16 ms·
Tesla seeks to guard crash data from public disclosure
- duxup 1y agoUnless there's a very good reason, if National Highway Transportation Safety Administration has it then the taxpayers who paid for it should have access too.
- e44858 1y agoProvided they release crash data for all manufacturers and don't single out just one manufacturer.
- FireBeyond 1y agoUhh, WaPo was requesting crash data from NHTSA on driver assistance systems. Tesla is the only manufacturer trying to prevent that disclosure.
- kjs3 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- bdcravens 1y agoThe "We'll wait" isn't really seen as effective discourse here like it on on Reddit/Twitter. Just state your argument and let it stand on its own without the perceived "mic drop".
- duxup 1y agoI agree, although that's more about the request(er) than anything else.
- ra7 1y agoCrash data for all other ADAS systems is already public [1]. The only manufacturer with heavily redacted information in that data to the point of being useless is Tesla. [1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/standing-general-order-crash-reporting#data https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/standing-general-orde...
- andsoitis 1y ago> The only manufacturer with heavily redacted information in that data to the point of being useless is Tesla. The nice thing is we can look for ourselves to what extent that is true by downloading the CSV: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/ffdd/sgo-2021-01/SGO-2021-01_Incident_Reports_ADAS.csv https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/ffdd/sgo-2021-01/SGO-2021-01_In... For example, in the case of BMW, in every single case the field for ADS/ADAS Version is either blank or redacted.
- armsaw 1y agoWhen I look at this data, I see the type of self driving in use, as well as the written narrative of every crash, along with several other fields as REDACTED FOR BUSINESS REASONS, only for Tesla vehicles, where every other manufacturer seems to have these fields populated. To me, that information would be crucial to understanding what actually happened in each case, as opposed to only being able to understand some of the ambient conditions around each accident.
- andsoitis 1y ago> REDACTED FOR BUSINESS REASONS, only for Tesla vehicles, where every other manufacturer seems to have these fields populated. Not true. There are many rows for other manufacturers where fields are redacted or blank. For example: - Row 7. BMW. ADAS/ADS Version: blank - Row 8. BMW. ADAS/ADS Version: redacted - Row 9. Subaru. ADAS/ADS Version: redacted etc.
- armsaw 1y agoGranted there are some other rows with missing or incomplete information, but Tesla appears to be the only manufacturer for which this information is withheld in every single instance without exception.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- timewizard 1y agoThe owner or their next of kin ostensibly should have it as well. It's disappointing that only the manufacturer and the NHTSA have easy access.
- 7e 1y agoPublic roads, public data. I want to know how at risk I am from all these Teslas around me.
- FireBeyond 1y agoReuters throwing shade: > Tesla is widely known for its so-called advanced driver-assistance systems, including Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD). (emphasis mine)
- ancillary 1y agoIt seems less like shade than precision about who's saying it's advanced.
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoTesla has rebranded its self-driving ambitions half a dozen times. (I’m honestly currently blanking on which of Robotaxi and Cybercab is the Level 4 product.) It’s fair to point out that “advanced driver-assistance” is another neologism of Musk’s, and not a term to be treated as comparable with other companies’ capabilities.
- MBCook 1y agoADAS is the industry standard term for things above basic cruise control isn’t it? It’s not a term Musk dreamed up. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_driver-assistance_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_driver-assistance_s...
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoIt is! Didn’t know—thank you.
- jdminhbg 1y agoThis mostly just demonstrates that the reporter doesn’t know what they’re talking about. ADAS is a term of art that encompasses everything above dumb cruise control, including things like adaptive cruise control or collision detection.
- MaxPock 1y agoMusk would never hide something,would he ?
- neuroelectron 1y agoWhat, like his bank account number?
- Havoc 1y agoI guess they haven’t doge’d enough people to bury this
- qingcharles 1y agoHe's at war with the gov now. He's on a mad tweet frenzy about burning up all the GOP reps that voted for the tax bill. They just doge'd his pick for NASA Administrator on the same day his black eye showed up. Get the popcorn.
