accident and you could be potentially charged with some type of generic reckless driving offense. Obviously the laws vary by jurisdiction.
    - bigiain 7y ago
      As you say, it depends on the jurisdiction. Here (Australia) the rules define "road related areas" as including private property that does not have a "normally locked gate" protecting access. This means all road rules (including stop signs, alcohol/drug rules, mobile phone use, and speed limits) apply in places like publicly accessible carparks on private property, and homeowner's driveways if they do not have a "normally locked gate". People have been booked for drink driving and mobile phone use sitting in their cars in their own driveways here (almost certainly after "failing the attitude test" and pissing a cop off enough for them to punitively enforce a stupid interpretation of a poorly written law, but that's a different rant...)
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      In CA, local governments can and often do pass ordinances allowing Vehicle Code enforcement on certain. Private property; this is most common on parking lots and private roads that are generally open to the public. And law enforcement investigates and assigns fault in reports for accidents on private property even where vehicle code (other than hit and run and DUI, which IIRC apply everywhere) does not apply.
- teraflop 7y ago
  As others have said, this is going to vary a lot depending on where you are. For the most part, the enforcement powers of the NHTSA are limited to things like prohibiting the sale of vehicles that don't meet safety standards. What you actually do with the vehicle once you have it is between you and your local law enforcement.
- elipsey 7y ago
  IANAL, but it seems like the most conservative expectation (baring some new law or clarification) would be that you're simply liable in the same way as if you were driving if something bad happens. Similarly, someone with standing might try suing the automaker if autopilot was implicated as defective or unsafe. It's probably not clear yet how safe the "summon" feature is. Presumably the sample of it's performance is still small, but those videos don't look very encouraging, not just in the sense the car made "mistakes" like failing to yield, but also qualitatively. I would certainly have misgivings about being responsible for the results. It seems like a less risky strategy to improve fully autonomous operation this way then on the freeway, but still risky. Perhaps the thinking is that parking lots are expected to be low speed, low stakes environments, and the car is pretty good at detecting pedestrians and avoiding low speed collisions, so the likeliest problem is property damage. However, people have a way of occasionally doing things that are hard to predict or imagine when we are defining our safety assumptions. In the worst case, a wrongful death suit or something similar might be affordable in dollars but probably not publicity. Even a few less severe accidents seem likely to test the patience of both regulators and the public. Maybe autopilot will get better with more real world use and training data. Or maybe it won’t, or not fast enough. I’m really curious to see how this turns out, but not be being personally responsible when somebody gets hurt :(
vkou 7y ago
As well they should, for a couple of reasons. 1. Legally, just because you're a licensed driver does not mean you've been licensed to remote-operate a car, while standing on the sideline, in a pedestrian-heavy environment, where your line of sight, and your vehicle's path of travel is obstructed by hazards. 2. Teslas seem incapable of reliable collision avoidance, so you can't just expect your car to do the right thing.
- teslafanboi 7y ago
  Teslas seem perfectly capable of avoiding collisions so you're wrong
  - javagram 7y ago
    From the article: “ One posted a video of a Tesla striking a garage wall and another of a Tesla being struck by a vehicle backing up.”
    - teslafanboi 7y ago
      please explain how the tesla is supposed to avoid a car backing up into it
      - javagram 7y ago
        As a driver I’d avoid that by seeing the car backing up and not driving in front of it. Was the human at fault in the video I saw? Yes IMO. But even the Tesla owner who shot the video posted it saying he wasn’t sure whether his insurance company would consider him or the other driver at fault.
      - vkou 7y ago
        Please explain how the Tesla was not at fault in this video: https://twitter.com/eiddor/status/1177749574976462848 https://twitter.com/eiddor/status/1177749574976462848 The driver had to hit an e-stop, to prevent an accident. And also, while we're at it, please explain how a self-driving car that is incapable of seeing that it's going to get t-boned, if it crosses an intersection where it does not have the right of way is in any way ready for the public.
dang 7y ago
Recent and related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21105388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21105388
Shank 7y ago
