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A Fatal Tesla Crash Shows the Limits of Full Self-Driving

helsinkiandrew 1y ago
https://archive.ph/20250604100751/https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-tesla-full-self-driving-crash/ https://archive.ph/20250604100751/https://www.bloomberg.com/... Note: archive version doesn't have the harrowing live video footage
- berdario 1y ago
  And the bloomberg.com page hangs and never fully loads the video. I tried with 2 different browsers on 2 different devices, but it doesn't work on neither of them. (I've been able to see only the sun blinding the image, and the another car being circled) Is thid footage available anywhere else?
IcePic 1y ago
What I don't get is this part, "Story’s death — one of 40,901 US traffic fatalities that year — was the first known pedestrian fatality linked to Tesla’s driving system" Regardless of if its FSD or the autopilot system under investigation, if this in fact is the first recorded death that is directly linked to the car driving itself, and tesla has had cars around for what, 12 years by now with varying degrees of self-driving and steering assistance, then it would be somewhat prudent to compare against say all the accidents made by tesla drivers not using any versions of FSD/autopiloting. If it then shows that running with it on is 10%, 50% or 90% "better" in avoiding accidents, then it is still a net win. But I don't think there is statistics to say that this first death attributable to the self-driving in itself makes it worse than people (with all our flaws) driving manually. There seems to be some kind of weird double standard where we let people get drivers licenses and run around causing X% accidents per year, then automakers add more or less helpful steering aids and get this figure down to X/2 or X/5 or X/10% and we somehow scream for regulating computers from helping us drive? If there existed a button to reduce cancer by half, to a fifth, a tenth of what the current rates are for contracting it, I can't see many people trying to legislate so that we could never push said button until it removes ALL cancer from any patient ever. I get that self-driving is far from perfect, but if it helps, then it helps. What more is there to say? Each and every death is tragic, not trying to be all utilitarian about it, but it seems (to me, with limited facts) that these tools overall seem to make driving slightly safer than not using them, and I can only guess that if even more cars would be using automatic distance to car in front and stuff like that, the numbers would go down even more since people tend to be somewhat more chaotic while driving which I gather makes it hard on the computer to account for. And lastly, pet peeve about "recalled 2M cars". Yes, the term is like that, makes it sound like millions of cars had to go to the dealership or service, whereas someone codes up a fix, pushes a button and a week later, all cars are now running that fix. But that doesn't make for dramatic headlines if you have an agenda. Yes, I have an M3, no I don't like EM heiling on tv, but that was hard to predict 4 years ago.
- ck45 1y ago
  I’ve discussed this topic quite a lot of times in the past years, taking both sides eventually. Usually the conclusion is with a human driver you (usually) have a responsible and liable person. It’s not that clear for FSD, and that’s what scares people.
  - taylodl 1y ago
    It's very clear for FSD - it's a level 2 driver assist system and by definition that means the driver is legally responsible for everything that happens. That's the single biggest reason I would never use FSD. I'm not going to put myself in a position of being held legally liable for the actions of somebody else's software.
  - lotsofpulp 1y ago
    The human driver is responsible and liable, that is why the interior camera monitors the person’s eyes to remind them to watch the road, and I think disabled driver assist software after 3 strikes. https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/models/en_us/GUID-E5FF5E84-6AAC-43E6-B7ED-EC1E9AEB17B7.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/models/en_us/GUID-E5FF5E8... > WARNING Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is a hands-on feature. Keep your hands on the steering yoke (or steering wheel) at all times, be mindful of road conditions and surrounding traffic, and always be prepared to take immediate action. Failure to follow these instructions could cause damage, serious injury or death. It is your responsibility to familiarize yourself with the limitations of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) and the situations in which it may not work as expected.
  - tpxl 1y ago
    > It’s not that clear for FSD, and that’s what scares people. It is crystal clear, the liability and responsibility is on the human behind the wheel. The 'person driving' is some engineer thousands of miles away with no incentive not to crash the vehicle, and that is what scares me.
- ankurdhama 1y ago
  The problem here is not self-driving, the problem is that for some reason Tesla don't want to use Lidar/Radar for self driving and instead just use cameras. This seems like complete arrogance from Tesla and nothing more. The article talks about this.
jqpabc123 1y ago
Using FSD as mandated --- with constant human supervision ----requires just as much time, attention and diligence as driving. Using FSD otherwise places your life and the life of others in danger. FSD; as currently implemented, is just good enough to lull drivers into a false sense of complacency --- and make more money for Tesla.

https://archive.ph/20250604100751/https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-tesla-full-self-driving-crash/ https://archive.ph/20250604100751/https://www.bloomberg.com/... Note: archive version doesn't have the harrowing live video footage

berdario 1y ago
And the bloomberg.com page hangs and never fully loads the video. I tried with 2 different browsers on 2 different devices, but it doesn't work on neither of them. (I've been able to see only the sun blinding the image, and the another car being circled) Is thid footage available anywhere else?