- morkalork 1y agoThis is interesting because the only thing keeping senators in line with Trump's bs before was the threat of a primary funded by Musk, how does he whip their votes now without that threat?
- ryukoposting 1y agoGo look at the result of Wisconsin's recent supreme court race, and tell me anyone in the GOP is convinced that Musk bux should actually scare them.
- tzs 1y agoThat wasn’t a primary. Primaries are much more influenceable by money.
- dylan604 1y agoThe primary challenge is still a threat. Instead of just turning to the Bank of Musk, he'll/they'll(RNC) will do what they have always done by sending out campaign emails to get people to donate.
- davidw 1y agoEurope is shooting itself in the foot if they're not doing their damnedest to brain-drain as many scientists and engineers as they can while things implode here.
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoHonestly still waiting for someone—could be Canada, the EU or California—to announce heightened approval standards for (or even a moratorium on) cameras-only self-driving cars on public streets.
- moduspol 1y agoThey kill a lot fewer people than the ones driven solely by humans.
- jaggederest 1y agoGiven the topic at hand, how do you know that? How is it possible to know that?
- moduspol 1y agoWell, my claim was fairly specific, so it's quite easy. There are ~42k traffic fatalities in the US each year. Cameras-only self driving cars are a tiny fraction of the number of total cars. The highest estimates I've seen for annual traffic deaths with an ADAS involved (not even implying causation) is in the range of dozens. Cameras-only self driving cars would be a fraction of those. As a result, there are quite possibly more than a thousand traffic fatalities each year caused by human-driven cars for each ONE caused by a cameras-only self driving car. But my original claim was only that they kill a lot fewer. That seems self-evident.
- Calwestjobs 1y ago[flagged]
- mosdl 1y agoWife has a relative who was just (this weekend) in a major accident where a tesla ran into them and pushed their a ditch where it rolled a few times. Initial report says the Tesla was in self drive mode. Will be interesting to see who was at fault here but so far it is not looking good for Tesla.
- andsoitis 1y ago> ran into them and pushed their a ditch where it rolled a few times that sounds rough; hopefully they're OK! did the car drive into them from the side or from behind? where did it happen? googling "Tesla ditch self-driving accident" turns up nothing, but I would have thought it would have made the news.
- gamblor956 1y agoSelf driving Teslas getting into accidents is now so common that it is no longer news.
- wskinner 1y agoThere are over 40,000 _fatal_ car crashes per year in the US, and a few orders of magnitude more non-fatal crashes. Most of them do not make the news.
- genewitch 1y agoA plurality of those are in Texas, as well. I used to say, someone in the US is more likely to die in a car wreck in Texas even if they never go to Texas, that's how skewed they make the statistics. But I stopped looking at the stats a few years ago so I stopped saying and defending that. It's just a new lens to view this information through.
- callc 1y agoSource? A quick googling shows from https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/fatal-car-accidents-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/fatal-car-a... deaths per 100k pop in 2022: - Mississippi 23.9 (highest) - Texas 14.7 - CA 11.3 - Rhode Island and DC 4.8 (lowest) Anecdotally, the huge trucks and driving culture (aggressive, fast) would have made me guess Texas has higher deaths before seeing the data.
- jfoster 1y agoIt's interesting that this is a case being brought by The Washington Post. The owner of WaPo is also the owner of Zoox. (Jeff Bezos)
- nemothekid 1y agoWhile I admit I shouldn't be defending Tesla for free - I've come to realize a lot of these "FSD crashed into me and Elon is hiding it!" claims usually come down to the user driving recklessly then using FSD as a get out of jail free card. FSDs failures are either far more boring (imagining a stop sign) or put's the user in danger (driving onto train tracks).
- duxup 1y agoThe article is about Tesla not wanting the data out for everyone to see. If that’s the case they should show it.