The real problem here is that Tesla is operating under the assumption that people obey warnings they give them, and that they behave rationally around their luxury cars. They do not. In a perfectly rational world, people would read the warnings and understand the risks, and thus not "expect" the Tesla to detect things that it warns that it cannot detect. The warnings say you need direct line of sight, that the system isn't perfect, and that it may not detect all obstacles. Even ones expected to be in parking lots. Those warnings all make sense, but the people recording the videos don't care. They're just pressing the button and being shocked that it doesn't work. Ultimately, regulators will step in if they feel that people still get into crashes despite having the warnings. If the warnings don't stop people from doing stupid things, they'll require more warnings or kill the feature. Unfortunately for Tesla, the regulator focus is public safety (and the underlying statistics). If the tables turn then it doesn't matter how safe the feature is when used correctly. Instead, it matters how safe the feature is when used incorrectly. And that will only hurt Tesla in the long run. And that's a shame, because it will make true self driving cars that much harder to get to market.
- gurumeditations 7y ago
  I’d argue the real problem is that Tesla puts this experimental buggy self-driving stuff out into the general public, knowing, because they’re not dumb, that ‘troubles’ are going to happen because of it. The big auto manufacturers don’t do this public beta testing with 2-ton behemoths because at their scale, the ‘troubles’ caused by that attitude Tesla has would be a national scandal with prison time.
- anon1m0us 7y ago
  Why should they be shocked that it doesn't work? Why is something that doesn't work and can kill people being deployed anyway? It doesn't work! You cannot blame people who bought a car because it has a feature they want actually trying to use that feature.
- wiggles_md 7y ago
  The reliance on warnings has amazed me. In medical device designs I’ve worked on, we consider what happens when the user doesn’t follow the instructions and incorporate those failure modes into the design. And our users receive documented training on our devices!
underwater 7y ago
"I expected the Tesla to ‘see’ it and stop, however I had to take my finger off the (app) button when I saw that my Tesla wasn’t slowing down,” Your car is not a fucking toy. He could have injured the occupants of the other car while he watched and filmed because he wanted to play with a cool feature without first learning how it works. If you don't know what's going to happen, don't assume your automated car knows how to avoid a collision.
pdq 7y ago
Another point which needs to be brought up is insurance. If accidents are being caused by this technology, insurers are eventually going to either: increase rates on cars with FSD, or just stop offering insurance on cars with FSD. IMO if Tesla were really confident in their summon technology, they would cover accidents with it themselves. Relying on errors with their technology to be covered by outside insurance is reckless.
- elipsey 7y ago
  >> insurers are eventually going to either: increase rates on cars with FSD, or just stop offering insurance on cars with FSD. This occurred to me as well. I have wondered if Tesla started their own insurance pool as a contingency plan to address the risk that other insurers will begin to decline coverage or price it impractically, or to show that it's possible with reasonable prices.
- tyfon 7y ago
  In Norway you have some insurance companies lowering the premium if you have FSD or AP since apparently it reduces accidents. This new feature though is not available in Europe and I guess it won't be until the European manufacturers start having the same features :(
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > If accidents are being caused by this technology, insurers are eventually going to either: increase rates on cars with FSD, or just stop offering insurance on cars with FSD. Or exclude use of FSD from coverage.
  - new_realist 7y ago
    It’s hard to verify Summon is in use when only Tesla has access to the data, and they’re very uncooperative when it would make them look bad. I wouldn’t call it “FSD” except as a joke. Tesla is 15 years away from FSD.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
powerbroker 7y ago
I tried the V10 SW a few days ago. In sunny, dry weather, with no debris and 0 traffic. In a flat, well-maintained parking lot. A dog with a paper bag over its head would navigate better. I won't trust it until they are 10 iterations into it.
- YZF 7y ago
  dogs have a keen sense of smell though ;)
tibbydudeza 7y ago
Yet another dumb boneheaded Elon move from Tesla ... cars are not browsers. It is one thing to test "beta" software on your PC but it is a totally another thing when it can actually kill people. They should look at how medical devices are developed and certified.
jmpman 7y ago
Maybe Tesla is coaxing insurers into disallowing claims when using summon. This would the force Tesla customers to switch to Tesla insurance.
Glawen 7y ago
I find it funny that the US requires to have engraved "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear" on their mirror, and yet allow to sell cars with dubious autonomous driving claims which are misleading.
whatever1 7y ago
If I drive drunk then I have to face legal consequences, even if I don’t cause an accident. Just because of the higher probability of causing an accident. Tesla on the other hand can freely release half baked software killing people, causing accidents with being 100% at fault and now threatening kids in shopping malls without any consequences.
- mrtksn 7y ago
  You could have done that too if you had fame and money. In fact, celebrities get away with a lot of stuff that ordinary folks cannot. I love what Tesla is doing to the auto industry but I don’t like the idea if a company that’s not accountable.
sschueller 7y ago
So everyone who has this feature purchased the full autonomous future upgrade for $6000. Does anyone really think that will become a reality before the cars end of life?

