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Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”

90 points by jo6gwb 4y ago

mensetmanusman 4y ago
100,000 crashes per year, I wonder how many the average American thinks there are.
sowbug 4y ago
This was the one where the media reported that because nobody was found in the front seat it must have been the fault of the self-driving feature. The NTSB found that none of the driver-assistance features were activated, and the driver was probably tossed into the backseat from the impact: Although the driver’s seat was found vacant and the driver was found in the left rear seat, the available evidence suggests that the driver was seated in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash and moved into the rear seat postcrash. Specifically, residential security video showed both the driver and passenger getting into the front seats prior to driving away from the residence. In addition, the EDR data showed active accelerator pedal inputs consistent with driver activity in the 5 seconds prior to the impact with the tree, and that the driver’s seat belt was connected at the time of the crash. Finally, the steering wheel examination conducted by the NTSB Materials Laboratory indicated an impact to the upper left quadrant, consistent with the driver loading the steering wheel during a frontal crash. The entire journey appears to have lasted less than a minute (9:07pm is mentioned both as the time the car left the driveway, and as the time of the crash), so it's unlikely the driver jumped into the back seat as a stunt while driving. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HIR2302.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/...
- anonporridge 4y ago
  > This was the one where the media reported that because nobody was found in the front seat it must have been the fault of the self-driving feature. And the fact that this was media disinformation won't matter much, because the damage to the Tesla brand and the idea of self driving cars in the public's collective consciousness has already been done, and won't easily be undone by these newly revealed facts. "A lie makes it halfway around the world before the truth even gets its boots on."
  - BoorishBears 4y ago
    Tesla is damaging the idea of self-driving cars in spite of the media, not because of it. Self driving cars were billed as the cool new thing. Then Tesla started charging people for "Full Self Driving" with a system that regresses from basic LKA that was shipping in the mid 2000s in terms of safety by using public roads for beta testing an intentionally hamstrung* L2-billed-as-L5 driving stack. It's frustrating to watch as someone working in the AV space, and it's silly to act like this one case was isolated enough that the fact it was wrong changes any of that reality. We know Tesla's stack has killed people: it became normalized once the first few times it happened they were able to get away with victim blaming. By 2021 it was already accepted, this incident was already business as usual. *humans just need eyes so self driving cars just need cameras
    - kmeisthax 4y ago
      The thing is, I would have thought that Tesla's stance on repairability alone would have made their brand radioactive to the average Hacker News commenter, way before the Pedo Guy accusations or Elon Musk burning a bunch of money to make Twitter worse. Tesla is everything we claim to hate about Apple.
      - a4isms 4y ago
        If Apple owned Tesla, there wouldn't be enough room in this comment to list all the reasons HN would hate it: 1. What do you mean, the OS and all its software is proprietary? Why can't I sideload my own fart app? 2. Highest margins in the industry? No we won't praise their business genius, we'll complain that they're charging a Tesla Fanboi Tax. 3. Like you said, RIGHT TO REPAIR, this is John Deere stuff, only it's a car and not a tractor. 4. Shit build quality would have us raving about butterfly keyboards 2.0. And so on, and so forth. Steve Jobs had a "reality distortion field." So does Elon Musk, and it's aimed squarely at a certain very obvious demographic.
        bjelkeman-again 4y ago
        From a business perspective, a demographic bigger than the HN readership.
- ajross 4y ago
  Worth pointing out that the most recent Tesla crash freakout was similarly thinly sourced. We have one line in a police report saying AP was in use, and no statements from the driver nor telemetry from the vehicle. And that was enough to drive thousand-comment threads right here on HN. (And yeah, I'm on record saying that it's extremely unlikely autopilot commanded the lane change in that Bay Bridge accident. It just doesn't work like that, the blinkers came on simultaneous with the motion. That's a human driver for sure.)
  - gamblor956 4y ago
    The NHTSA is on record as saying FSD was "definitely" engaged during the recent Bay Bridge accident in the tunnel. And notably, Musk did not chime in to blame the driver like he always does when the driver is at fault, which is very strong circumstantial evidence that FSD was engaged.
