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[UPDATED] 2 die in Tesla crash - NHTSA reports driver seat occupied

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Strange. According to that article, the location was:
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That's a dead-end in a residential area full of mega-mansions.
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I'm a little befuddled how a Model S using FSD could even be driving at a "high rate of speed" on what appears to be an unlined residential street, that has to be posted 25mph. If you were driving out, could you even set up the car, and climb out of the front seat in time in that short distance at a high rate of speed?

No, you couldn't. Hence what I've been saying. Now, if you're in a performance, you can certainly get enough speed in there to get in trouble. But certainly you'd have zero time to try to hop out of the driver's seat.
 
Why ? Suicide pact ? Trying to kill his friend because he got angry with him ?

Everyone talking about some kind of hack - need to provide a motive. These are not 2 kids trying to gain their 5 minutes of youtube celebrity.

Apparently there was some kind of party/dinner at the house. If there were arguments etc. people would know and talk. Or was the owner too dumb to not know AP doesn't work in his own street ? I bet every one of us have tried to set AP in our residential street only to be disappointed.
No, sorry: the idea is that someone (maybe the owner?) did it as a stunt on the public road that had lane lines, so the Autopilot activated, and drove the back seater and front passenger around safely, and eventually stopped safely. Then, these guys did it on a road with no lane lines and with a high speed setting, so the car resumed the (high) speed, but without steering. In my car, pulling twice on the stalk with no lines will activate the TACC, but not the Autopilot....No ill motive...all it would take are careless fools...
 
So, try this one on: passenger in front passenger seat. Driver buckles seat belt; sits in front seat, pre-sets TACC for high speed but does not engage it; starts car; exits car; gets in back seat; and reaches over the front seat and clicks the TACC/Autopilot stalk which resumes TACC at the high speed setting but the autopilot does not engage because there are no lane lines. This sounds right to me, and if it is correct, this guy probably did this on roadways with lane lines previously, in which case the brother in law knows about it. It also explains that Tesla is trying to figure out how to explain it. Talk me down...J

Tried it; doesn’t work.

1.) TACC cannot be engaged from a standstill on unmarked residential roads. Must be going over 10 MPH for it to become available.

2.) TACC reverts to the current vehicle speed on an unmarked road if it does not know the speed limit. If it does know the speed limit, it defaults to the speed limit plus your offset (in my case +5). There is no way to engage it at a higher speed.

3.) TACC accelerates gradually from a stop. If you were to engage it at 10 MPH at a set speed of 60 (rolling the scroll wheel up rapidly after engaging TACC), the car will be going about 35 MPH after 500 feet. (Rough estimate just messing around in my car in a quiet industrial park as I write this).

Finally, this is how crazy rumors spread. Rather than concocting scenarios and tossing them out to the forum to “talk you down,” get in your car and give some of these things a try.
 
Nope. You have to be moving at least 18 mph to engage TACC with no vehicle in front of you. So, grandpa buckled his belt behind him, got the car up to 18 mph, engaged TACC, then climbed over into another seat while the car was moving but it doesn't steer, mind you. Or there was a car in front of them. TACC engaged, but the lead car pulled into a driveway so WHOOSH 90 mph? Nope. It will only allow 5 over the posted limit which was probably 25 - 30 mph.

You don't actually have to be going 18mph to engage TACC. I can engage TACC as low as 5mph in my Model 3, and the S and 3 have identical language in their manuals on the topic:
"To initiate Traffic-Aware Cruise Control when no vehicle is detected ahead of you, you must be driving at least 18 mph (30 km/h), unless certain vehicle and
environmental conditions are met,
in which case, you may be able to initiate it at lower speeds."


When going under 10mph, the minimum initial set speed is 10mph. But after engaging TACC, you can reduce the set speed to 0mph and come to a full stop.

And the TACC set speed can be set to greater than 5mph over the speed limit. That limit only exists for Autopilot on non-divided streets.
 
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If neither passenger was the owner, it increases the likelihood that the driver may have exited the vehicle either to get help or flee the scene (might have had some drinks). That explanation would seem to follow Occam's Razor. It certainly makes more sense than two older guys deciding to pack weights on the seat and steering wheel and enter the back seat. I'm trying to imagine a 60 year old telling a 70 year old "Hey, let's go make a Tik Tok of us sitting in the back seat while the car drives" and the 70 year old replying "Cool, bro". ;)

Mike

Elon tweeted saying the car didn't have FSD option, and AP doesn't work on that kind of street anyway, and investigators are 100% sure there was no one in the driver's seat (at the time of the crash? or after the crash?)

