Another fatal autopilot crash - China

[Az_Rael]

In this video at 0:54 you can hear him singing just before the accident. Doesn't look like a medical issue. Highly likely that autopilot was on (because the car was perfectly centered in the lane all the time) and he wasn't watching the road. He had maybe 4 or 5 seconds to react.

Wow, so the local media has the dash cam footage of the crash, but the family won't let Tesla have access to the vehicle?

 

[green1]

I admit I trust AP quite a bit, but only when I not likely to die. When in 10mph stop-and-go traffic I trust it completely. But at 60+mph then I'm watching the road just as much as without AP.

You should ALWAYS be watching the road just as much as without AP. You're still the one driving!

 

[Stoneymonster]

You should ALWAYS be watching the road just as much as without AP. You're still the one driving!

Yup even at 10mph you can run over someone and AP won't help you.

 

[msnow]

Neither the NHTSA nor the NTSB have jurisdiction outside of the USA, so why destroy AP for everyone?
And do you have any proof that either of these organizations have told Tesla to do so? I certainly haven't seen any.

No, like I said I am speculating but I know they are investigating and have been talking to Tesla for several weeks. It wouldn't surprise me if Tesla consulted with them on this first major update since the crash. Why else would Tesla restrict it more? If you remember back to 7.0/7.1 they couldn't turn it on in some countries without restrictions which they ultimately did. But back to my scenario, hypothetically, if it is mandated by your regulator that Tesla implement these controls are you saying they should fight it or comply?

 

[LargeHamCollider]

1. That is horrific, clearly an AEB failure, seems EXACTLY like the sort of thing that 8.0 is designed to prevent.
2. I'd guess that AP was on, car stays perfectly centered, dude is singing.
3. This is China, safety statistics are much worse than in North America/Europe.
4. EYES ON THE #%*£ ROAD!!! I understand those who take their hands off the wheel but not those who take their eyes off the road.

 

[Stoneymonster]

1. That is horrific, clearly an AEB failure, seems EXACTLY like the sort of thing that 8.0 is designed to prevent.
2. I'd guess that AP was on, car stays perfectly centered, dude is singing.
3. This is China, safety statistics are much worse than in North America/Europe.
4. EYES ON THE #%*£ ROAD!!! I understand those who take their hands off the wheel but not those who take their eyes off the road.

RE 1: It's only a failure if it was supposed to handle this situation. It (currently) isn't.

 

[MP3Mike]

Neither the NHTSA nor the NTSB have jurisdiction outside of the USA, so why destroy AP for everyone?
And do you have any proof that either of these organizations have told Tesla to do so? I certainly haven't seen any.

Tesla probably doesn't want to maintain/support two different versions of AP, so unless there is a really strong reason not to everyone will essentially get the same version.

Here is a quote from the V8 Q&A session with Elon: "We have done most of these changes with NHTSA and I don’t want to speak for them but they appear to be pretty happy with the changes and the reactions from them is quite positive."

So it sounds like the NHTSA has pushed them to making some of the changes.

 

[msnow]

Tesla probably doesn't want to maintain/support two different versions of AP, so unless there is a really strong reason not to everyone will essentially get the same version.

Here is a quote from the V8 Q&A session with Elon: "We have done most of these changes with NHTSA and I don’t want to speak for them but they appear to be pretty happy with the changes and the reactions from them is quite positive."

So it sounds like the NHTSA has pushed them to making some of the changes.

Good find.

 

[hmmm]

Call me crazy, but watching the road when driving, with AP or not, with a Tesla or a tricycle, would sound like a reasonable thing to do.

 

[tinm]

I wish Tesla vehicles with Autopilot came standard with a driver-facing camera as part of the Autpilot hardware. Turn on Autopilot? Agree to the disclaimers? Ok, well, a camera pointing at the driver goes on and records. Part of the "black box" data for accident investigations. At least while Autopilot is in "beta."

Hold on, donning teflon-coated titanium kevlar suit. Ok, proceed with replies.

 

[msnow]

I wish Tesla vehicles with Autopilot came standard with a driver-facing camera as part of the Autpilot hardware. Turn on Autopilot? Agree to the disclaimers? Ok, well, a camera pointing at the driver goes on and records. Part of the "black box" data for accident investigations. At least while Autopilot is in "beta."

Hold on, donning teflon-coated titanium kevlar suit. Ok, proceed with replies.

Ok, here goes...THAT'S CRAZY!!! They might catch me picking my nose or worse.
The pilots association won't even allow that for pilots flying commercial airlines citing privacy concerns but they should.