- potato3732842 1y agoUnless the data literally sings it from the tree tops less than honest people will pretend it says whatever they want it to say for clicks and eyeballs. With how popular Musk is these days I can 100% where Tesla is coming from here.
- FireBeyond 1y ago> less than honest people will pretend it says Like Tesla? If your airbags don't deploy, Tesla doesn't consider it an accident for the purposes of reporting (modern safety systems don't blindly deploy airbags, they evaluate g-forces, speeds, angles of impact, etc., so you can hit something at 25mph and the vehicle decides your seatbelts are sufficient. Tesla decides "that's not a reportable collision"). Know when else your airbags might not deploy? Very serious accidents, when hardware or controllers are damaged. Speaking of which, fatalities are not included in that report. "It was a collision where someone died, but doesn't merit inclusion in a safety report" is a weird position to take.
- jeffbee 1y agoDon't all event data recorders, in every brand of car, decide to log events based on airbag deployment?
- alfor 1y ago[flagged]
- cowlby 1y agoAs an anecdotal data point, I picked up a '24 Model 3 precisely for the self-driving capabilities. The difference between a Tesla running hardware/software HW3/v11 vs HW4/v12 was night and day. Literally felt like the difference between flying a helicopter (actively trying to kill u lol) and an airplane. I honestly did not get the hype until this specific HW4/v12 combination which didn't exist until last summer or so. It's the first time FSD felt like a safety feature for just $99 a month.
- tw04 1y ago>I honestly did not get the hype until this specific HW4/v12 combination which didn't exist until last summer or so. It's the first time FSD felt like a safety feature for just $99 a month. That's exactly the problem. It's great right until it isn't, at which point it's likely to make a decision that will kill you or someone else if you aren't lucky. (most) Humans are REALLY good at paying attention to something that will actively kill them at any moment - you don't see a lot of people running a chainsaw while sending a text to their friend about drinks later in the day. Humans are REALLY bad at stopping something they trust (IMO foolishly), with less than a half a second of notice, from killing them or someone else. It is completely natural to get lulled into a sense of security when something mostly works exactly as you'd expect. Meanwhile Tesla wants to act as if it's the driver's fault anytime there's a crash without acknowledging they are actively perpetuating the myth of: "this thing drives itself". It's literally called "Full Self Driving" and Telsa expects the average person to look at that name and think: you need to be vigilant anytime you turn this on because it is a beta feature that may drive into oncoming traffic at any moment.
- cowlby 1y agoAgreed, but you can't not pay attention with the new Vision Attention Monitoring. Not sure if it's HW4/v12 specific but it watches your eyesight specifically. So for example, if I look at the screen, my phone, or start day-dreaming for even a few seconds, it'll beep and quickly strike me out from using FSD. "FSD (supervised)" is how it shows up in the UI too at least giving some expectation of it not being autonomous. So in practice, I'm picturing the right driving inputs and watching what it's doing.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mulmen 1y agoNo idea. How does it compare to other vehicles? Were there only four crashes and one fatality or is that what it took to start an investigation?
- Alex_001 1y agoIt’s honestly hilarious that they think they deserve access to Tesla’s internal data just because users can view the software version on their own car. That’s like saying a public login screen means the whole system should be open-source. Tesla has every right to protect its own data — especially when it’s tied to proprietary tech and competitive edge. If regulators or media want deeper access, it should be done through proper agreements, not by demanding that confidential info be handed over. You can’t just expect to skip the hard work others have done.
- ryukoposting 1y agoNHTSA reports crash data for every auto manufacturer. Tesla's is noteworthy for being heavily redacted.
- the_optimist 1y agoQuite oddly in the context of all these varied comments, this key claim is demonstrated as false.
