Regulators Open Investigation Into Fatal Crash in Tesla on Autopilot

[space-time]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2...-autopilot

In a blog post published Thursday, Tesla said that the fatal crash is the first known fatality in more than 130 million miles of Autopilot driving.

“What we know is that the vehicle was on a divided highway with Autopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S,” Tesla said in the post. “Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. The high ride height of the trailer combined with its positioning across the road and the extremely rare circumstances of the impact caused the Model S to pass under the trailer, with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S.”

[mikebw]

This would make one of U.S. Robots' positronic brains malfunction for sure.

[RAMd®d]

I'm unfamiliar with the Tesla's electronic features.

Is this something that any Tesla owner can implement, or was this a test vehicle.

I'm presuming there's some kind of collision avoidance system- optical, radar, or both?

A lot of cars have collision avoidance radar. Could this happen to them in the same situation, if the driver didn't see the truck? Or was the failure of the collision avoidance system something unique to the Tesla.

It'll be interesting to learn how this happened.

[ztirffritz]

Tesla enabled their autopilot features via a firmware update a few months ago, maybe a year. While it hasn't been without its faults, it has been largely successful. They said this was the first fatality in a Tesla using the autopilot feature, but as recently as a few months ago, they reported that there hadn't been a fatality in a Tesla yet. So this may be a first on several levels.

https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/tragic-loss

[space-time]

even if their system failed, it was still more reliable than human drivers, by quite a large margin.

We learned yesterday evening that NHTSA is opening a preliminary evaluation into the performance of Autopilot during a recent fatal crash that occurred in a Model S. This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles. It is important to emphasize that the NHTSA action is simply a preliminary evaluation to determine whether the system worked according to expectations.

[Paul F.]

Facts don't matter to people reading these stories... it's going to be "Tesla's system sucks! It doesn't work! They're killing people! Elon Musk is nuts if the thinks people will accept this crappy system!" and Tesla's stock will go down by ten bucks... (whereupon I may buy another share or two... have to think about that).

space-time wrote:
even if their system failed, it was still more reliable than human drivers, by quite a large margin.

We learned yesterday evening that NHTSA is opening a preliminary evaluation into the performance of Autopilot during a recent fatal crash that occurred in a Model S. This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles. It is important to emphasize that the NHTSA action is simply a preliminary evaluation to determine whether the system worked according to expectations.

[space-time]

Paul F. wrote:
Facts don't matter to people reading these stories... it's going to be "Tesla's system sucks! It doesn't work! They're killing people! Elon Musk is nuts if the thinks people will accept this crappy system!" and Tesla's stock will go down by ten bucks... (whereupon I may buy another share or two... have to think about that).


[quote=space-time]
even if their system failed, it was still more reliable than human drivers, by quite a large margin.

We learned yesterday evening that NHTSA is opening a preliminary evaluation into the performance of Autopilot during a recent fatal crash that occurred in a Model S. This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles. It is important to emphasize that the NHTSA action is simply a preliminary evaluation to determine whether the system worked according to expectations.

I agree, but for the family of the victim facts do make a big difference. if one dies because they did a mistake, well, they are a victim of their own mistakes and they paid the ultimate price. But if a car on autopilot makes such a mistake, the family feels their loved one was a victim of some software/hardware failure and they're not going to let it go.

that being said, I would like to see autonomous cars being an order or magnitude safer than humans, as a minimum goal.

[OWC Jamie]

space-time wrote:
[quote=Paul F.]
Facts don't matter to people reading these stories... it's going to be "Tesla's system sucks! It doesn't work! They're killing people! Elon Musk is nuts if the thinks people will accept this crappy system!" and Tesla's stock will go down by ten bucks... (whereupon I may buy another share or two... have to think about that).


[quote=space-time]
even if their system failed, it was still more reliable than human drivers, by quite a large margin.

We learned yesterday evening that NHTSA is opening a preliminary evaluation into the performance of Autopilot during a recent fatal crash that occurred in a Model S. This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles. It is important to emphasize that the NHTSA action is simply a preliminary evaluation to determine whether the system worked according to expectations.

I agree, but for the family of the victim facts do make a big difference. if one dies because they did a mistake, well, they are a victim of their own mistakes and they paid the ultimate price. But if a car on autopilot makes such a mistake, the family feels their loved one was a victim of some software/hardware failure and they're not going to let it go.

that being said, I would like to see autonomous cars being an order or magnitude safer than humans, as a minimum goal.
Death is irrelevant. Tesla can do no wrong. Allahu Akbar.

[Speedy]

Keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road.

[RAMd®d]

So much for sittin' in the back seat.