 

[KZKZ]

In this video at 0:54 you can hear him singing just before the accident. Doesn't look like a medical issue. Highly likely that autopilot was on (because the car was perfectly centered in the lane all the time) and he wasn't watching the road. He had maybe 4 or 5 seconds to react.

Agreed, highly likely that it was on AP based on the available information.

The similarities between this and the other AP crash in China and the AP crash in Europe are eerily similar.

 

[thegruf]

tell me I am missing something here?

The impact was primarily on the driver side.
The driver survived
The son (passenger) sadly didnt

The car is pretty banged up obviously enough, but the passenger side doesnt seem to be completely compromised.

Does this raise the question whether the passenger had their seatbelt on, or being the driver's son maybe was not physically suitably sized for an adult seatbelt?

I realise that this is specualtion and generally I would avoid in such circumstances, however the family's refusal to respond to Tesla's requests for the data imply all is maybe not as straightforward as it seems.

And who the heck allows a street cleaner on a fast moving highway like that - utter madness as this family unfortunately found out.

 

[Canuck]

Wow, so the local media has the dash cam footage of the crash, but the family won't let Tesla have access to the vehicle?

I think the answer is that with releasing the dash cam video, there's nothing to decode and Tesla can't change anything by having a copy (not that Tesla would).

But I don't think any lawyer for the victim would tell their client to hand over the vehicle, and then rely on Tesla to tell them what the vehicle's data shows. If there is a court action, Tesla will likely get the data, once an agreement is reached such that only a copy is provided, and the plaintiff's experts obtain the data and provide that copy to Tesla, perhaps in coordination with the defendant's experts. Given that all indications point to this being an AP activated accident, the plaintiff's lawyers will likely want that confirmed by Tesla, they probably just don't want to leave it to Tesla alone to confirm it, and that sounds like standard legal procedure to me.

That's just my guess though.

Call me crazy, but watching the road when driving, with AP or not, with a Tesla or a tricycle, would sound like a reasonable thing to do.

I bet if you were friends with Joshua Brown (the driver in the AP fatality) and this driver, you would find them to be very reasonable people. I obviously don't know either of them, and this is just a guess. But calling drivers "unreasonable" after an accident like this doesn't take away my concerns with the current AP system not taking evasive action under the conditions of both accidents, if this was an AP activated accident. This is not to say the drivers are not also at fault (nice double negative there) but I don't know who is at fault. I do agree that simply paying attention would have avoided this accident but my concerns don't end there.

 

[Tam]

tell me I am missing something here?

The impact was primarily on the driver side.
The driver survived
The son (passenger) sadly didnt

The son borrowed dad's car and drove it alone and got into an accident and didn't make it.

There was no passenger in this case.

 

[msnow]

tell me I am missing something here?

The impact was primarily on the driver side.
The driver survived
The son (passenger) sadly didnt

The car is pretty banged up obviously enough, but the passenger side doesnt seem to be completely compromised.

Does this raise the question whether the passenger had their seatbelt on, or being the driver's son maybe was not physically suitably sized for an adult seatbelt?

I realise that this is specualtion and generally I would avoid in such circumstances, however the family's refusal to respond to Tesla's requests for the data imply all is maybe not as straightforward as it seems.

And who the heck allows a street cleaner on a fast moving highway like that - utter madness as this family unfortunately found out.

According to the electret link the driver was the son of the owner and is the one who died.
"A video of the accident was captured by the dashcam of the Tesla Model S driver, a 23-year man borrowing his dad’s car according to a report (Chinese). He was driving on the highway reportedly in the Hong Kong and Macao jurisdiction when his car hit a streetsweeper truck on the side of the road at highway speed, killing the driver."

 

[thegruf]

my bad, my excuse it's late here and I should have read more detail.
Thanks for the correction guys.

still bloody stupid to have a street cleaner on the highway like that

 

[deonb]

If confirmed to be on AP, then there goes the "1 fatality in 200 million miles on AP is better than the national/international ratio" pseudo-statistics argument.

You can't use national/international ratio interchangeably like that. China doesn't publish accidents per billion miles, but they do publish it by 100'000 vehicles. If you use that ratio, it's 8 times higher than the U.S (104 vs. 13).

By that ratio, you'd have a average fatalities per 100m miles at somewhere closer to 8, and Tesla is still way ahead.

But safety numbers have to be looked at per country, not world-wide. Not all countries have the same road standards.

 

[thegruf]

one or two fatailities is not enough to be statistically accurate

 

[Spidy]

And is the same in virtually every implementation from every manufacturer.

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