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Teslas running Autopilot have been in 273 crashes in less than a year
- angrysword 4y agoA Tesla was in a junkyard for three weeks. Then it burst into flames (washingtonpost.com) Washingtonpost
- shiftpgdn 4y agoIt should not surprise me that the Washington Post, the paper that ran 2-3 hit pieces per day against Musk after he announced his intent to acquire twitter is now running a hit piece against Tesla with a misleading title.
- JaimeThompson 4y agoHow is the title misleading?
- throw457 4y agoIt's misleading because it doesn't fit their Agenda.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- darkwater 4y agoI would say that the wording used subtly implies that it is a negative thing. Using "less then a year" signals, to me, that the number is high for a short amount of time. (being behind a paywall I cannot read the full article to judge if it is actually misleading based on that)
- shawabawa3 4y agoIt's misleading because it's a number of crashes that sounds bad, but there's no way of knowing if that's true from the headline if you haven't got a bunch of car statistics memorised A less misleading title would be "Tesla autopilot involved in 70% of driving-assistance accidents this year" Even that is potentially misleading if Tesla autopilot represents more than 70% of driver assisted miles on the road
- freemint 4y agoNot matter what way the headline would have been phrased people would have complained. "Company X lost $money ..." headlines are printed all the time. To me it doesn't look like unfair reporting but instead i see a group of people accusing with loaded language ("hit pieces" is loaded) normal reporting to be biased against Musk because "daddy can't be wrong" and criticism must there for be an attack.
- prmoustache 4y agoI am not sure what is misleading in the title. What is missing however is the percentage of crash per amount of cars registered with and without assistance equipment and per brand. I have no way from this article to know if it fare better or worse than other brands and/or traditionnally operated cars.
- astannard 4y agoHow many were deemed the fault of autopilot. Many may be cars running into the back of them etc.
- codetiger 4y agoIs there a comparison with other top car models?
- blinding-streak 4y ago"Tesla vehicles made up nearly 70 percent of the 392 crashes involving advanced driver-assistance systems reported since last July" "Honda reported 90 crashes during the same time period involving advanced driver-assistance systems, and Subaru reported 10."
- codetiger 4y agoWow, that sounds a lot
- rcMgD2BwE72F 4y agoUnless Tesla's Autopilot is far more reliable than the rest of the industry, so Tesla's drivers use it more. That cannot be inferred from the current data but Tesla does communicate this figure for their vehicles. We need accident per mile driven on active ADAS to make a fair evaluation.
- andrewaylett 4y agoTesla's Autopilot makes it easier for drivers to treat it as if it were L3 (even down to marketing it as "full self driving") which means they're not paying as much attention to actually driving the car as they're required to for a L2 system.
- lionkor 4y agoDo they make up 70 % of driver-assistance cars? Or how much? It's like saying 80% of bad search results are google results, if google had an 80% market share - it says nothing without the comparison
- deleted 4y ago
- rsly233 4y agoWas this headline written by an unpaid teenage intern? It should be obvious that '273 crashes' is meaningless without a comparison to how many are expected among other similar vehicles.
- hstan4 4y ago
- bmitc 4y agoWhy? A human driver and a computer “driver” that is misleadingly marketed are two, totally different things.
- cies 4y agoNo this is just the new way of doing things. COVID case numbers were notoriously absolute during the whole pandemic (in some cases govts insisted the media/dashboads only gave absolutes), which is so useless as a data point and so easy to make useful, but no... This is the new journalism/government: we love absolutes.
- jfabre 4y agoYour first sentence is more of a commentary than anything. Other than that I have to agree with you, just giving the numbers like that is super meaningless and almost deceptive, especially for infection data. It's a disgrace and shouldn't be tolerated, it makes people with poor deductive skills draw the wrong conclusions and operate with emotions instead of logic.
- blinding-streak 4y agoIf you bothered to read the article, this information is presented.
- robertlagrant 4y agoThere's a whole article motte to justify the headline bailey!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lionkor 4y agoCan't read the article because I'm poor, but... Is that a lot? How high is this compared to non-autopilot cars? How many of these are fault of the autopilot? Where are the stats coming from? What counts as a crash - is every one of those fatal, or does this include running into a pole while parking?
