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Thirty Tesla crashes linked to assisted driving system under investigation in US
- m463 5y agoJust sort of a thought experiment... I wonder if non-crashes - situations where the car took evasive action - may have been logged and could also be investigated? On the other hand, evasive actions may be higher because drivers cede more control to the car.
- tankenmate 5y agoThe overall stats like "miles driven per accident" are probably the closest you'll get to this. Obviously Tesla bangs the drum every time figures come out in its favour. There is a level of incompleteness in the data and also some gray areas around the methodology that Tesla uses. But the overall figures do tend to indicate that Teslas using Autopilot and/or active safety features are safer than the average for cars (based on NHTSA and Tesla's reporting on Autopilot and/or active safety feature use). If Tesla released more detailed data and its methodology it would be more helpful to see how significant this analysis is.
- shoto_io 5y agoAre there stats on incidents per kilometer/mile? Thirty sounds a lot but then again, it might be a very tiny number compared to the mileage.
- plorntus 5y agoAlthough it also needs to look at when it decides to hand back control. Its all well and good saying its 'safer' because it makes less mistakes than a human driver would doing the same amount of miles but if it only is activatable in locations/conditions that are considerably easier to control then its somewhat incomparable.
- longcommonname 5y agoThis is often quoted that tesla has a lower accident rate than other vehicles. Comparatively, how often do those vehicles cause deaths while directly taking control of the vehicle.
- Pyramus 5y ago> This is often quoted that tesla has a lower accident rate than other vehicles. In general Teslas have higher accident rates than comparable cars, partly because EVs have higher accidents rates in general, but even among EVs Teslas have the highest. This goes back to data from an insurance company in Norway if I remember correctly. It's very hard to get reliable data though, as Tesla has no incentive to share this kind of data. Obviously you can't draw any conclusion from this to Autopilot-related accidents.
- Emanorick 5y agoSource, please! Would be very interested in the original data. Thx.
- Pyramus 5y agoI don't think the original data is available. Re Norwegian data: https://www.elbil24.no/nyheter/elbiler-bulker-mest/71498210 https://www.elbil24.no/nyheter/elbiler-bulker-mest/71498210 https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/04/electric-car-insurance-woes-evs-have-more-accidents-tesla-model-s-most-expensive-to-insure/ https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/04/electric-car-insurance-... Critical article re autopilot claims: https://jalopnik.com/feds-tesla-autosteer-safety-investigation-was-bullshit-1832542003 https://jalopnik.com/feds-tesla-autosteer-safety-investigati...
- tyfon 5y agoThe reason, at least in the Norwegian article is "big fast car that Norwegians are not used to" and not auto pilot at least. As a comparison my former car, a Toyota Avensis, was 175 cm wide. My model X is 220 wide or something. That's almost half a meter more. Have yet to crash it though :) EVs in general have higher crash rate, most likely due to the instant torque.
- fighterpilot 5y agoYou have to control for the demographics of typical Tesla owners (richer and older - less prone to accident if they weren't using Autopilot), as well as the type of driving that Autopilot is typically used for (tilt towards highway/freeway) when you make that comparison.
- synctext 5y agohttps://www.tesladeaths.com/miles.html https://www.tesladeaths.com/miles.html Is this looking accurate?
- stefan_ 5y agoWhy? Is it okay for the automated system to make objectively bad decisions until it reaches the magic threshold of however many incidents the non-automated system had? In a rewrite, do we not look at bugs until they exceed the number of the original system?
- WanderPanda 5y agoI don't get this radical zero-covid-like mentality. At unbounded cost we can diminish all risk. How do people get to this radical/dystopian point of view that no trade-off should exist?
- stefan_ 5y agoThe point is that you are deliberately misinterpreting the original article and then trying to turn that stupidity into silencing the problem entirely. The original article doesn't relate this to other statistics at all, that was a fabrication of the grandparent. Of course NHTSA needs to investigate each and every one of these crashes. These are automated systems failing and so the issue could be systemic. It's the same reason every rail or airplane crash is investigated.
- grecy 5y ago100 people are killed on the road in the US every single day of the year. 30 sounds tiny to me.
- Neil44 5y agoI think there’s enough Teslas on the road now that I’m willing to accept that each could be an independent and reasonable incident, unless routine investigation shows otherwise.