IcePic 1y ago

What I don't get is this part, "Story’s death — one of 40,901 US traffic fatalities that year — was the first known pedestrian fatality linked to Tesla’s driving system" Regardless of if its FSD or the autopilot system under investigation, if this in fact is the first recorded death that is directly linked to the car driving itself, and tesla has had cars around for what, 12 years by now with varying degrees of self-driving and steering assistance, then it would be somewhat prudent to compare against say all the accidents made by tesla drivers not using any versions of FSD/autopiloting. If it then shows that running with it on is 10%, 50% or 90% "better" in avoiding accidents, then it is still a net win. But I don't think there is statistics to say that this first death attributable to the self-driving in itself makes it worse than people (with all our flaws) driving manually. There seems to be some kind of weird double standard where we let people get drivers licenses and run around causing X% accidents per year, then automakers add more or less helpful steering aids and get this figure down to X/2 or X/5 or X/10% and we somehow scream for regulating computers from helping us drive? If there existed a button to reduce cancer by half, to a fifth, a tenth of what the current rates are for contracting it, I can't see many people trying to legislate so that we could never push said button until it removes ALL cancer from any patient ever. I get that self-driving is far from perfect, but if it helps, then it helps. What more is there to say? Each and every death is tragic, not trying to be all utilitarian about it, but it seems (to me, with limited facts) that these tools overall seem to make driving slightly safer than not using them, and I can only guess that if even more cars would be using automatic distance to car in front and stuff like that, the numbers would go down even more since people tend to be somewhat more chaotic while driving which I gather makes it hard on the computer to account for. And lastly, pet peeve about "recalled 2M cars". Yes, the term is like that, makes it sound like millions of cars had to go to the dealership or service, whereas someone codes up a fix, pushes a button and a week later, all cars are now running that fix. But that doesn't make for dramatic headlines if you have an agenda. Yes, I have an M3, no I don't like EM heiling on tv, but that was hard to predict 4 years ago.

ck45 1y ago
I’ve discussed this topic quite a lot of times in the past years, taking both sides eventually. Usually the conclusion is with a human driver you (usually) have a responsible and liable person. It’s not that clear for FSD, and that’s what scares people.
- taylodl 1y ago
  It's very clear for FSD - it's a level 2 driver assist system and by definition that means the driver is legally responsible for everything that happens. That's the single biggest reason I would never use FSD. I'm not going to put myself in a position of being held legally liable for the actions of somebody else's software.
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  The human driver is responsible and liable, that is why the interior camera monitors the person’s eyes to remind them to watch the road, and I think disabled driver assist software after 3 strikes. https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/models/en_us/GUID-E5FF5E84-6AAC-43E6-B7ED-EC1E9AEB17B7.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/models/en_us/GUID-E5FF5E8... > WARNING Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is a hands-on feature. Keep your hands on the steering yoke (or steering wheel) at all times, be mindful of road conditions and surrounding traffic, and always be prepared to take immediate action. Failure to follow these instructions could cause damage, serious injury or death. It is your responsibility to familiarize yourself with the limitations of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) and the situations in which it may not work as expected.
- tpxl 1y ago
  > It’s not that clear for FSD, and that’s what scares people. It is crystal clear, the liability and responsibility is on the human behind the wheel. The 'person driving' is some engineer thousands of miles away with no incentive not to crash the vehicle, and that is what scares me.
ankurdhama 1y ago
The problem here is not self-driving, the problem is that for some reason Tesla don't want to use Lidar/Radar for self driving and instead just use cameras. This seems like complete arrogance from Tesla and nothing more. The article talks about this.

jqpabc123 1y ago

Using FSD as mandated --- with constant human supervision ----requires just as much time, attention and diligence as driving. Using FSD otherwise places your life and the life of others in danger. FSD; as currently implemented, is just good enough to lull drivers into a false sense of complacency --- and make more money for Tesla.