- hoppyhoppy2 4y agohttps://wapo.st/3mS7whs https://wapo.st/3mS7whs <- "gift article" link, no account required
- codetiger 4y agoAm poor as well, can't read the WP articles coz of my location.
- hoppyhoppy2 4y agoIf https://wapo.st/3mS7whs https://wapo.st/3mS7whs doesn't work, try https://archive.ph/ycgCV https://archive.ph/ycgCV
- blakesterz 4y agoThis one from The AP [0] says Tesla’s figure and its crash rate per 1,000 vehicles was substantially higher than the corresponding numbers for other automakers that provided such data, though Tesla is the only one that does it real time and "Other automakers, by contrast, must wait for reports to arrive from the field and sometimes don’t learn about crashes for months." There's quite a few more details in there, the comparisons make Tesla look worse than the others, though I'm not quite sure by how much when you consider all the differences in reporting? (this might also be in the WAPO article, I couldn't read it) 0: https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-5e6c354622582f9d4607cc5554847558 https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-5e6c354622582...
- freemint 4y agoFaster reporting shouldn't affect long time averages. If the delay is x months 100*x/(n+x)% of crashes go unreported at month n with delayed reporting under simplified assumptions.
- _ea1k 4y agoThe challenge is that the availability of these systems is increasing exponentially at the moment. Long term it matters less, as the long term reporting can include mileage. Short term, the lags introduce a lot of bias. I'm thinking largely of how quickly Super Cruise and Blue Cruise are expanding here. Other systems may not be expanding as quickly.
- freemint 4y agoAn exponential also gets squashed by an asymptotic. That math gets a bit more complicated (You need to evaluate an integral) but that does not categorically change the math. Also i find the notion of an exponential ramp up quiet dubious, polynomial would make more sense.
- _ea1k 4y agoThat's fair, but going back to the report I had misread it. It actually includes a lot more cars than I thought. However, it relies on reporting of accidents that is likely missing a lot of them. It is very likely that only Tesla's data is close to accurate.
- toxik 4y agoThat number really says very little if it's not expressed as crashes per distance driven. The article is paywalled, so it's hard to say if the clickbait title is substantiated in the article itself. As always, if the headline sounds juicy, put your skeptical spectacles on.
- bradfa 4y agoA "crash" in this case is any crash where the automated driving aids were in use less than 30 seconds prior to the crash. So for example, if the car realized it couldn't deal with something 29 seconds up the road, gives a 10 second warning to the human that the human needs to take over, and then the human drives into a crash, this would count as an Autopilot crash. I'm no Tesla fan, but that's a bit disingenuous.
- IdEntities 4y agoIt does seem like there should be some happy medium between this and Tesla's policy of not counting it as an Autopilot crash if it disengages one second before impact.
- userbinator 4y agoHow does it not count? 10 seconds doesn't seem like much time for a human not really paying attention to the road, as would probably be the case, to assess the situation and respond. Although the cutoff is at 30 seconds, I wonder what the distribution is actually like.
- mwint 4y ago10s is basically an eternity in car time. Pretty sure I could wake up from a nap and boot my brain enough to drive in 5s or less. A car going 80mph can stop in around 4s.
- 4y ago
- aceon48 4y agoThe article, like the NHSTA, are comparing them to other “autonomous” features of other car companies. But the real test should be, how much safer is this than drivers not using the feature
- 878654Tom 4y agoYou can still compare against other car companies their autonomous features. If car company A has 20 accidents for every 100 cars utilizing autonomous features and company B only has 5 accidents/100 cars, you can say that company B has better autonomous features and would be a wake-up call for company A.