    - ajross 4y ago
      No, they aren't "on record". Go find the cite. One paper had a source saying that it was active within 30 seconds of the collision (which is like 3x longer than the time shown on the video we have). Look, the clearly most likely scenario here is that the driver got confused, overrode the AP, and then failed to maintain awareness as they commanded the sudden lane change. Obviously that's not what people want to hear, but it's the best explanation. I've pulled AP out and changed lanes manually, probably rapidly, on a bunch of occasions. All it takes is to do that when not paying attention... All your logic was equally applicable to the accident in the linked article, and it was all wrong there too. (Also... Musk didn't "blame the driver" in the linked case? Not sure what you're citing. Tesla generally doesn't say anything about their customers' accidents, for some very obvious reasons.) Just wait. All I'm telling you is that I drive with this product every day and I'm not seeing FSD behavior in that video. If it turns out I'm wrong then I'll sheepishly admit it. But I know which direction the spin runs and my BS detector is pretty good.
      - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 4y ago
- brewdad 4y ago
  I'm confused by this description. Are they saying the impact caused the driver to be ejected from the front seat to the rear? I'm not sure physics works that way. Are they saying the driver left the front seat and climbed into the rear so that he could blame autopilot when the police arrived on scene?
  - lalopalota 4y ago
    the commenter said "tossed", the NTSB said "moved". there was no speculation as to why.
    - sowbug 4y ago
      The sentence's grammar is vague. The "was" might have been meant to apply to both clauses, so that the driver "was seated" at the time of the crash and then "was moved" during the ensuing mayhem. Or he crawled into the back and died. The NTSB might have been trying to use neutral language for uncertain events, like how "the position changed" could mean intent or just a force of nature. I don't know what the right interpretation is.
  - kerpotgh 4y ago
    [dead]
  - King-Aaron 4y ago
    Unfortunately, I've seen first-hand that passengers in the front of a vehicle can be thrown into the rear of a vehicle in a crash. The way that excerpt describes it though, it makes me wonder if they tried to crawl out of the car "post crash" via the rear, and checked out before they could get out of the car?
  - akira2501 4y ago
    You'll find plenty of failed seats in crashes, it's a known factor and an item that has had it's share of recalls. I'm sure you can find many improperly or poorly positioned seats that also contributed to the post accident conditions.
foobarbecue 4y ago
How can a Tesla can even be old enough to drink
- brookst 4y ago
  Tesla is further ahead in AI than any of us thought!
  - jonsen 4y ago
    Artificial Ingestion?
    - Smoosh 4y ago
      Artificial Intoxication.
- foobarbecue 4y ago
  I accept your downvotes with pride
nashashmi 4y ago
Does NTSB investigate every car crash with a death? Or just Tesla?
- sp332 4y ago
  I think they picked it up because it might have involved autopilot, the driver's seat was empty, and the data recorder had been destroyed in the crash. The full list is here https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/Investigations.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/Investigations.asp... You can see it's been a while since since they investigated a Tesla.
cs702 4y ago
"Excessive speed" and "alcohol intoxication" -- two common causes of human driver failure. Other causes of human driver failure include driving while tired or exhausted, falling asleep at the wheel, driving while angry or upset, getting bored while driving, using the car's infotainment system while driving, using a mobile phone while driving, getting distracted by passengers, smoking pot while driving, being a recklessly immature teenager (or a grown-up idiot), lacking the bare minimum of driving skills that every driver on the road is supposed to have, and so on. The list of causes of human driver failure is long. There are a lot of horrifically dangerous human drivers -- look around you next time you're on the road. Notably, machines are immune to all these human failure modes. I'm looking forward to the day in which cars drive themselves well enough to rid the roads of so much dangerous human driving.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  Me too, but that's not this day. I hope it comes soon, but I think it's important that car companies promise and deliver in a rock solid fashion like Mercedes is doing instead of grandiose near future predictions that everyone knows won't be met. Not commenting on this incident in particular, just the general landscape of self driving.