38 points by stablemap 7y ago

How much authority do they have on private property? If I buy a farm who has the authority to stop me from driving remote control or autonomous cars on that farm? If i make that farm accessible to the public to buy my vegetables how does that change?

danso 7y ago
NHTSA investigates vehicle safety; whether the accident occurs on private or public property is irrelevant. e.g. when actor Anton Yelchin was killed by his Jeep in his own driveway, the NHTSA issued a statement: https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2016/06/20/jeep-recall-spotlight-after-actor-anton-yelchins-death/86140930/ https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2016/06/20/j...
flowerlad 7y ago
What happens on your private property is your business... up until the point you allow public access. If public has access then normal laws governing motor vehicles are applicable even on your private property.
- slg 7y ago
  >If public has access then normal laws governing motor vehicles are applicable Laws certainly apply, but not necessarily "normal laws governing motor vehicles". For example, you probably can't be ticketed for running a stop sign in a parking lot on private property. However, you would almost certainly be liable for damage if running that stop sign caused an accident and you could be potentially charged with some type of generic reckless driving offense. Obviously the laws vary by jurisdiction.
  - bigiain 7y ago
    As you say, it depends on the jurisdiction. Here (Australia) the rules define "road related areas" as including private property that does not have a "normally locked gate" protecting access. This means all road rules (including stop signs, alcohol/drug rules, mobile phone use, and speed limits) apply in places like publicly accessible carparks on private property, and homeowner's driveways if they do not have a "normally locked gate". People have been booked for drink driving and mobile phone use sitting in their cars in their own driveways here (almost certainly after "failing the attitude test" and pissing a cop off enough for them to punitively enforce a stupid interpretation of a poorly written law, but that's a different rant...)
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    In CA, local governments can and often do pass ordinances allowing Vehicle Code enforcement on certain. Private property; this is most common on parking lots and private roads that are generally open to the public. And law enforcement investigates and assigns fault in reports for accidents on private property even where vehicle code (other than hit and run and DUI, which IIRC apply everywhere) does not apply.
teraflop 7y ago
As others have said, this is going to vary a lot depending on where you are. For the most part, the enforcement powers of the NHTSA are limited to things like prohibiting the sale of vehicles that don't meet safety standards. What you actually do with the vehicle once you have it is between you and your local law enforcement.
elipsey 7y ago
IANAL, but it seems like the most conservative expectation (baring some new law or clarification) would be that you're simply liable in the same way as if you were driving if something bad happens. Similarly, someone with standing might try suing the automaker if autopilot was implicated as defective or unsafe. It's probably not clear yet how safe the "summon" feature is. Presumably the sample of it's performance is still small, but those videos don't look very encouraging, not just in the sense the car made "mistakes" like failing to yield, but also qualitatively. I would certainly have misgivings about being responsible for the results. It seems like a less risky strategy to improve fully autonomous operation this way then on the freeway, but still risky. Perhaps the thinking is that parking lots are expected to be low speed, low stakes environments, and the car is pretty good at detecting pedestrians and avoiding low speed collisions, so the likeliest problem is property damage. However, people have a way of occasionally doing things that are hard to predict or imagine when we are defining our safety assumptions. In the worst case, a wrongful death suit or something similar might be affordable in dollars but probably not publicity. Even a few less severe accidents seem likely to test the patience of both regulators and the public. Maybe autopilot will get better with more real world use and training data. Or maybe it won’t, or not fast enough. I’m really curious to see how this turns out, but not be being personally responsible when somebody gets hurt :(

vkou 7y ago

As well they should, for a couple of reasons. 1. Legally, just because you're a licensed driver does not mean you've been licensed to remote-operate a car, while standing on the sideline, in a pedestrian-heavy environment, where your line of sight, and your vehicle's path of travel is obstructed by hazards. 2. Teslas seem incapable of reliable collision avoidance, so you can't just expect your car to do the right thing.

teslafanboi 7y ago
Teslas seem perfectly capable of avoiding collisions so you're wrong
- javagram 7y ago
  From the article: “ One posted a video of a Tesla striking a garage wall and another of a Tesla being struck by a vehicle backing up.”
  - teslafanboi 7y ago
    please explain how the tesla is supposed to avoid a car backing up into it
    - javagram 7y ago
      As a driver I’d avoid that by seeing the car backing up and not driving in front of it. Was the human at fault in the video I saw? Yes IMO. But even the Tesla owner who shot the video posted it saying he wasn’t sure whether his insurance company would consider him or the other driver at fault.
    - vkou 7y ago
      Please explain how the Tesla was not at fault in this video: https://twitter.com/eiddor/status/1177749574976462848 https://twitter.com/eiddor/status/1177749574976462848 The driver had to hit an e-stop, to prevent an accident. And also, while we're at it, please explain how a self-driving car that is incapable of seeing that it's going to get t-boned, if it crosses an intersection where it does not have the right of way is in any way ready for the public.

dang 7y ago

Recent and related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21105388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21105388