- cs702 4y agoThe actual, non-editorialized data, along with the two actual NHTSA reports (one for level 2 driver assistance systems, one for self-driving systems in levels 3-5), are here: * Overview: https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/initial-data-release-advanced-vehicle-technologies https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/initial-data-release-ad... * Data: https://www.nhtsa.gov/node/103486 https://www.nhtsa.gov/node/103486 * Report on level 2 systems: https://www.nhtsa.gov/document/summary-report-standing-general-order-adas-l2 https://www.nhtsa.gov/document/summary-report-standing-gener... * Report on level 3-5 systems: https://www.nhtsa.gov/document/summary-report-standing-general-order-ads https://www.nhtsa.gov/document/summary-report-standing-gener... Going forward, the NHTSA will release data updates monthly. That's exactly what we need to judge progress with these technologies: data. Bravo! Everyone: Let's at least skim the data and read the reports' summary conclusions before we start sharing our opinions.
- robertlagrant 4y agoThe newspaper owned by the billionaire that hates the billionaire that owns Tesla is probably not the most reliable source :-D
- jcranmer 4y agoConsidering the newspaper owned by the billionaire runs stories criticizing said billionaire's company's anti-union efforts [1], mayhap there's editorial independence? [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/13/amazon-union-retaliation-allegations/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/13/amazon-...
- toolz 4y agoWhatever the motives (from whomever), the smear campaign from WaPo against musk is obvious enough that I've seen many people talking about it and even a twitter post detailing the many articles painting musk in a negative light and comparing that to other sources which if the data is taken at face value was very damning of WaPo. Personally I don't really care enough to investigate, but I thought it might provide some context as there appear to be (what I would assume) neutral parties commenting on the unfair reporting on musk from WaPo.
- dham 4y agoAutopilot is just adaptive cruise control which most cars have now a days (depending on trim level). Do they mean full self driving?
- snek_case 4y agoNo they mean just Autopilot which does lane following and lane switching on highways.
- bitexploder 4y agoEnhanced AutoPilot switches lanes. Regular AutoPilot does not. I think most people have regular.
- charlieyu1 4y agoDon’t think AI drivers on the same roads as human drivers is viable in the long term
- intrasight 4y agoI agree. And I think insurance companies will lean this way also. Self-driving (meaning human control) will come at an insurance cost premium. Of course the whole concept of liability gets interesting. I'm expect that within a couple years that AI-driving will be markedly safer.
- blinding-streak 4y agohttps://archive.ph/ycgCV https://archive.ph/ycgCV
- mensetmanusman 4y agoFYI: there are over ~17,000 crashes per day in the US. https://amaresq.com/blog/auto-accidents/how-many-car-accidents-per-day/ https://amaresq.com/blog/auto-accidents/how-many-car-acciden...
- sundvor 4y agoYep, by itself the data in the article is kind of useless unless we can get that normalised to crashes per km driven, and to also include stats on other manufacturers' cars' use of autonomous systems at the time of crashes. The author alluded to it by saying Tesla collects more data, however it doesn't state that no other manufacturer collects what we want to know about (E.g. dynamic cruise control, active lane keep assist wheel nudges, AEB activation, etc). So, actual data please, then let's compare apples to apples rather than this sensationalist clickbait. (I would really like to see crashes per km for both AP on, AP off, and FSD beta enabled in the case of Tesla.)
- deschutes 4y agoI agree. I also want to note that Tesla has treated this subject like an opportunity to market and really done nothing to deserve the benefit of the doubt.
- rightbyte 4y ago> normalised to crashes per km driven Preferably normalised by type of road too. I.e. if one system only drives on highways it might not compare to one that drives on more dangerous roads.
- sundvor 4y agoGood point.
- misiti3780 4y agoIt's so ridiculous the denominator doesnt matter to anyone ...
- boringg 4y agoIt would be great to see the 273 crashes in detail categorized by what kind of edge case crash. I hope there were very few fatalities. I suspect majority humans transitioning to control is responsible which means that needs to be looked at - which shouldn't be the problem. Also it doesn't seem that high of a number relative to how many crashes have occurred. Obviously the closer to zero the better since they have a high bar to instill confidence in self driving.
- btbuildem 4y agoThe numbers are a bit meaningless without context. How many Teslas total on the road? How many accidents total? For me the interesting question is: does Autopilot crash more often than human drivers?