- P_I_Staker 4y ago
  However they are proving very bad at making complex decisions, especially ones that involve people and nature. A lot of our driving in unusual conditions require our experience and reasoning about the world.
- MBCook 4y ago
  > “Excessive speed" and "alcohol intoxication" -- two common causes of human driver failure. Amazingly it’s worse than that. He was also on pills that would react with the alcohol to make things worse. I’ll say I’m very surprised by the areal photo in the report. I was under the impression the driver (man or machine) had gone a real distance at speed before the accident. Which did lead some credence in my mind a driver assist system had been helping it along if the driver was slow to react/inattentive. He could have pulled out of that driveway, hit the gas, and it happened. The trip had barely begun. You could do this crash easy in a 1960s sedan, no ADAS needed.
jo6gwb 4y ago
I'm not sure why they don't explicitly write in the report that the driver may have been trapped in the back seat, and was unable to locate or use the mechanical release to escape. While that wouldn't be a contributing factor to the wreck, it would be a contributing factor the the driver's death, and important for Tesla and their passengers to know about. The report states: The frontal impact with the tree resulted in a power loss of the car’s 12-volt system, which runs the non-traction power systems. During normal operation, the front door latches operate electronically with the pull of the interior lever. In the event of a 12-volt system power loss, the interior front doors open as usual using the interior door handles. The rear doors also have both electronic and mechanical latches; however, mechanically opening the rear door during a power loss requires additional steps. According to the owner’s manual, during a loss of 12-volt system power, a rear-seated occupant must locate a small cutout in the carpet beneath the seat cushions and pull the mechanical release cable tab toward the center of the vehicle to manually open the rear door. Inspection of the door latches and locking hardware was limited by postcrash fire damage. Edit: Must add that this assumes the front door was jammed and couldn't be opened mechanically.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  I don't think they have sufficient evidence one way or the other to draw that conclusion. The driver's cause of death was BFT with thermal damage and smoke inhalation; I don't know they have reason to believe he was conscious and trying to escape the vehicle.
  - tux2bsd 4y ago
    [dead]
- mjevans 4y ago
  In this case, failing safe should probably be to just release the locking latches shortly after the loss of power.
- climb_stealth 4y ago
  That sounds pretty terrifying in an emergency situation. What is the reason for the rear doors working differently? I can't picture someone referring to their user manual or looking under the seat to open the door when the car is on fire. This reads like a terrible design.
mjfl 4y ago
The whole idea of being drunk and getting in a car with the intention of driving as fast as possible seems so stupid that I've never in my life even had the smidgen of a thought to do it, even if especially drunk. People really do have different brains.
kdamica 4y ago
Almost 43,000 people died in car-related deaths in the US in 2021 (and millions more worldwide). I hope we can stop focusing on the small number of deaths from this one car company that has self-driving features. Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bites_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bites_dog
- KyleBerezin 4y ago
  Same with fires. It seemed like every tesla fire was reported by the news for a while, meanwhile conventional vehicles are at least 5x more likely to start on fire.
- adamjcook 4y ago
  No consumer can purchase any vehicle that is capable of "self-driving" or "driving itself" today. Tesla's vehicles are not capable of self-driving and, at all times, the human driver is driving the vehicle as both Autopilot and FSD Beta are partial automated driving systems that require a human driver fallback at all times. The attentiveness required of the human driver with a partial automated driving system is equivalent (on a systems-level) to if the vehicle was not equipped with any automated driving system at all.
aaron695 4y ago
Discussion at the time (April/May 2021), how do the comments of HN's finest stack up? - Two people killed in fiery Tesla crash with no one driving https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26852399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26852399 736 comments NTSB: Tesla Model S in Crash Couldn't Have Been Using Autopilot - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27112010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27112010 199 comments Cops “almost 99.9% sure” Tesla had no one at the wheel before deadly crash https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26871001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26871001 53 comments No one was in driver’s seat in fatal Tesla crash https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26866754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26866754 85 comments Texas police to demand Tesla crash data as Musk denies autopilot use https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26869962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26869962 18 comments