- __m 1y agoI've only seen anecdotes, not clear numbers
- FireBeyond 1y agoNot sure how you came to that conclusion. The "claim", a black and white, "Tesla redacts everything, everyone else redacts nothing" was never really a claim. But what IS not false: There is a bunch of data that is "missing", both from Tesla and other manufacturers. Tesla declines/redacts data far more than other manufacturers, to the point where in many cases, the majority of data is redacted for a given incident.
- NoPicklez 1y agoYes it is a weak argument, but otherwise I disagree. Data about a hitting a pedestrian or having an accident isn't proprietary tech. They're not asking for source code, but for data that should arguably be made available for people to see in the interest of transparency and this information is sought consistently from other car makers. Tesla is of course sticking out like a sore thumb, because they have put the most investment into EV's and "autopilot" features the data might show that they stick out.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y agohttps://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-car-crash-rule-tesla-elon-musk-1235205356/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-ca...
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y agohttps://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY19FH008.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY19FH008.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY18FH011.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY18FH011.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY18FH004.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY18FH004.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY16FH018.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY16FH018.aspx Battery fire https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY21FH011.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY21FH011.aspx
- remarkEon 1y agoGiven that Elon wants to torpedo this spending bill over his precious EV credits, I imagine the honeymoon phase is assuredly over and he won't be successful in influencing the administration here.
- riffraff 1y agoOr he just gets his credits back and surprise, there's no longer a problem with pork and deficit. Trump may not care about reelection but congressmen do.
- fastball 1y agoElon is on the record many times saying there should be 0 tax credits for vehicles.
- elgenie 1y agoWhat is this record of which you speak and what, pray tell, are the penalties suffered by Elon for lying repeatedly on it?
- fastball 1y agoGoogle is your friend. While there, please try to find the record of Elon saying he wants more subsidies, as presumably you'd also like to see the record of that.
- iamtheworstdev 1y agohe can say that all he wants, but Tesla's profits go away when the credits go away, and likely so does his stock price again.
- fastball 1y agoSo your assumption here is that Elon is trying to do some sort of reverse psychology trick, or...? You can't just make up motivations for people. He has said repeatedly that the government should get rid of subsidies. When the government then gets rid of subsidies, people say he is mad about that. A citation is very much needed.
- BlazeNova 1y ago[dead]
- dhx 1y agoFor reference, [1] is the recent UN regulation for road vehicles to have an event data recording (EDR) function which records certain telemetry about a vehicle for -5 to +5 seconds around a crash event. None of these fields relate to ADS/ADAS. This difference is described at [3] but in summary, EDR telemetry describes what the vehicle physically does, not who or how the vehicle was instructed to operate in that way. EDR telemetry doesn't answer if ADS/ADAS applied the throttle input or whether it was the human operator depressing the accelerator pedal. Countries take time to decide how to implement the UN regulations so in countries such as Australia, there is (from a quick check) still no regulation requiring light passenger road vehicles to record any telemetry. The US already had a form of regulation requiring limited telemetry about a vehicle for -20 to +5 seconds around a crash event to be recorded.[2] This US regulation also did not require recording of fields relevant to ADS/ADAS.[2] What this article describes is access to telemetry data that manufacturers such as Tesla are voluntarily recording within vehicles that may include some idea of ADS/ADAS operation during a crash event. For example, Tesla may be recording the human throttle input separate from recording of the ADS/ADAS throttle input, showing whether it was the driver or vehicle who caused the car to accelerate dangerously before a crash. But the UN regulation and older US regulation didn't expect Tesla to record more than just a single throttle position field, ignoring whether ADS/ADAS or the driver directed the throttle position. [1] UN Regulation No. 160 - Event Data Recorder (EDR) - https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/R160E.pdf https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/R160E.pdf [2] CFR Title 49 Subtitle B Chapter V Part 563 - https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/part-563 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/p... [3] https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2019/wp29grva/GRVA-02-20e.pdf#page=6 https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2019/wp29grva/GRVA...
