Another Model X crash, driver says autopilot was engaged

[Topher]

The word 'beta' is used as a CYA term here and nothing more.

Interesting that the software is BOTH incomplete and unsafe, while at the same time complete and production ready.

but its another when, faced with reality and a death as horrible as Joshua Brown suffered, to refuse to do anything about it.

Where did you get the idea that anyone is refusing to do anything about it. What are YOU Electricfan personally doing about the 33,000 people per year who die on the highways. Tesla is creating a possible solution.

Thank you kindly.

 

[jgs]

Interesting that the software is BOTH incomplete and unsafe, while at the same time complete and production ready.

Fortunately Erwin Schrödinger worked this out for us back in 1935.

 

[Garlan Garner]

I have a question:

How many lives did Auto Pilot save today?

The primary reason I asked this question is because the only type of news concerning AP is going to be bad news. There isn't a possibility for good news to make the public.

 

[omarsultan]

Co-pilot implies not in command and merely assisting the main pilot who remains in command.

Autopilot suggests a replacement for a human.

And indeed pilots themselves read while using autopilot.

You are talking role, while I was referring to capabilities. If you set autopilot to fly you into the side of a mountain, as other folks have mentioned on this thread, it lacks the cognitive capabilities to say "oh, look, a mountain in front of us, I should do something about that". A co-pilot has all the skills and capabilities of the pilot, but within the command structure of that cockpit, he/she takes the lead from the pilot.

 

[omarsultan]

Nonsense. I don't want Tesla to fail but I have a strong dislike for BS, whatever the source. People in this forum look at every media report on Tesla with a magnifying lens to check if there may be something factually incorrect in the report. Yet when Musk makes a claim it suddenly doesn't matter if it's 500k, 50k, 500 or none at all? Do I sense a strong affliction of double standards?

Musk has an engineer's genes and has proven himself to be empirically and data driven (see SpaceX). If he claims X, you can bet there is reasonable and defensible logic (and actual math) behind the claim. Most media, on the other hand, cut and paste whatever they are handed without any kind of due diligence (see the reporting on SuspensionGate) and still mange to mangle the "facts".

Its not so much a double standard as much as established credibility (or lack thereof).

 

[Eclectic]

I think the material nature may be irrelevant as to whether or not AP caused a crash, it was involved and now government regulators are investigating. If additional regulations are imposed on Tesla (or the possibility they may be imposed due to an investigation) that is definitely something I would want to know (I am a shareholder)

Now, I don't know when Tesla knew the NHTSA had opened a case on this, but they did make the report when they found out about the accident so they knew it would be reviewed by the agency. They could have played it conservative and transparent and gone ahead and disclosed the incident as material. Or, they could do what they did, which was wait until it came out in public at some later date.

I am not an expert in the law or anything, but as a regular shareholder, I do consider the information as material in my subjective opinion. I don't care about the short term stock price or any fluctuations it made on that day, I care about the long term implications of additional regulations for Tesla, as I am a long term investor.

I guess we will have to see how it plays out over time.

This is exactly the point. On any particular day, an infinite number of factors play into how a stock trades. It could be macro issues, it could be micro issues, it could be simple randomness. The point of materiality for disclosure purposes is exactly as you've described...an investor wants to know things that may affect his or her investment. If an event occurs that may cause the government to step in and impose new regulations on a product, that's material to an investor, even if the market doesn't react immediately (or dismisses the importance of the event). The market often gets things wrong and the market in the short term is subject to so many externalities that you can't draw a cause and effect relationship between the belated disclosure of an event and how it would have affected an investment decision by particular individuals at the time the investment decision was made.

The fact that so many people are talking about this, and that the government and others are talking about the need to look into more regulations for autonomous cars, and the uncertainty of how that may affect Tesla's sales, profits, market outlook, etc., all indicate that this is material information.

 

[Topher]

Let's see if I've got this straight. Major accident occurs, driver tells the police that they were using Autopilot at the time of the accident. Tesla tries to contact the driver, but the driver apparently does not want to talk to Tesla, or is too busy getting medical care, or whatever. Tesla reviews their telemetry and finds out they don't know anything since they received no telemetry from the car.

So at this point, the corporate response is to imply that the accident victim is a liar by saying "we have no reason to believe that Autopilot had anything to do with this accident.".

Wut?

Nope, you don't have it straight.

1) Tesla (as well as everyone else) starts with the null hypothesis, that they have no reason to believe that Autopilot had anything to do with the accident.

2) Tesla receives no new information from telemetry. Thus it retains the null hypothesis.

3) Tesla receives 2nd or 3rd hand information that the autopilot was engaged. But no information which might link that fact with the facts of the accident. Thus it retains the null hypothesis.

4) It states the null hypothesis.

You on the other hand immediately jump to the conclusion that the driver (victim-hood is a nice bit of propaganda by the way) implied that were able to determine that the autopilot was the cause. And that Tesla was disputing that.