jeffbee 4y ago
But should the P100D or any other car noted for its sudden acceleration even be allowed to exist? We're putting GPS radios on electric scooters so they can't exceed 10MPH in school zones, meanwhile drunk bozos can tap 1000HP if they want.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I don’t see that some people crash them while drunk as a valid reason to not sell supercars and hypercars.
ninjagoo 4y ago
> Although the driver’s seat was found vacant and the driver was found in the left rear seat, the available evidence suggests that the driver was seated in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash and moved into the rear seat postcrash. Specifically, residential security video showed both the driver and passenger getting into the front seats prior to driving away from the residence. In addition, the EDR data showed active accelerator pedal inputs consistent with driver activity in the 5 seconds prior to the impact with the tree, and that the driver’s seat belt was connected at the time of the crash. Finally, the steering wheel examination conducted by the NTSB Materials Laboratory indicated an impact to the upper left quadrant, consistent with the driver loading the steering wheel during a frontal crash. If the driver was indeed wearing a seatbelt, how does that person end up in the left back seat in a frontal crash? Now I have questions about that seat belt. Especially considering this comment in the report: In addition, the EDR data showed active accelerator pedal inputs consistent with driver activity in the 5 seconds prior to the impact with the tree, and that the driver’s seat belt was connected at the time of the crash. So there was a driver pushing the accelerator, wearing a seatbelt (assumption) and ending up in the rear seat behind the drivers' seat? Did the driver simply plug in the seatbelt without putting it on? Or did the driver survive the crash, get into the rear seat, and was unable to get out in time?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  Injuries on the driver (or lack thereof) should show whether the seatbelt was on top or underneath the driver.
- brentm 4y ago
  It probably was the later. It seems probable he was attempting to exit using the backdoor because he was unable to operate the front due to it's loss of function. Horrifying situation to visualize if that is indeed what happened.
hnburnsy 4y ago
OT but the NTSB really wants to take the fun out of driving via technology (from the crash report)... >Recently, the NTSB recommended that NHTSA require all new vehicles to be equipped with passive vehicle-integrated alcohol impairment detection systems, advanced driver monitoring systems, or a combination thereof, which are capable of preventing or limiting vehicle operation if driver impairment by alcohol is detected. >A vehicle technology-based solution, such as intelligent speed adaptation (ISA), can reduce speeding. The NTSB has recommended that NHTSA incentivize passenger vehicle manufacturers and consumers to adopt ISA systems by, for example, including ISA in the New Car Assessment Program.
- greedo 4y ago
  I didn't notice a closing sarcasm tag, so I'm assuming you're serious about your "fun" being infringed upon. Too bad. You have no right to drive intoxicated on public streets. Nor to drive at speeds over the posted speed limit. If you want to race, take up track racing. If people didn't act like fools and idiots while driving, there'd be no need for this type of technology.
diebeforei485 4y ago
> the car accelerated from 39 mph to a top speed of 67 mph 2 seconds before the final tree impact, which occurred at about 57 mph. The application of the accelerator pedal ranged from 8% to 98% during the 5 seconds of recorded data, and there was no evidence of braking. My hot take is that it shouldn't be possible to accelerate that quickly unless you actually apply the pedal to 100%. Also, I think the accelerator and brake pedals should have a different feel. Maybe they should be made of different materials so there is clear tactile feedback.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  my hotter take is that there should be acceleration and velocity limits that are geo-gated and you shouldn't be able to go more than 30% over the speed limit in urban areas.
  - diebeforei485 4y ago
    Agreed!!
sidcool 4y ago
I have been critical of FSD marketing in the past. But these kind of accidents could be avoided with self driving tech. I remain optimistic