Shank 7y ago

The real problem here is that Tesla is operating under the assumption that people obey warnings they give them, and that they behave rationally around their luxury cars. They do not. In a perfectly rational world, people would read the warnings and understand the risks, and thus not "expect" the Tesla to detect things that it warns that it cannot detect. The warnings say you need direct line of sight, that the system isn't perfect, and that it may not detect all obstacles. Even ones expected to be in parking lots. Those warnings all make sense, but the people recording the videos don't care. They're just pressing the button and being shocked that it doesn't work. Ultimately, regulators will step in if they feel that people still get into crashes despite having the warnings. If the warnings don't stop people from doing stupid things, they'll require more warnings or kill the feature. Unfortunately for Tesla, the regulator focus is public safety (and the underlying statistics). If the tables turn then it doesn't matter how safe the feature is when used correctly. Instead, it matters how safe the feature is when used incorrectly. And that will only hurt Tesla in the long run. And that's a shame, because it will make true self driving cars that much harder to get to market.

gurumeditations 7y ago
I’d argue the real problem is that Tesla puts this experimental buggy self-driving stuff out into the general public, knowing, because they’re not dumb, that ‘troubles’ are going to happen because of it. The big auto manufacturers don’t do this public beta testing with 2-ton behemoths because at their scale, the ‘troubles’ caused by that attitude Tesla has would be a national scandal with prison time.
anon1m0us 7y ago
Why should they be shocked that it doesn't work? Why is something that doesn't work and can kill people being deployed anyway? It doesn't work! You cannot blame people who bought a car because it has a feature they want actually trying to use that feature.
wiggles_md 7y ago
The reliance on warnings has amazed me. In medical device designs I’ve worked on, we consider what happens when the user doesn’t follow the instructions and incorporate those failure modes into the design. And our users receive documented training on our devices!

underwater 7y ago

"I expected the Tesla to ‘see’ it and stop, however I had to take my finger off the (app) button when I saw that my Tesla wasn’t slowing down,” Your car is not a fucking toy. He could have injured the occupants of the other car while he watched and filmed because he wanted to play with a cool feature without first learning how it works. If you don't know what's going to happen, don't assume your automated car knows how to avoid a collision.

pdq 7y ago

Another point which needs to be brought up is insurance. If accidents are being caused by this technology, insurers are eventually going to either: increase rates on cars with FSD, or just stop offering insurance on cars with FSD. IMO if Tesla were really confident in their summon technology, they would cover accidents with it themselves. Relying on errors with their technology to be covered by outside insurance is reckless.

elipsey 7y ago
>> insurers are eventually going to either: increase rates on cars with FSD, or just stop offering insurance on cars with FSD. This occurred to me as well. I have wondered if Tesla started their own insurance pool as a contingency plan to address the risk that other insurers will begin to decline coverage or price it impractically, or to show that it's possible with reasonable prices.
tyfon 7y ago
In Norway you have some insurance companies lowering the premium if you have FSD or AP since apparently it reduces accidents. This new feature though is not available in Europe and I guess it won't be until the European manufacturers start having the same features :(
dragonwriter 7y ago
> If accidents are being caused by this technology, insurers are eventually going to either: increase rates on cars with FSD, or just stop offering insurance on cars with FSD. Or exclude use of FSD from coverage.
- new_realist 7y ago
  It’s hard to verify Summon is in use when only Tesla has access to the data, and they’re very uncooperative when it would make them look bad. I wouldn’t call it “FSD” except as a joke. Tesla is 15 years away from FSD.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago

powerbroker 7y ago

I tried the V10 SW a few days ago. In sunny, dry weather, with no debris and 0 traffic. In a flat, well-maintained parking lot. A dog with a paper bag over its head would navigate better. I won't trust it until they are 10 iterations into it.

YZF 7y ago
dogs have a keen sense of smell though ;)

tibbydudeza 7y ago

Yet another dumb boneheaded Elon move from Tesla ... cars are not browsers. It is one thing to test "beta" software on your PC but it is a totally another thing when it can actually kill people. They should look at how medical devices are developed and certified.

jmpman 7y ago

Maybe Tesla is coaxing insurers into disallowing claims when using summon. This would the force Tesla customers to switch to Tesla insurance.

Glawen 7y ago

I find it funny that the US requires to have engraved "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear" on their mirror, and yet allow to sell cars with dubious autonomous driving claims which are misleading.

whatever1 7y ago

If I drive drunk then I have to face legal consequences, even if I don’t cause an accident. Just because of the higher probability of causing an accident. Tesla on the other hand can freely release half baked software killing people, causing accidents with being 100% at fault and now threatening kids in shopping malls without any consequences.

mrtksn 7y ago
You could have done that too if you had fame and money. In fact, celebrities get away with a lot of stuff that ordinary folks cannot. I love what Tesla is doing to the auto industry but I don’t like the idea if a company that’s not accountable.

sschueller 7y ago

So everyone who has this feature purchased the full autonomous future upgrade for $6000. Does anyone really think that will become a reality before the cars end of life?