Another fatal autopilot crash - China

[enzo]

Others have pointed out that this is a bad failure of AEB. I think this point should be amplified and put in context.

AEB was not activated by radar until 8.0, so logically for anything beyond ultrasound range it uses the camera. In the conference call it was also stated that Tesla engineers tried to tell Musk repeatedly that radar could not be used as a primary obstacle sensor. This implies that the plan for full autonomy was to rely entirely on camera for front stationary obstacle avoidance. Therefore, Tesla believes the image processing AI will be improved many times over. Yes, the hardware will be upgraded but even with 10 cameras from every angle, it is a software problem, as Musk stated.

Considering this crash, though, we now know that there is a lot of software improvement that needs to happen. We need to go from the camera not seeing a big truck, to seeing everything 99.99% of the time. They aren't there yet, or they wouldn't have made such a big deal about radar solving the problem.

But it doesn't solve the problem, since the system must be redundant in case the radar craps out.
I was thinking Model 3 might have autonomy in 2018 but this rules it out in my mind.

 

[Canuck]

Indeed, how do we know anything for sure ever?

We usually can't so as a society we have come up with two tests, one for civil and one for criminal:

Civil: Balance of probabilities, also described as "more likely than not," or just tipping the scales of justice one way or another, so anything over 50% true, under, not true.

Criminal: Does the judge or jury, as the case may be, have a reasonable doubt? With "reasonable" being the key word. If so, not guilty, if not, guilty.

We need the criminal test more difficult to meet on the basis that it's better to let some guilty people free than put an innocent man/woman in jail.

Isn't it also possible the driver simply thought "the car won't hit that truck because I am on autopilot."

Good point. I never thought of that. Certainly, it's possible. AP does lull you into a false sense of security. It did for me anyway. I would have never thought it would hit that truck, if it did. But at the same time, I would have taken control the instant I saw it on the road like that.

However, in my opinion after watching the video and knowing of other similar incidents I find it highly likely the car was on autopilot

Me too. But to be fair, until it is determined, the title to the article needs the word "alleged" or similar.

If I were the owner of this car I also would not allow Tesla to examine the car until it agreed to do so with an independent investigator who can confirm or deny Tesla's interpretation of the logs.

Agreed but this has nothing to do with Tesla. If your son was killed you would likely get a lawyer and leave it in their hands. As I said previously, 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.

 

[KZKZ]

Almost!

Mercedes uses 5 radar sensors while Tesla uses 1.

Mercedes has been using a stereo camera for years while Tesla's system is still using monocular camera.

Yes, the E-Class, even though its a less expensive car than a Model S has 5 radar sensor that look both forward and rearward, plus to the side at intersections. One of the forward radars is a long distance radar that helps with AEB braking at high speeds.

The BLIS system uses radars instead of merely short range ultrasonic sensors like Tesla uses.

 

[Just a Reader]

Tesla was extremely successful in mobilizing media reporting on Autopilot and they were quite bold when they claimed that it were safer than a human driver. It's therefore no surprise that the media will pick up any Autopilot-related story. You cannot whip up the interest of the media and then expect the media to back off when the story starts to veer off into a direction that you don't like.

As others have said, it's completely understandable that the family doesn't give Tesla access to the vehicle. Why should they do that? It's not as if Tesla were a third party with no immediate interest in the findings.

Tesla should explain why they didn't mention this accident when the story of the accident in Florida surfaced. As they claim that they "reached out" to the Chinese accident victim's family they can hardly claim that they were ignorant about this accident.

 

[hmmm]

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.

I am not calling anyone "unreasonable" in general.

I do believe however that it is unreasonable to assume that one is safe by simply relying on nascent technology. Based on the very limited information available in this video, it *looks* like the driver in this accident *may* have had a chance to avoid that truck if he had been fully focused on the task at hands, ie driving the car.

Tragic losses regardless and I do agree that AP could/should (will) do more to reduce the risk of such events.

 

[Tam]

...AEB was not activated by radar until 8.0...

There is no indication that there's any other improvement on Automatic braking except for one:

Latest blog says: "Automatic braking will now amplify user braking in emergencies"

It sounds like: Instead of disabling the automatic system if you manually override the system by partially applying on the brake pedal, Version 8 will no longer disable the automatic system and it will even furthermore increase the force of applying on the brake pedal if you don't apply enough braking force.

It's nice to talk about autonomous driverless features but right now, the goal should be to make sure the system can avoid a collision in as many scenarios as possible.