90 points by jo6gwb 4y ago

100,000 crashes per year, I wonder how many the average American thinks there are.

This was the one where the media reported that because nobody was found in the front seat it must have been the fault of the self-driving feature. The NTSB found that none of the driver-assistance features were activated, and the driver was probably tossed into the backseat from the impact: Although the driver’s seat was found vacant and the driver was found in the left rear seat, the available evidence suggests that the driver was seated in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash and moved into the rear seat postcrash. Specifically, residential security video showed both the driver and passenger getting into the front seats prior to driving away from the residence. In addition, the EDR data showed active accelerator pedal inputs consistent with driver activity in the 5 seconds prior to the impact with the tree, and that the driver’s seat belt was connected at the time of the crash. Finally, the steering wheel examination conducted by the NTSB Materials Laboratory indicated an impact to the upper left quadrant, consistent with the driver loading the steering wheel during a frontal crash. The entire journey appears to have lasted less than a minute (9:07pm is mentioned both as the time the car left the driveway, and as the time of the crash), so it's unlikely the driver jumped into the back seat as a stunt while driving. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HIR2302.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/...

anonporridge 4y ago
> This was the one where the media reported that because nobody was found in the front seat it must have been the fault of the self-driving feature. And the fact that this was media disinformation won't matter much, because the damage to the Tesla brand and the idea of self driving cars in the public's collective consciousness has already been done, and won't easily be undone by these newly revealed facts. "A lie makes it halfway around the world before the truth even gets its boots on."
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  Tesla is damaging the idea of self-driving cars in spite of the media, not because of it. Self driving cars were billed as the cool new thing. Then Tesla started charging people for "Full Self Driving" with a system that regresses from basic LKA that was shipping in the mid 2000s in terms of safety by using public roads for beta testing an intentionally hamstrung* L2-billed-as-L5 driving stack. It's frustrating to watch as someone working in the AV space, and it's silly to act like this one case was isolated enough that the fact it was wrong changes any of that reality. We know Tesla's stack has killed people: it became normalized once the first few times it happened they were able to get away with victim blaming. By 2021 it was already accepted, this incident was already business as usual. *humans just need eyes so self driving cars just need cameras
  - kmeisthax 4y ago
    The thing is, I would have thought that Tesla's stance on repairability alone would have made their brand radioactive to the average Hacker News commenter, way before the Pedo Guy accusations or Elon Musk burning a bunch of money to make Twitter worse. Tesla is everything we claim to hate about Apple.
    - a4isms 4y ago
      If Apple owned Tesla, there wouldn't be enough room in this comment to list all the reasons HN would hate it: 1. What do you mean, the OS and all its software is proprietary? Why can't I sideload my own fart app? 2. Highest margins in the industry? No we won't praise their business genius, we'll complain that they're charging a Tesla Fanboi Tax. 3. Like you said, RIGHT TO REPAIR, this is John Deere stuff, only it's a car and not a tractor. 4. Shit build quality would have us raving about butterfly keyboards 2.0. And so on, and so forth. Steve Jobs had a "reality distortion field." So does Elon Musk, and it's aimed squarely at a certain very obvious demographic.
      - bjelkeman-again 4y ago
        From a business perspective, a demographic bigger than the HN readership.
ajross 4y ago
Worth pointing out that the most recent Tesla crash freakout was similarly thinly sourced. We have one line in a police report saying AP was in use, and no statements from the driver nor telemetry from the vehicle. And that was enough to drive thousand-comment threads right here on HN. (And yeah, I'm on record saying that it's extremely unlikely autopilot commanded the lane change in that Bay Bridge accident. It just doesn't work like that, the blinkers came on simultaneous with the motion. That's a human driver for sure.)
- gamblor956 4y ago
  The NHTSA is on record as saying FSD was "definitely" engaged during the recent Bay Bridge accident in the tunnel. And notably, Musk did not chime in to blame the driver like he always does when the driver is at fault, which is very strong circumstantial evidence that FSD was engaged.
  - ajross 4y ago
    No, they aren't "on record". Go find the cite. One paper had a source saying that it was active within 30 seconds of the collision (which is like 3x longer than the time shown on the video we have). Look, the clearly most likely scenario here is that the driver got confused, overrode the AP, and then failed to maintain awareness as they commanded the sudden lane change. Obviously that's not what people want to hear, but it's the best explanation. I've pulled AP out and changed lanes manually, probably rapidly, on a bunch of occasions. All it takes is to do that when not paying attention... All your logic was equally applicable to the accident in the linked article, and it was all wrong there too. (Also... Musk didn't "blame the driver" in the linked case? Not sure what you're citing. Tesla generally doesn't say anything about their customers' accidents, for some very obvious reasons.) Just wait. All I'm telling you is that I drive with this product every day and I'm not seeing FSD behavior in that video. If it turns out I'm wrong then I'll sheepishly admit it. But I know which direction the spin runs and my BS detector is pretty good.
    - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 4y ago
brewdad 4y ago
I'm confused by this description. Are they saying the impact caused the driver to be ejected from the front seat to the rear? I'm not sure physics works that way. Are they saying the driver left the front seat and climbed into the rear so that he could blame autopilot when the police arrived on scene?
- lalopalota 4y ago
  the commenter said "tossed", the NTSB said "moved". there was no speculation as to why.
  - sowbug 4y ago
    The sentence's grammar is vague. The "was" might have been meant to apply to both clauses, so that the driver "was seated" at the time of the crash and then "was moved" during the ensuing mayhem. Or he crawled into the back and died. The NTSB might have been trying to use neutral language for uncertain events, like how "the position changed" could mean intent or just a force of nature. I don't know what the right interpretation is.
- kerpotgh 4y ago
  [dead]
- King-Aaron 4y ago
  Unfortunately, I've seen first-hand that passengers in the front of a vehicle can be thrown into the rear of a vehicle in a crash. The way that excerpt describes it though, it makes me wonder if they tried to crawl out of the car "post crash" via the rear, and checked out before they could get out of the car?
- akira2501 4y ago
  You'll find plenty of failed seats in crashes, it's a known factor and an item that has had it's share of recalls. I'm sure you can find many improperly or poorly positioned seats that also contributed to the post accident conditions.

