Another Model X crash, driver says autopilot was engaged

[rog]

But Musk's twitter comments this morning sound to me like a man under extreme stress.

Musk has somewhat of a history with journalists who write/say things that don't fit into what he considers the truth, or goes against logical principles. Consider it a weakness, unprofessional, or a unique selling proposition for a CEO. It certainly is human.
But it certainly doesn't help in the current situation.

 

[omarsultan]

I see Fortune is going to gnaw on this bone for a while: Tesla Said an Autopilot Crash Would Be 'Material' Before CEO Elon Musk Said It Wasn't

Sloppy journalism as it does not differentiate between an accident where AP was directly at fault because of some HW/SW flaw (which would be material) and an accident where AP was engaged, but not the cause of the accident as it appears is the case in Florida (which I still argue is not material).

 

[Az_Rael]

Back to the topic at hand, looks like we have an initial response from Tesla on this incident.
[Updated] Tesla Model X rolls over after crashing into concrete divider, driver claims Autopilot was activated

We have no data to suggest that Autopilot was engaged at the time of the incident. Anytime there is a significant accident, Tesla receives a crash detection alert. As is our practice with all collisions, we immediately reached out to the customer to make sure he was safe. Until the customer responds, we are unable to further investigate.”

 

[ksquared]

And the WSJ now has an article about Autopilot on their page:

Tesla’s Autopilot Vexes Some Drivers, Even Its Fans

 

[Todd Burch]

The Wall Street Journal article I was interviewed for came out:

Tesla’s Autopilot Vexes Some Drivers, Even Its Fans

As I suspected, I wasn't mentioned in the article. (I do see some other people from this forum mentioned, such as Jason Hughes). Not surprised, given that I had good things to say about the system and that accidents that result are typically the result of the driver abdicating his responsibility to maintain awareness of traffic and monitor the system.

Seriously, the guy in the article who had an accident talks about looking down at the newspaper while autopilot is engaged, and the article is hard on Tesla?

What a bunch of BS. Seriously, why is the media not blaming the drivers?

 

[Cosmacelf]

Back to the topic at hand, looks like we have an initial response from Tesla on this incident.

We have no data to suggest that Autopilot was engaged at the time of the incident. Anytime there is a significant accident, Tesla receives a crash detection alert. As is our practice with all collisions, we immediately reached out to the customer to make sure he was safe. Until the customer responds, we are unable to further investigate.”

Until Tesla investigates further, this sounds like yet another case where the driver thought AP was on, but wasn't. I keep saying that this is a serious (and correctable) problem with Tesla's AP implementation, and keep getting shouted down in these forums. The car needs to do a better job of indicating when AP is on and when it is off and make it more clear when it disengages.

 

[Matias]

Until Tesla investigates further, this sounds like yet another case where the driver thought AP was on, but wasn't. I keep saying that this is a serious (and correctable) problem with Tesla's AP implementation, and keep getting shouted down in these forums. The car needs to do a better job of indicating when AP is on and when it is off and make it more clear when it disengages.

It is true that when you double tap AP stalk to activate AP, the sound of AP NOT activating has not been very noticeable. I have .102 now and it may be more noticeable now.

 

[zambono]

Until Tesla investigates further, this sounds like yet another case where the driver thought AP was on, but wasn't. I keep saying that this is a serious (and correctable) problem with Tesla's AP implementation, and keep getting shouted down in these forums. The car needs to do a better job of indicating when AP is on and when it is off and make it more clear when it disengages.

I have used autopilot a few times only on an initial test drive and then on a 24 he test drive. To me it's pretty obvious when AP or Tacc is on via the blue icons and when it disengages there is a chime.

 

[Chickenlittle]

Elon keeps touting reduced accidents with AP using faulty statistics, not me. I'm personally fine with AP not reducing accidents, but for all we know it increases accident rate. No one here knows since we don't have access to the granular data that Tesla has, and so far, Tesla has not analyzed it (or not disclosed it) to the level needed for a proper analysis. I suspect the NHTSA won't be so cavalier with the data, so in 6 months to a year we might get some meaningful information.

If Tesla is not properly analyzing the accident data (and Elon's tweets point in that direction) that is incompetence since the NHTSA likely won't make the same mistake.

And please don't scoff at the possibility of increased accident rate. Both recent bad accidents (tractor trailer and hitting the barrier) occurred to drivers who might not have gotten into those accidents if it weren't for AP, and there have been other accidents stories in this forum where using (or misusing) AP caused the accident. Explanations like "but if the driver were paying attention, there would have been no accident" is not going to cut it with the NHTSA since without AP the driver WOULD have been paying attention.

I blame the accident on the producers of Harry Potter movie. I did not see any warning about not viewing the movie while driving. The Oscar committee should investigate whether adequate warnings are given. Seriously somethings are so obvious that to investigate would be crazy. However it is still tragic

 

[Cosmacelf]

It is true that when you double tap AP stalk to activate AP, the sound of AP NOT activating has not been very noticeable. I have .102 now and it may be more noticeable now.

This problem (AP turning off, driver unaware it had done so) occurs other times too. AP can disengage itself if it feels the road situation has gotten too dicey. If you move your foot and brush against the brake pedal, it will disenage. It also disengages if you apply slightly too much force to the steering wheel while AP is on. Twice AP has disengaged for me when I was holding onto the steering wheel making sure it didn't get too close to a lane marker. Both those times I didn't hear the soft beep-boop of the AP disengaging, and thought AP was still on. I didn't notice until the car literally drifted onto the lane marker, and when I looked at the screen, saw that the tiny AP icon was gray instead of blue (way too subtle of a visual cue, BTW).