 

[Canuck]

I am not calling anyone "unreasonable" in general.

Yes, I know you were not but I wanted to put the "unreasonable" comment in perspective, as in this was not a "yahoo" caused crash, but I did so unfairly to you.

I do believe however that it is unreasonable to assume that one is safe by simply relying on nascent technology. Based on the very limited information available in this video, it *looks* like the driver in this accident *may* have had a chance to avoid that truck if he had been fully focused on the task at hands, ie driving the car.

Agreed. My concern lies with the price paid for the "unreasonableness" of a momentary or perhaps longer, lapse of attention, that AP1.0 may lull reasonable people into. That price sure seems high. The flip side of the coin is the lives it saves, but now I am wondering about that too.

Tragic losses regardless and I do agree that AP could/should (will) do more to reduce the risk of such events.

Agreed.

 

[Jbailey]

I am not convinced the car even had autopilot...chrome scoop underneath vs black ...didn't this change occur in 2014? Pictures are too fuzzy to see if there are sensors on the bumper and of course the model number ie "D" is not visible...cant see the sensor on front top window.

Could be a pre autopilot 2014

 

[Tam]

I am not convinced the car even had autopilot...

Tesla has the record of which one was sold to the dad.

If it was a non-Autopilot version, it would have announced that.

 

[Canuck]

I am not convinced the car even had autopilot...chrome scoop underneath vs black ...didn't this change occur in 2014? Pictures are too fuzzy to see if there are sensors on the bumper and of course the model number ie "D" is not visible...cant see the sensor on front top window.

Could be a pre autopilot 2014

What? You don't need a D for autopilot and if the chrome strip gave it away, Tesla would have jumped on that.

Edit:

Tesla has the record of which one was sold to the dad. If it was a non-Autopilot version, it would have announced that.

Yes, now why didn't I think of that too?

 

[GoTzillaR]

I'm with you on this... I am not terribly impressed with Tesla's implementation of other active safety features, outside of autosteer, in relation to the competition. Blind spot detection, and object collision avoidance seem quite a bit (some may say significantly) behind the competition in their current implementation.

While autosteer, IMHO, is extremely well implemented and steals the show so far as the hype goes, Elon's ego\arrogance\whatever regarding the rest of the active safety feature set is disappointing. If Tesla expects to lead the industry forward, it's going to have to at least do what Mercedes demonstrated in the above video which I'm pretty sure Tesla's aren't capable of doing currently...

Jeff

I'm also with you. My 2012 Audi A6 has AEB and it has been working well. If Tesla wants to claim that whatever system they put in their car can make driving safer, please don't eat the words.

 

[enzo]

There is no indication that there's any other improvement on Automatic braking except for one: Latest blog says: "Automatic braking will now amplify user braking in emergencies"

But anything large, or metallic, or dense, we are confident that the radar system in the car will be able to detect that and initiate a braking event. Both when the Autopilot is active and when it is not active. When the Autopilot is not active, it will operate in an emergency braking mode.

Transcript: Elon Musk’s press conference about Tesla Autopilot under v8.0 update [Part 1]

 

[techmaven]

It is common for AEB systems to have many limitations, especially with high difference of speed and with stationary objects. Subaru's Eyesight which uses two cameras and is highly rated has a disclaimer for their AEB for > 20 mph difference.

Reports like this one from IIHS don't talk about AEB eliminating rear end accidents, but do tout the benefits of cutting them down by 40%: Front crash prevention cuts rear-enders That's still a lot of accidents AEB didn't prevent.

 

[green1]

I am not convinced the car even had autopilot...chrome scoop underneath vs black ...didn't this change occur in 2014? Pictures are too fuzzy to see if there are sensors on the bumper and of course the model number ie "D" is not visible...cant see the sensor on front top window.

Could be a pre autopilot 2014

My car has both the chrome, and Autopilot. Of course my car has all sorts of parts combinations that are somewhat rare, but that proves that those 2 features can in fact co-exist.

 

[ggnykk]

Below are similar examples where both TACC and front collision avoidance failed to apply the brakes. I think TACC ignores stationary objects and front collision avoidance is indifferent to who drives the car. Therefore it always assumes the driver will steer away in last second, even when autosteer is enabled.

◘ Video 1: Click HERE to watch on youtube. Embed doesn't work for this one.
◘ Video 2, 3, 4:

I really hope that v8 software will fix this issue. If the autopilot system cannot detect huge obstacles in front of you, even at very low speed (like the last video). It is a HUGE issue. Hitting stationary objects are even more fatal than moving objects because the speed delta is large.