- t0mas88 5y agoI'm curious mostly how Tesla "self driving" crashes compare to other carmakers "driver assist" crashes. Because those two types of systems have mostly the same capabilities and same legal position, neither are self-driving in any way. But Tesla markets them more aggressively which could lead to a different attitude and behavior by some owners that think they have "self driving" and pay much less attention.
- grammarprofess 5y agoTesla's driver assist tech is much better than most other cars. People are excited about that, making the media report a lot about mostly bad incidents. Nobody cares about your Peugeot 208 "Lane keep assist" crashing you into a cliff, because nobody cares about your Peugeot 208 in the first place.
- DoingIsLearning 5y agoJust for your reference none of the major auto companies do mid-range vehicle ADAS in-house (Higher-end vehicles and Halo product vehicles maybe sometimes). There is no Peugeot LDW, there is just a bunch of OEM suppliers (Bosch, TRW, Mobileye, Continental, etc.) who do that for auto companies. So raining on Peugeot because it is somehow second tier is misleading and misinformed because the electronics you find in a Peugeot ADAS sys, you will equally find in all other mid-range vehicles in the market. So one of those failing would be a pretty big deal because it would apply to many models across many auto brands. Tesla had something like 31 Billion in revenue in 2020 and as an example Bosch had about 71 Billion in revenue for the same period. If there was a case to sue lawyers would be jumping on it.
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- yawaworht1978 5y agoThis number is not telling the full story, a Tesla crash with the assisted driving system often has catastrophic consequences. Time to clip this mountebank swindler Elon a bit. The lawmakers are to be blamed equally however. Try getting aftermarket wheels or exhaust system in most of Europe and you will find that requires homologation. Meanwhile, Tesla OTA updates fly under the radar. Nobody took it serious in the beginning because the sales numbers have been low and probably to not disrupt "the future". But by now, there are plenty of Tesla's with naive conductors who are misled by the marketing and think they are in something like K.I.T.T ( or call it musk industries 420 ).
- elevenoh 5y agoDo you have any data to support this arguably disingenuous conjecture?
- choffee 5y agoDoes this come more from the manufacturers influencing the laws to keep control of the after market spares rather than a concern directly for your safety. I suppose one advantage of the quick OTA updates is that once there is a weakness found in the system it can be fixed in all cars rather than waiting for a recall or extending driver training.
- yawaworht1978 5y agoI don't think it comes from that. Every new model release for, let's say, BMW needs to pass all tests from anew, as it's considered a new vehicle. It makes sense to require homologation for aftermarket parts i would say.Same should be required for any companies OTA updates, just like one update can fix issues, a single update might also cause issues for every car in the fleet.
- sschueller 5y agoYep, just look at the new Yoke steering wheel. I don't understand how that gets approval in Europe. Especially such a large touch screen with many important controls moved into sub menus. I get a fine for eating a hamburger while driving or operating my 3rd party nav but Tesla's UI is ok.
- NorwegianDude 5y agoIt's not surprising. Tesla marketing is basically a scam. The tech is great, but Tesla always overpromise, underdeliver, and lie. The worst part is that few people seems to care or understand that it's BS. Take the latest launch as an example. The car is stated to do 0-60 in 1.99 seconds. Does it do that? No, not even close. It's also supposed to know if you want to go forward or back, and people are surprised when it doesn't do that. And then comes the most dangerous part: Autopilot and full self driving. Tesla cars has over multiple years promised that you can rent out your car as a robotaxi soon if you get the self driving package. Has that happened? No. Will it any time soon? No. Not only is people surprised when self driving doesn't work, but it also has fatal consequences. Heck, even I who have no experience or insights into Tesla can much more accurately than Elon tell people what Tesla will and won't be able to do. And I do of course think Elon knows more, but he chooses to trick people to buy Tesla. This needs to stop...
- JackPoach 5y agoThis is what's so strange about US. There are laws with very hefty fines about false advertising, especially when human life and health is involved, this is true for EU and most other locations. Try to remember how much VW paid for their diesel emission scam. It was almost 3 billion dollars. And Tesla...