Sounds like the most plausible explanation would be a driver who left the car after the crash. But you'd think the police should see some evidence of that, bruises/injuries from the driver, airbag deployment on the driver's side. I don't think us internet sleuths have enough info to determine the actual sequence of events, but assuming Elon's tweet wasn't an outright lie, the demographic of the victims and the location of the crash makes me think a 3rd person was driving.
 
I wondered about that too but also wondered why it looks like the braking stopped after a short distance. Maybe ABS figuring out the traction on grass and it was still trying to brake but ABS had controlled the slipping after a short distance?

Mike
To me, the ruts appear to be from the weight of the car slamming down into the grass after hopping the curb.
 
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All good questions. I had wondered the same thing, particularly, whether the driver could have tried to escape from a rear door if front door(s) were jammed. They seemed pretty sure one occupant was in the front passenger seat and one was in a rear passenger seat, so maybe they were both still belted? Or there was other evidence to the fact that's where they were when the impact occurred? Driver fleeing is another possibility but that seems to be debunked by someone saying that when they left, there were only two in the car.

Mike

Wonder if that guy was the owner driver or someone who could have been covering for him. Even many of the theories espoused here have been debunked to explain how this couldn’t have been a driverless car. Usually the simplest explanation is what happened.
 
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You don't actually have to be going 18mph to engage TACC. I can engage TACC as low as 5mph in my Model 3, and the S and 3 have identical language in their manuals on the topic:

"To initiate Traffic-Aware Cruise Control when no vehicle is detected ahead of you, you must be driving at least 18 mph (30 km/h), unless certain vehicle and
environmental conditions are met,
in which case, you may be able to initiate it at lower speeds."


When going under 10mph, the minimum initial set speed is 10mph. But after engaging TACC, you can reduce the set speed to 0mph and come to a full stop.

And the TACC set speed can be set to greater than 5mph over the speed limit. That limit only exists for Autopilot.

the conditions are there is a car in front if you. In this case there wasn’t and even if there was it doesn’t explain the high rate of speed and even if it did Elon has Spoken.
 
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Elon tweeted saying the car didn't have FSD option, and AP doesn't work on that kind of street anyway, and investigators are 100% sure there was no one in the driver's seat (at the time of the crash? or after the crash?)

Sounds like the most plausible explanation would be a driver who left the car after the crash. But you'd think the police should see some evidence of that, bruises/injuries from the driver, airbag deployment on the driver's side. I don't think us internet sleuths have enough info to determine the actual sequence of events, but assuming Elon's tweet wasn't an outright lie, the demographic of the victims and the location of the crash makes me think a 3rd person was driving.

Agreed. I don’t know of any possibility other than a 3rd person. Possibly involving alcohol, launch mode and/or pedal misapplication.

Or the rear passenger was driving and crawled back there, although the preliminary investigators seem pretty convinced that’s not the case.

It’s a really bizarre situation.
 
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you also can’t set tacc to faster than the speed limit from the start, so you could need to scroll the wheel after enabling it.
Yes, you can. Up to 30mph over the speed limit.

the conditions are there is a car in front if you.

Nope. I just did it in my car. (I got nothing better to do, apparently.) No lead car. Can engage TACC as low as 5mph.
 
Only problem with the 3rd person driver seat situation is that it drove into a tree, driver in the kill zone there, wouldn’t have fared better than the outlet two guys.

There's really no evidence to suggest one way or the other. A tree is pretty narrow so if the car hit the tree on the passenger side, it could have done a lot more damage to the passenger than the driver. Crash dynamics can be quite complex. It does make me wonder though: you'd think the rear seat passenger would have fared better than either of the two front seat occupants. But if AP was not engaged, there had to have been a driver. Either it was one of the two they found, or a third person that fled the scene.

Mike
 
Questioned on ability to discern truth from fiction by a Q-ster? That’s rich. ;)

Which part are you questioning? The offset set speed or the minimum speed to engage?

The part where you can engage tacc from 0 mph and get it up to 70 in one go.

also, I was q before q was q. OG Q and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let incels take it from me.
 

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There's really no evidence to suggest one way or the other. A tree is pretty narrow so if the car hit the tree on the passenger side, it could have done a lot more damage to the passenger than the driver. Crash dynamics can be quite complex. It does make me wonder though: you'd think the rear seat passenger would have fared better than either of the two front seat occupants. But if AP was not engaged, there had to have been a driver. Either it was one of the two they found, or a third person that fled the scene.

Mike
What’s the deal with purple and green boxes?