 

[Canuck]

My car has both the chrome, and Autopilot. Of course my car has all sorts of parts combinations that are somewhat rare, but that proves that those 2 features can in fact co-exist.

Did you just luck out getting AP on your car, as one of the first off the line? Or did you get it after the fact knowing you were getting it?

Just wondering since I may want to ask you for lottery numbers...

 

[green1]

Did you just luck out getting AP on your car, as one of the first off the line? Or did you get it after the fact knowing you were getting it?

Just wondering since I may want to ask you for lottery numbers...

The car was officially "born" at 8:40 in the morning on October 8th 2014. I believe the official AP announcement was October 10th 2014.
That said, I didn't buy the car new, I purchased it as a Tesla inventory car, and I didn't buy it until a week after 7.0 rolled out. One of the defects I noted on my delivery was that the car was still on 6.2 even though I had specifically agreed with my DS before payment that it be on the new 7.0 firmware to get autopilot functionality. Tesla corrected that defect 4 days later by having the service centre push 7.0 to my car.

 

[Jbailey]

My car has both the chrome, and Autopilot. Of course my car has all sorts of parts combinations that are somewhat rare, but that proves that those 2 features can in fact co-exist.

Yes, I do realize that. I simply looked for features that would date the car and noticed the chrome. I also now the chrome was deleted in 2014 late. Many of the latter 2014 s had the hardware for autopilot actuation in 2015.

Yes I know the D is not necessary for autopilot. I actually have an 85D 14 months old with over 44,000 miles and use autopilot most of the time. I love it and I really do feel it has helped me avoid accidents. I would bet anything that I have over 30,000 miles of autopilot experience. I doubt there are many, if any with more.

One thing I have noticed is autopilot detractors, don't have it or have logged comparatively few miles using it and many do not even own Tesla's.


I still recall the "talking Tesla" podcast (excellent) where they essentially called it the instrument of death. Then one of the Podcasters actually bought a new Tesla, became familiar with autopilot and became a supporter....as is virtually everyone speaking from real experience rather than virtual or Youtube experience.

When I see the above detractor posts, I immediately look to see if the writer has real and extensive experience. They almost always don't.

Every single death or even accident seems to stem from not following Tesla's directions. Like a person using a Chainsaw, parachute, scuba gear, cardiac defibrillator, electrical machinery... if you don't follow the directions, which is really quite simple with autopilot...hands on the steering wheel and eyes on the road, the same rules that apply to every automobile ever made, you could actually die or kill someone...and it is your fault.

 

[Canuck]

One thing I have noticed is autopilot detractors, don't have it or have logged comparatively few miles using it and many do not even own Tesla's.

That doesn't take away from the arguments being made against it. It's cringeworthly elitist. It's also the same argument a religious person makes against a person who doesn't go to church/temple/etc. Yet studies show that the atheist, who doesn't practice, knows more about religious doctrine, than the religious.

I still recall the "talking Tesla" podcast (excellent) where they essentially called it the instrument of death.

Well, to Joshua Brown, and perhaps the driver in China, it was an instrument of death. Without it, they both would likely be alive today. That doesn't make it the only cause, but it does make it a cause, and it was instrumental at least in Joshua's death. This one remains to be seen.

When I see the above detractor posts, I immediately look to see if the writer has real and extensive experience. They almost always don't.

I bet Joshua Brown logged more miles than you. Sorry, but you can't look at his experience and car and pull your elitist rank argument.

Every single death or even accident seems to stem from not following Tesla's directions. Like a person using a Chainsaw, parachute, scuba gear, cardiac defibrillator, electrical machinery... if you don't follow the directions, which is really quite simple with autopilot...hands on the steering wheel and eyes on the road, the same rules that apply to every automobile ever made, you could actually die or kill someone...and it is your fault.

And every single one of those things you mention have got better with each new model and advance in technology, many by people who worked on the items without actively using them in their daily life. Many of the older models would not pass regulation for sale today. But really how can you even comment on them? Have you used a chainsaw, parachute, scuba gear, cardiac defibrillator, electrical machinery more than most? Or do your rules not apply to you, only others? Of course.

 

[green1]

Well, to Joshua Brown, and the driver in China, it was an instrument of death.

That is an awfully large assertion to make, we have no reason to suspect either of them would still be alive, and likely more people would also be dead.