Newflash: the autopilot can be engaged during an accident and not have that accident be the fault of the autopilot.

Thank you kindly.

 

[brianman]

Yet when Musk makes a claim it suddenly doesn't matter if it's 500k, 50k, 500 or none at all? Do I sense a strong affliction of double standards?

Agree with your concern here. That said...

Well, it's not me who claimed that AP would save 500,000 lives. Musk wrote the following:

“Indeed, if anyone bothered to do the math (obviously, you did not) they would realize that of the over 1M auto deaths per year worldwide, approximately half a million people would have been saved if the Tesla autopilot was universally available. Please, take 5 mins and do the bloody math before you write an article that misleads the public.”

The whole of the European Union + the US + Japan don't have a total of 100,000 traffic deaths p.a. Therefore, even if the AP prevented each and every road death in the First World you would fall massively short of his claim. His claim is bunkum, BS at first sight, no need to do the maths. (BTW, even as a non native speaker I know that "maths" is the common usage in almost all of the English speaking world outside of the US and Canada. Perhaps like you Musk doesn't and that's why his figures don't add up?)

Regarding the (my) underlined portion...

Elon's assertion involved "if the Tesla autopilot was universally available" and thus includes being available in markets not currently serviced by Tesla vehicles -- i.e. in other cars makes as well.

 

[Pdub2015]

Well, it's not me who claimed that AP would save 500,000 lives. Musk wrote the following:

“Indeed, if anyone bothered to do the math (obviously, you did not) they would realize that of the over 1M auto deaths per year worldwide, approximately half a million people would have been saved if the Tesla autopilot was universally available. Please, take 5 mins and do the bloody math before you write an article that misleads the public.”

The whole of the European Union + the US + Japan don't have a total of 100,000 traffic deaths p.a. Therefore, even if the AP pevented each and every road death in the First World you would fall massively short of his claim. His claim is bunkum, BS at first sight, no need to do the maths. (BTW, even as a non native speaker I know that "maths" is the common usage in almost all of the English speaking world outside of the US and Canada. Perhaps like you Musk doesn't and that's why his figures don't add up?)

First, let me say that for a non native speaker you do very well. I don't mean to patronize, just wanted to offer the compliment. And no, I thought "maths" was hipster slang, and had no idea it traveled far and wide.

Back to the original issue, you originally said Elon's statement was "Complete hyperbole" and now you say it's bunkum and BS. My question to you, again, is why YOU think he would make this statement. Musk is openly challenging a journalist to check his statistics, which is not a very wise thing for a very public figure to do UNLESS he was confident in his assertion, right? So again, my question to you is why do you think Musk would be so foolhardy?

I think you have a certain opinion of the man, so why not state it outright? You appear to be making a claim about Musk. Are you?

Back to the numbers: others here have pointed out that even if Musk was exaggerating by an order of magnitude, any decrease in fatalities should be considered desirable. I'm supportive of that, but I still maintain that perhaps Musk and his team have digged deeper in the data than we have, and has some insight on those 1.25 million fatalities in order to make his claim. For what it's worth, I'm no statistician, nor safety expert, nor am I particularly motivated to wade any further into the WHO data for the sake of this meaningless internet dialogue.

 

[idoco]

I have a question:

How many lives did Auto Pilot save today?

On that same safety line, why aren't we seeing this headline:

"Occupants Walk Away After High Speed Roll Over Crash in Tesla"

 

[schonelucht]

So I take it that, you are taking exception to the number 500K, but not necessarily the underlying message that Tesla AP if available more widely increases safety and saves lives.

Model S's without AP ran 1 billion miles without a single fatality. With AP there is a fatality after only 130 million miles. Hence, AP makes you 10 times less safe. Agree or not? And if not, why would you accept Elon's -even more flawed- use of statistics to prove the counterpoint?

 

[ksquared]

NO! HUD is MORE important with auto-pilot. Feedback is the only way that the car can communicate to the driver what it does, and more importantly does not, sense in the environment. And it can keep the driver engaged with what is going on as well.

I agree that a HUD will make the transition more obvious.

Thank you kindly.

Agree--one thing I will miss in my 535i to Model X migration is my HUD!

 

[Tam]

...The whole of the European Union + the US + Japan don't have a total of 100,000 traffic deaths p.a.......his figures don't add up?)

Number of road traffic deaths

Number of road traffic deaths

Situation and trends
There were 1.25 million road traffic deaths globally in 2013

 

[Tam]

...Personally I'm stunned at Tesla's response to this mess. Its one thing to believe in your product, but its another when, faced with reality and a death as horrible as Joshua Brown suffered, to refuse to do anything about it. Shame on Elon Musk and Tesla.

Tesla Autopilot 2.0 is coming this year

Tesla Autopilot 2.0 is coming soon.

-dual camera system

 

[Colby Boles]

It would be really nice if they had normalized this in various ways, e.g. by population or better yet person-miles traveled (hard data to obtain probably) so you could really see how dangerous it is to travel on the road in various places.