foobarbecue 4y ago

How can a Tesla can even be old enough to drink

brookst 4y ago
Tesla is further ahead in AI than any of us thought!
- jonsen 4y ago
  Artificial Ingestion?
  - Smoosh 4y ago
    Artificial Intoxication.
foobarbecue 4y ago
I accept your downvotes with pride

nashashmi 4y ago

Does NTSB investigate every car crash with a death? Or just Tesla?

sp332 4y ago
I think they picked it up because it might have involved autopilot, the driver's seat was empty, and the data recorder had been destroyed in the crash. The full list is here https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/Investigations.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/Investigations.asp... You can see it's been a while since since they investigated a Tesla.

cs702 4y ago

"Excessive speed" and "alcohol intoxication" -- two common causes of human driver failure. Other causes of human driver failure include driving while tired or exhausted, falling asleep at the wheel, driving while angry or upset, getting bored while driving, using the car's infotainment system while driving, using a mobile phone while driving, getting distracted by passengers, smoking pot while driving, being a recklessly immature teenager (or a grown-up idiot), lacking the bare minimum of driving skills that every driver on the road is supposed to have, and so on. The list of causes of human driver failure is long. There are a lot of horrifically dangerous human drivers -- look around you next time you're on the road. Notably, machines are immune to all these human failure modes. I'm looking forward to the day in which cars drive themselves well enough to rid the roads of so much dangerous human driving.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
Me too, but that's not this day. I hope it comes soon, but I think it's important that car companies promise and deliver in a rock solid fashion like Mercedes is doing instead of grandiose near future predictions that everyone knows won't be met. Not commenting on this incident in particular, just the general landscape of self driving.
P_I_Staker 4y ago
However they are proving very bad at making complex decisions, especially ones that involve people and nature. A lot of our driving in unusual conditions require our experience and reasoning about the world.
MBCook 4y ago
> “Excessive speed" and "alcohol intoxication" -- two common causes of human driver failure. Amazingly it’s worse than that. He was also on pills that would react with the alcohol to make things worse. I’ll say I’m very surprised by the areal photo in the report. I was under the impression the driver (man or machine) had gone a real distance at speed before the accident. Which did lead some credence in my mind a driver assist system had been helping it along if the driver was slow to react/inattentive. He could have pulled out of that driveway, hit the gas, and it happened. The trip had barely begun. You could do this crash easy in a 1960s sedan, no ADAS needed.