 

[omarsultan]

What a bunch of BS. Seriously, why is the media not blaming the drivers?

Seeing that opening paragraph was not a good sign.

The answer to your question is simple: the headline "Distracted Driver Rear Ends Truck" does not drive clicks.

 

[zambono]

This problem (AP turning off, driver unaware it had done so) occurs other times too. AP can disengage itself if it feels the road situation has gotten too dicey. If you move your foot and brush against the brake pedal, it will disenage. It also disengages if you apply slightly too much force to the steering wheel while AP is on. Twice AP has disengaged for me when I was holding onto the steering wheel making sure it didn't get too close to a lane marker. Both those times I didn't hear the soft beep-boop of the AP disengaging, and thought AP was still on. I didn't notice until the car literally drifted onto the lane marker, and when I looked at the screen, saw that the tiny AP icon was gray instead of blue (way too subtle of a visual cue, BTW).

Maybe there is no chime when it goes from AP to TACC due to steering wheel movement?

 

[Pdub2015]

Hate to say this, but to some degree, this is of Tesla's own making. Because Elon and Tesla have both been media darlings, they have gotten away with modest investments on the marketing/corp comm end of things. But, the next 12-16 months are critical for Tesla and so the long knives are out and this kind of stuff is going to get get worse before it gets better as vested interests are going to look to amplify any source of FUD.

The media runs on a build-them-up-then tear-them-down cycle. While you cannot avoid the cycle, the quality of media engagement and strength of relationships can have a strong impact on the amplitude and duration of both the peaks and the valleys.

Actually, the media runs on advertising dollars, of which Tesla pays next to nothing... while the big 3 domestic ICE merchants pay about $10 billion a year combined. So the media actually has a vested interested in protecting their customers...

 

[GoTslaGo]

Maybe there is no chime when it goes from AP to TACC due to steering wheel movement?

There is a chime when Autosteer is disengaged and you are left driving with TACC only.

That being said, I do hope that Tesla will consider a HUD in the future. I think this would be a simple solution to knowing when autopilot is on or off. Basically if you are on full AP (TACC/Autosteer, etc...), the HUD is off.

Once AP disengages a HUD would pop up with basic dash information (speed, etc... Maybe TACC too), but it would be a visual, in your face notification that AP (or just Autosteer?) is off.

My 2 cents.

 

[Pdub2015]

After reading some of these reports, perhaps I should not have used autopilot on 1/2 of the Harry Nice bridge (Google Maps). It's a very narrow 2 lane bridge connecting So. MD with VA. The sensors (on my rented Model S) were detecting the concrete barrier on the right side of the bridge as I came up from the south, the entire time I had it activated. I like autopilot because it keeps you in the center of the lane, but this was probably not the place to use it.
View attachment 184166

Just drove over that bridge on Sunday. It's a gnarly bit of highway, at least to me. But I had no issue with using normal cruise control in my Lexus. Not sure I'd do it in AP in a MS or MX.

 

[Az_Rael]

Maybe they should make Rainbow Road the standard autopilot display mode. That would be hard to miss.

 

[GoTslaGo]

I see the next headline.

Tesla driver using "rainbow road" autopilot feature has a seizure and crashes!

 

[msnow]

We seem to be mixing apples and oranges here.

I would assume that Tesla has commercial general liability coverage in some form that covers fortuitous events but has exclusions for latent defects or inherent vice (I.e. defective products). So coverage will depend on causation and since the duty to defend is much broader than the duty to indemnify, Tesla may be owed a defence from the CGL insurer until the facts necessary to determine the cause of loss is determined at trial. In these types of cases, the insured is usually defended pursuant to a non-waiver agreement or reservation of rights letter. The vast majority of these cases are settled out of court given the costs and uncertainty of litigation. I'm speaking of the AP death case, or other accident cases, assuming litigation arises, and not ordered recalls arising from product liability. Product recall insurance is a whole other issue with its own set of limitations and exclusions. Even if Tesla has product liability insurance, no insurance coverage provides unlimited coverage or monetary limit so it's often a shareholder's concern.

What Tesla seems to be lacking that other car manufacturers have (based on what they provided in their 10-k) is a primary carrier for PL only. They state they are self insuring for that. What the others are doing is buying primary coverage from major carriers like AIG and Berkshire Hathaway. They also have reinsurers for excess coverage (beyond policy limits). However in the event that the liability is caused by negligence or some other reason they should have foreseen (and this may be what you're getting at) many companies will either take a charge on their books or put away funds to offset those claims whether they are settled out of court or by judgment.
Regarding shareholder lawsuits I haven't researched if the have D&O and E&O insurance but I'd be surprised if they didn't.

 

[jgs]

Is that implemented at the moment? Couple of days ago I was in stop and go traffic with AP on. There was a cyclist in front of me and AP didn't see him. If I hadn't disabled AP, car would probably had hit him.

I've been stopped at a light, had a pedestrian walk in front of me (not even very close) and had AP disengage (switches to "hold" mode). So they're doing more than nothing. That said, no way would I trust the automation to reliably avoid pedestrians and cyclists. And I haven't witnessed it doing so when the car is in motion. (Nor failing to do so.)

 

[Canuck]

What the others are doing is buying primary coverage from major carriers like AIG and Berkshire Hathaway. They also have reinsurers for excess coverage (beyond policy limits).

I highly doubt one insurer would undertake such a risk. Usually these are subscription policies with a number of insurers sharing risk -- but if there is only one insurer than it is the insurer that has reinsurance for claims that are within their limits of coverage to limit the insurer's loses. I've never heard of insureds buying reinsurance -- it is insurers that buy reinsurance. An insured usually buys multiple policies and the policies will say if they are primary or excess insurance as arranged by the broker.