- spaceguillotine 1y ago[flagged]
- xyst 1y agoTesla executive leadership continues to be a joke in their industry. I hope their sales continue to drop off across the globe.
- cosmicgadget 1y agoI hope they don't compare market cap.
- Yeul 1y agoThat's what I don't get about Tesla. VW, BYD or Toyota or judged on how many cars the sell. What is Tesla judged on? But then I remember that investors just want to dump their shares on the next sucker they don't really care about the underlying business case.
- cosmicgadget 1y agoYeah it is a meme stock for sure. But that doesn't make traditional auto execs any less clownish for scoffing at Tesla.
- londons_explore 1y agoAs a shareholder I'm pissed off that my money is going into unimportant legal wrangling rather than developing better products. Like who cares if software version numbers are released on crash reports or not?
- atwrk 1y agoMay I ask why you are a shareholder? IMO Tesla is headed straight into insolvency with sales collapsing all over the world and factories at <60% capacity, all while the global EV market is surging.
- olelele 1y agoAFAICT the stock is also insanely overvalued, especially compared to ”real” car making companies eg Toyota. The Silicon Valley hype valuation based on future exponential growth seems further and further away from reality every day. P/E anyone?
- londons_explore 1y agoThey're converting smart minds into technical innovation with an efficiency higher than pretty much every other company in USA. Me giving them capital helps them keep more people from ending up writing boilerplate code for fintech startups and other fairly fruitless endeavors.
- righthand 1y agoIs writing a comment with words you’ve already written before a fruitless endeavor?
- isodev 1y agoAt this point, why anyone would opt to buy a Tesla is beyond my understanding. The fact that regulation is lacking to such an extent as to allow Tesla to wait for airbag deployment for something to count as a crash is kind of sad.
- para_parolu 1y agoCan’t say for everyone but there are not many alternatives with similar features on us market
- seanhunter 1y agoThat may have been true 4 years ago but it’s far from true now. The only feature Tesla has that no other car seems to have is that minimalist “dentist’s waiting room decorated in the 1990s to seem futuristic” energy from the interior, which definitely sets Tesla apart although not entirely in a good way.
- para_parolu 1y agoI don’t think this discussion makes sense without pointing to specific models. And discussing specific models doesn’t make sense without establishing what are the set of required properties (which is different for everyone). I was just pointing out that for some people (including me) there are no other cars with similar properties that I need.
- neepi 1y agoI don't understand it either. Anybody I know recently in the UK only got one for political reasons or to stick it to the system in some naive way. I wish I was joking. This is even more sad.
- pavlov 1y agoThese are the same people who are staunchly opposed to regulating emissions in any way. So in a way it’s great that they’ve been convinced to buy zero-emissions vehicles by giving them a reactionary edgelord option that’s just like every other EV. (Except for the suicide FSD mode which is more like a Darwin awards filter.)
- kergonath 1y agoBehold, transparency!
- BrtByte 1y agoIt's always a red flag when a company starts leaning hard on "competitive harm" to block safety-related data
- beezlewax 1y agoThis company should be boycotted in it's entirety
- qwertox 1y ago> saying that public disclosure of the information could cause competitive harm. Remember what Musk said many years ago, something along the lines of that he wants to get the global EV movement started, and that for this to happen he'd gladly let anyone use his patents without retaliating? Now he doesn't even want data which might save lives to get out into the public. > June 12, 2014 > Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology. > Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. https://web.archive.org/web/20160722033909/https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you https://web.archive.org/web/20160722033909/https://www.tesla...
- JKCalhoun 1y agoMy impression is that Tesla's are (were) status symbols people bought to flaunt their wealth [1]. Perhaps Musk's persona has kind of killed that though. Or at least he causes one to weigh the status aspect of the car against the politics they increasingly represent. [1] The thing I've alsways disliked most about Tesla actually — not a car "for the people" — way too rarefied, elite.