- buran77 5y agoAlso remember that GM paid a fraction of that for the ignition switch scandal [0] where GM management intentionally hid the issue which directly lead to at least 120 deaths, and that was just the official count. The US has little interest in hitting home companies in any way. Preventing the false advertising would impact the value of Tesla because the FSD claims were an integral part of Tesla's branding and success. Some countries in Europa, like Germany, blocked Tesla from using misleading claims in their advertising like suggesting anything about self driving [1]. Of course this is usually dismissed as Germany protecting its auto industry. But the reality is that the claims Tesla made consistently misleading and made to suggest the cars is able to self-drive and it's only regulations that prevent it from doing this. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch_recalls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/business/tesla-autopilot-germany.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/business/tesla-autopilot-...
- somedude895 5y agoI wish HN would apply the same rules to discussions about Tesla as they recently have for Bitcoin. It's always the same predictable comments about how Elon's a liar, AP is a scam and Tesla is overvalued and overhyped. Gets so boring.
- phreeza 5y agoWhat are the new rules around Bitcoin discussions?
- dang 5y agoOf course the same rules apply: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. And yes, the repetition is exceedingly tedious and pretty much dominates all threads on these topics—kind of like one big ball of mud.
- bumbada 5y agoSo what? This is the NHTSA job. In the future every single car accident will be investigated, like it is done with airplanes, that is the advantage of autonomous cars, they log everything before the accident. That is what made airplanes so safe that the last accidents have been basically suicidal pilots: You investigate what creates accidents, you learn and take actions so accidents do not happen again. Rinse and repeat. Lots of the "bugs" they are going to find are not in the cars, but in the roads, like perpendicular road crossings (too common in the US), instead of roundabouts, or concrete medians with sudden changes and no visual clues.
- sokoloff 5y agoIt’s pretty far from true that all airplane accidents are investigated. Airliner accidents are, but plenty of minor light aircraft accidents aren’t investigated any more deeply than minor traffic accidents are.
- kamray23 5y agoNot if there's no obvious fault anyway. Small planes go down often because they are usually flown VFR, by less trained pilots, or as training aircraft. For an airliner to be able to go down at all is a problem. For a small propeller-driven plane it's pretty expected, they're manual as hell, less stable, and less massive.
- clifdweller 5y agoThe big choice NHTSA has to make is when to investigate and what counts as a fault of system design failure/operation failure and when that will result in a safe/unsafe recall situation. Case one car encounters situation it should be able to respond to and doesn't would need an in depth investigation whereas case 2 car encounters a new situation cant handle would need a more theoretical analysis on should car be able to handle that or is it safe to continue . i.e baby in road car should handle but they train model to ignore things like plastic cups/ plastic bags or any other "safe" road debris. but should it magically handle baby inside a plastic bag on the road. NHTSA will have to at some point make those calls on it will never be perfect but where is the line of good enough
- Growling_owl 5y agoMusk is really an engineer, and I mean a social engineer. Going back to the early days of business, the owner of the company would try and sell people products and services directly. Then it became lame and seen as a signal of a scam and "trying too hard". Now fast forward nobody does it. But they don't understand that it's only lame and trying too hard when everybody does it. If few people do it , then those people will be admired and elevated, bringing incredible advantages to the company and themselves. Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Mike Lindell...they somehow managed understand this (whether reasoning about it or subconsciously) and they are reaping the rewards.
- nickik 5y ago'investigation' Hacker News: This means they are universally guilty.
- dncornholio 5y agoAutonomous driving needs to be banned and then it needs to be regulated. I don't think Tesla has as high safety standards as what we are used to. Even if data showed 0 accidents, I just cannot trust camera's and software with my and others lives.
- vincent-toups 5y agoThe most literal possible interpretation of "move fast and break stuff."
- GhostVII 5y agoIt is so sad to me that the best electric drivetrain in the world is in a car where they have made pretty much every decision with the goal of taking away from the drivers experience. I don't want the car to drive for me. I don't want the car to shift for me. I don't want a yolk steering wheel, or to have the turn signals be a 1cm moving target, or to have to use the touch screen to change the headlights, turn on my seat heater, or open the glovebox. I just want a car that gives me the control, and has controls I can actually operate safely while driving, while still having the best drivetrain in the world.
- advanced-DnD 5y agoThink the self-driving car is about lessening accident under the axiom of: computer response better than human Personally, I don't like to drive and I think it is a waste of my time, time that can be better used. Which is why I always find my apartment that has good public transport to my work place. Some of my research ideas are found on a train ride to office.