jo6gwb 4y ago

I'm not sure why they don't explicitly write in the report that the driver may have been trapped in the back seat, and was unable to locate or use the mechanical release to escape. While that wouldn't be a contributing factor to the wreck, it would be a contributing factor the the driver's death, and important for Tesla and their passengers to know about. The report states: The frontal impact with the tree resulted in a power loss of the car’s 12-volt system, which runs the non-traction power systems. During normal operation, the front door latches operate electronically with the pull of the interior lever. In the event of a 12-volt system power loss, the interior front doors open as usual using the interior door handles. The rear doors also have both electronic and mechanical latches; however, mechanically opening the rear door during a power loss requires additional steps. According to the owner’s manual, during a loss of 12-volt system power, a rear-seated occupant must locate a small cutout in the carpet beneath the seat cushions and pull the mechanical release cable tab toward the center of the vehicle to manually open the rear door. Inspection of the door latches and locking hardware was limited by postcrash fire damage. Edit: Must add that this assumes the front door was jammed and couldn't be opened mechanically.

shadowgovt 4y ago
I don't think they have sufficient evidence one way or the other to draw that conclusion. The driver's cause of death was BFT with thermal damage and smoke inhalation; I don't know they have reason to believe he was conscious and trying to escape the vehicle.
- tux2bsd 4y ago
  [dead]
mjevans 4y ago
In this case, failing safe should probably be to just release the locking latches shortly after the loss of power.
climb_stealth 4y ago
That sounds pretty terrifying in an emergency situation. What is the reason for the rear doors working differently? I can't picture someone referring to their user manual or looking under the seat to open the door when the car is on fire. This reads like a terrible design.

mjfl 4y ago

The whole idea of being drunk and getting in a car with the intention of driving as fast as possible seems so stupid that I've never in my life even had the smidgen of a thought to do it, even if especially drunk. People really do have different brains.

kdamica 4y ago

Almost 43,000 people died in car-related deaths in the US in 2021 (and millions more worldwide). I hope we can stop focusing on the small number of deaths from this one car company that has self-driving features. Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bites_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bites_dog

KyleBerezin 4y ago
Same with fires. It seemed like every tesla fire was reported by the news for a while, meanwhile conventional vehicles are at least 5x more likely to start on fire.
adamjcook 4y ago
No consumer can purchase any vehicle that is capable of "self-driving" or "driving itself" today. Tesla's vehicles are not capable of self-driving and, at all times, the human driver is driving the vehicle as both Autopilot and FSD Beta are partial automated driving systems that require a human driver fallback at all times. The attentiveness required of the human driver with a partial automated driving system is equivalent (on a systems-level) to if the vehicle was not equipped with any automated driving system at all.