- benwad 1y agoPersonally I think the strategy of starting with luxury cars and getting cheaper was a good one. The bigger profit margin of luxury cars could be fed back into R&D to make cheaper electric cars viable. Of course, that's the ideal situation. Tesla in 2025 is very different from what they were talking about in 2014.
- _aavaa_ 1y agoIt’s a shame they chose to seriously pursue the ridiculous cybertruck and vapourware rather than cheaper cars.
- Fischgericht 1y agoMy Tesla still detects about 90% of garbage bins on our street, but only about 60% of the school kids crossing the road (I live in Germany where kids walk to school). The rest it would kill. As I pass by that school daily on my way to work, my Tesla would probably kill about 10-20 kids per week. Yeah, good idea to hide the crash data.
- mgoetzke 1y agoYou base that assumption on the visualizations in the center I guess ? They are not actually everything the car sees and reacts to. Especially not in our German FSD cars
- Fischgericht 1y agoI am aware that FSD has a different software stack. But it's the same hardware. So why would they make the detection of kids different on the standard firmware artificially worse? As Marketing for people who hate school kids? I find it laughable that there still are Musk fanboys who after a decade of lies about this still believe in "Robotaxis". 90% of them clearly have never tried to drive a Tesla in a scenario where the minimal protections for kids to use public street space is not "kids should get a SUV to not get killed". It is also amusing to watch videos of Tesla fanboys on YouTube who proudly show that their Tesla now can use FSD for up to 500 miles without a single crash (or "critical disengagement)". A human driver statistically causes a crash every 500,000 miles. But yes, we will have flying Robotaxis in 2 weeks from now, that will solve this problem. Musk said so. :)
- robertlagrant 1y agoOther than the first paragraph, this all seems to be replying to something else?
- yreg 1y ago> I am aware that FSD has a different software stack. But it's the same hardware. So why would they make the detection of kids different on the standard firmware artificially worse? As Marketing for people who hate school kids? Not sure what's your argument here. The visualization you get using "Enhanced Autopilot" is completely different to the one you get using "FSD Beta" because the software you are running is completely different as well.
- mgoetzke 1y agoThere is a lot of Tesla hate here on HackerNews its turning into reddit :)
- Geee 1y ago[flagged]
- Lunalin 1y ago[dead]
- redm 1y agoI don’t understand all the FSD “disdain” in these comments. FSD 13+ on HW4 is amazing. I’ve basically stopped driving and it’s a marvel of technology. It’s hard for me to understand how everyone doesn't geek out about it all the time.
- standardUser 1y agoOne ride in a Waymo is enough to make Tesla's tech seem uninteresting. It's like showing off your LaserDisc player in 1999.
- _ea1k 1y agoIt has been a weird trend on HN for a while now. Some Tesla articles are nearly ignored, and others just get filled with trolls. It is fairly obvious that the loudest have little experience with the product.
- strix_varius 1y ago> I’ve basically stopped driving This is why - because people like you are killing other people due to technologically-inspired negligence.
- misiti3780 1y agoMusk has clearly gone crazy but Tesla's are without a doubt great cars. Until a real competitor exists, I will never drive another gas car and I will continue to drive Teslas
- buyucu 1y agoTesla has no reason to fear or hide data if it hasn't done anything wrong. Right?
- teddyX 1y agoThis company is evil
- thomastjeffery 1y agoTesla wants to be isolated from criticism. Why? It's not just because this will show how bad they are relative to competition. The real reason is much more concerning. Criticism of Tesla would deconstruct their dualist narrative. Tesla has sold the public on the notion that "good enough" self-driving is objectively safer than human driving. Anyone who accepts this narrative can consider the failure of human driving safety as an ultimate bad, which implies that Tesla's automated driving alternative is an ultimate good. This dogmatic thinking hinges on Tesla's vague assertion that automated driving in general is statistically safer than human driving in general. As soon as people engage with any criticism of this narrative whatsoever, the dualist perspective is lost, and the narrative itself falls apart.