Number of road traffic deaths

Number of road traffic deaths

Situation and trends
There were 1.25 million road traffic deaths globally in 2013

 

[Canuck]

The fact that so many people are talking about this, and that the government and others are talking about the need to look into more regulations for autonomous cars, and the uncertainty of how that may affect Tesla's sales, profits, market outlook, etc., all indicate that this is material information.

Before you comment on what is material, please do just a little bit of research on the subject -- it really doesn't take too much effort:

Within the context of corporate and securities law in the United States, a fact is defined as material if there is a substantial likelihood that a reasonable shareholder would consider it important in deciding how to vote their shares or invest their money. In this regard, it is similar to the accounting term of the same name.

Materiality is particularly important in the context of securities law, because under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, a company can be held civilly or criminally liable for false, misleading, or omitted statements of fact in proxy statements and other documents, if the fact in question is found by the court to have been material pursuant to Rule 10b-5.

Do you really believe there is a substantial likelihood that this issue is important in deciding how a shareholder would vote or invest their money? If so, what has happened to the share price since the investigation was first announced? Has it ebbed and flowed as usual or did it lose a quarter of its market value -- like what happens with a real material fact that is important in deciding how shareholders vote their shares or invest their money?

The test for what is material is not -- "so many people are talking about it" ... sheesh!

Tesla Autopilot 2.0 is coming this year

Tesla Autopilot 2.0 is coming soon.

-dual camera system

Thanks for the link but the article tells us nothing. It says:

"A source close to Tesla Motors, on the condition of anonymity, has confirmed that Tesla Autopilot 2.0 is coming soon."

Please, tell us something we don't know, like what "coming soon" means!

Oh wait, it does:

"I have my fingers crossed the Model 3 will ship with Autopilot 2.0."

So "coming soon" means late 2017, "fingers crossed"!

 

[bhzmark]

Nonsense. I don't want Tesla to fail but I have a strong dislike for BS, whatever the source. People in this forum look at every media report on Tesla with a magnifying lens to check if there may be something factually incorrect in the report. Yet when Musk makes a claim it suddenly doesn't matter if it's 500k, 50k, 500 or none at all? Do I sense a strong affliction of double standards?

feel free to fact check Elon. I specifically invited it here: Fact Checking and Truth Squading media articles on Tesla

I think he is off on that claim too. Would like him to show his math anyway.

 

[bhzmark]

You are talking role, while I was referring to capabilities. If you set autopilot to fly you into the side of a mountain, as other folks have mentioned on this thread, it lacks the cognitive capabilities to say "oh, look, a mountain in front of us, I should do something about that". A co-pilot has all the skills and capabilities of the pilot, but within the command structure of that cockpit, he/she takes the lead from the pilot.

Airplane autopilot can land planes and otherwise avoid crashing into terrain without human input.

Airplane pilots read newspapers and watch DVDs while on "autopilot."

"Autopilot" is not the best term to use.

 

[Canuck]

Airplane autopilot can land planes and otherwise avoid crashing into terrain without human input.

Are you sure about that? Are you a pilot? I don't know anything about the subject but I know we have some pilots here who can probably tell us because when I just did a simple search I found this:

Disaster on autopilot: How too much of a good thing can lead to deadly plane crashes

and it contradicts what you say.

 

[bhzmark]

"If the pilot doesn’t respond within a certain time, the autopilot takes over control of the plane in order to fly it to the closest airport and safely land the plane."

from Amazing new autopilot system can safely land a plane if the pilot is incapacitated

Also see Autoland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Current usage of "autopilot" is all over the place and cannot be relied on to convey "you must remain hands on the wheel and fully attentive" -- it just is not used or understood that way. You can imagine that it is, or think it should be, but it isn't.

What do airplane pilots do on Autopilot?

"Autopilot would also seem to free up a lot of time in the cockpit for pilots to, say, read a newspaper or watch a DVD on their laptop. And while nearly all airlines forbid such leisure activities in the cockpit (the only reading normally allowed in the cockpits is that of checklists and help manuals), one captain for a major U.S. airline-who prefers to remain anonymous-says the rules are regularly bent."

"Officially, we're not supposed to read [in the cockpit while flying]. But do I do it? Yeah," he says, "During a two hour flight, for about an hour and a half (when the plane is on autopilot) there's a whole lot of nothing going on. Hopefully I get along with the co-pilot and we have stuff to talk to about. But you run out of things to talk about. I'm in a hotel every night and they deliver a newspaper to my door, and if I'm sitting there on a two hour flight, I'm sorry, I know you're not supposed to, but I pull out the paper and read."

The anonymous pilot said he estimates about 50 percent of the pilots he flies with also pull out casual reading material to peruse once the autopilot has been switched on.

"And on a lot of airlines, their manuals are on laptops," he says, "On red-eyes from L.A. to New York in the middle of the night, I know those pilots are watching DVDs."
from: Who's Really Flying Your Plane?