aaron695 4y ago

Discussion at the time (April/May 2021), how do the comments of HN's finest stack up? - Two people killed in fiery Tesla crash with no one driving https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26852399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26852399 736 comments NTSB: Tesla Model S in Crash Couldn't Have Been Using Autopilot - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27112010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27112010 199 comments Cops “almost 99.9% sure” Tesla had no one at the wheel before deadly crash https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26871001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26871001 53 comments No one was in driver’s seat in fatal Tesla crash https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26866754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26866754 85 comments Texas police to demand Tesla crash data as Musk denies autopilot use https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26869962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26869962 18 comments

jeffbee 4y ago

But should the P100D or any other car noted for its sudden acceleration even be allowed to exist? We're putting GPS radios on electric scooters so they can't exceed 10MPH in school zones, meanwhile drunk bozos can tap 1000HP if they want.

sokoloff 4y ago
I don’t see that some people crash them while drunk as a valid reason to not sell supercars and hypercars.

ninjagoo 4y ago

> Although the driver’s seat was found vacant and the driver was found in the left rear seat, the available evidence suggests that the driver was seated in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash and moved into the rear seat postcrash. Specifically, residential security video showed both the driver and passenger getting into the front seats prior to driving away from the residence. In addition, the EDR data showed active accelerator pedal inputs consistent with driver activity in the 5 seconds prior to the impact with the tree, and that the driver’s seat belt was connected at the time of the crash. Finally, the steering wheel examination conducted by the NTSB Materials Laboratory indicated an impact to the upper left quadrant, consistent with the driver loading the steering wheel during a frontal crash. If the driver was indeed wearing a seatbelt, how does that person end up in the left back seat in a frontal crash? Now I have questions about that seat belt. Especially considering this comment in the report: In addition, the EDR data showed active accelerator pedal inputs consistent with driver activity in the 5 seconds prior to the impact with the tree, and that the driver’s seat belt was connected at the time of the crash. So there was a driver pushing the accelerator, wearing a seatbelt (assumption) and ending up in the rear seat behind the drivers' seat? Did the driver simply plug in the seatbelt without putting it on? Or did the driver survive the crash, get into the rear seat, and was unable to get out in time?

tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
Injuries on the driver (or lack thereof) should show whether the seatbelt was on top or underneath the driver.
brentm 4y ago
It probably was the later. It seems probable he was attempting to exit using the backdoor because he was unable to operate the front due to it's loss of function. Horrifying situation to visualize if that is indeed what happened.

hnburnsy 4y ago

OT but the NTSB really wants to take the fun out of driving via technology (from the crash report)... >Recently, the NTSB recommended that NHTSA require all new vehicles to be equipped with passive vehicle-integrated alcohol impairment detection systems, advanced driver monitoring systems, or a combination thereof, which are capable of preventing or limiting vehicle operation if driver impairment by alcohol is detected. >A vehicle technology-based solution, such as intelligent speed adaptation (ISA), can reduce speeding. The NTSB has recommended that NHTSA incentivize passenger vehicle manufacturers and consumers to adopt ISA systems by, for example, including ISA in the New Car Assessment Program.

greedo 4y ago
I didn't notice a closing sarcasm tag, so I'm assuming you're serious about your "fun" being infringed upon. Too bad. You have no right to drive intoxicated on public streets. Nor to drive at speeds over the posted speed limit. If you want to race, take up track racing. If people didn't act like fools and idiots while driving, there'd be no need for this type of technology.

diebeforei485 4y ago

> the car accelerated from 39 mph to a top speed of 67 mph 2 seconds before the final tree impact, which occurred at about 57 mph. The application of the accelerator pedal ranged from 8% to 98% during the 5 seconds of recorded data, and there was no evidence of braking. My hot take is that it shouldn't be possible to accelerate that quickly unless you actually apply the pedal to 100%. Also, I think the accelerator and brake pedals should have a different feel. Maybe they should be made of different materials so there is clear tactile feedback.

lamontcg 4y ago
my hotter take is that there should be acceleration and velocity limits that are geo-gated and you shouldn't be able to go more than 30% over the speed limit in urban areas.
- diebeforei485 4y ago
  Agreed!!

sidcool 4y ago

I have been critical of FSD marketing in the past. But these kind of accidents could be avoided with self driving tech. I remain optimistic