- gamblor956 4y agoShort answer, yes. Based on the data so far released by the NHTSA, comparing similar cohorts (drivers of luxury cars with advanced driving systems), Tesla's using Autopilot crash at least 3x more frequently than cars from other automakers using their respective advanced driving systems. (3x compared to Honda, 50+x compared to Toyota, GM, or Ford L2 systems) Or to put it more directly: Nissan has sold over 560k cars in the U.S. with an L2 system, and has no reportable accidents. Tesla has sold approximately 1.3 million cars in the U.S. with Autopilot, and has 273 accidents. GM has been selling SuperCruise since last year (approx 100k vehicles), and has 0 L2-level accidents. (And testing by Consumer Reports, et al, report fewer issues with SuperCruise than with Autopilot in similar situations.) TLDR: there is no way to massage the data to make Tesla look even remotely safe compared to its competitors.
- sudden_dystopia 4y agoCompared to how many hundreds of thousands or millions of accidents that have happened to human drivers this year. Even adjusting for population size of Tesla vs normal cars, that still seems better than a human.
- abrax3141 4y agoI don’t get the point of fsd. I get the point of cc-take a load off your foot; and lh-wake you up if you drift. But all that fsd does is stress me out having to hyper-vig over the wheel and break in case the fsd fsd’s up. (And those stupid flight-yolk style steering wheels suck!)
- PCalvanelli 4y agoWhat's the crash rate per mile for Tesla vehicles in production? Compare that to the crash rate per mile for the rest of the market and you probably have a better measurement. A more informed headline.
- daneel_w 4y agoAs a contrast, is it possible to produce data on how many crashes, if any, the software has prevented?
- edmcnulty101 4y agoWe need a per capita comparison of humans in crashes and autopilot in crashes.
- cestith 4y agoI care about nine numbers, in the order of the groups given. Group A 1. How many deaths and serious injuries per standard distance does AP have? 2. How many deaths and serious injuries per standard distance do other self-driving cars have? 3. How many deaths and serious injuries per standard distance do human drivers have? Group B 1. What is the financial impact of crashes per distance driven with AP? 2. What is the financial impact of crashes per distance driven with other self-driving cars? 3. What is the financial impact of crashes per distance driven with human drivers? Group C 1. How many crashes per distance does AP have? 2. How many crashes per distance do other self-driving systems have? 3. How many crashes per distance do human drivers have? Anything not comparing these numbers one to the other is incomplete and potentially propagandistic. Tell me about the human impact. Tell me about the monetary impact. Tell me about the number of total crashes. Without all three numbers in each group and all three groups, we can't tell if 273 is a high number or a low one. We can't tell how it's impacted by total distance driven with the systems. We can't tell if the accidents are more or less serious. We can't tell if these systems are dangerous convenience features or if they're actually improving on numbers from human drivers. We need real data, and real comparisons.
- cseleborg 4y agoThat's a very clean way of dividing up the data, I'd be curious about those figures too. I was going to question the relevance of comparing tech-caused accidents with human-caused accidents since, despite the growing evidence that tech is the better driver under normal circumstances, we have this cognitive bias around lower perceived safety when someone/something else is driving. People just want to feel in control, even though they're more likely to crash, and my guess is that this will slow down adoption of self-driving technology more than necessary. But then I realized that evidence like this would probably be the best argument no matter what, so in the end, it makes even more sense to compare those numbers!
- paulryanrogers 4y agoHumans have a fatal crash about once per million miles. Self Driving is complicated by the fact that humans can intervene. Human drivers have no such backup. So comparison may require compensating for the fact that automated drivers have that human backup preventing them from otherwise killing more people.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoAbsolute numbers mean nothing in a country of 330,000,000 in such low values. What is the crash rate vs your average driver per mile driven having crashes? We know that autopilot isn't perfect.
- LegitGandalf 4y agoNon-clickbait title: Teslas running Autopilot have been in 0.0000273 crashes/km in less than a year! I've been alive long enough to see a considerable sample set of human drivers and I've got to say the bar Autopilot needs to exceed in order to save limb and life is incredibly low. Couple that with the fact that just here in SoCal Tesla has become a common sight, 273 crashes sounds like a hell of a lot of human suffering was avoided.