Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Another tragic fatality with a semi in Florida. This time a Model 3

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Status
Not open for further replies.
On the contrary, it is hard, cold logic. If it cannot be "unavoidable" if the vehicle was mechanically capable of coming to a full stop before contact with a stationary object.

This isn't just semantics, and it most certainly does NOT make the feature useless. Scrubbing speed from 60mph to <edit>35mph, for example, represents a 100% * (60^2 -35^2)/60^2 = 66% reduction in the energy of the crash. That's often in the range of lifesaving.

Why do this, why would you design the system to wait until it is "unavoidable" to kick in? Because you are keeping clear of the false positive zone, AKA "phantom braking". You're doing important, useful work without potentially creating by-product harm via braking when it isn't necessary.

When one sorry excuse is allowed to cover for the next, we get excuses all the way down.

The solution is to fix the "phantom braking" BS, which entails first fixing the radar BS, then there will be no need for this AEB BS either.

Hopefully HW3 will soon help mitigate this situation.
 
When one sorry excuse is allowed to cover for the next, we get excuses all the way down.

The solution is to fix the "phantom braking" BS, which entails first fixing the radar BS, then there will be no need for this AEB BS either.

Hopefully HW3 will soon help mitigate this situation.
You're reading to pony up something like an order of magnitude more cash* today for a car for the tech required to do that? You expect that to be a viable mass market product?

*Just a guess, could be even more than that at this point given that the $300K vehicles driving in city environments, rather than highway speeds, still are fighting phantom braking problems.
 
Who here thinks AP was not involved? Are there other cars driving under semi trailers?

There are enough accidents of this kind that it has its own name, semi underride.

This kind of accident is largely preventable with an underride guard, something that is deemed to expensive to mandate in the USA.

Hence this tragic, preventable death.
 
There are enough accidents of this kind that it has its own name, semi underride.

This kind of accident is largely preventable with an underride guard, something that is deemed to expensive to mandate in the USA.

Hence this tragic, preventable death.
I've heard of this. I haven't seen the number crunch on it, estimated guard cost across the fleet vs expected life/injury savings. Do you have a link or something I could follow, as I'm curious about how the numbers come out.
 
The data on AP is clear and compelling.
Quibble here. It isn't as clear as I'd like it to be. Tesla doesn't actually share the underlying data it has gathered, it just gives the top line that it chooses to share. A significant drop (%40 IIRC) in air bag triggering incidents as very meaningful but I'd feel a lot more confident if the data itself was shared so this analysis could be verified as sound.
 
Do you know that TACC didn't try to prevent this and the driver overrode it?

Do you know that the driver wasn't depressed and did this intentionally?

Have you considered ALL possibilities?

Are there certain things that people won't do....just because they are in a Tesla?

You are making a lot of default assumptions in your post.

You did read my last line right?

Here is what it was.

"But, I also know I have to allow time for more information to come out. Maybe the whole AEB/FCW/AP didn't have anything to do with it."

So I acknowledged that there were other possibilities to consider, and that I had to wait.

There is was also another Tesla accident recently where the driver has an epileptic seizure, and crashed as a result. I only know about it since the driver posted on TMC where he was looking for suggestions of vehicles that had emergency take over capability. So a medical condition is obviously a possibility with this other accident. With that kind of things the normal protections like AEB/FCW/AP aren't going to help much as it will interpret any input from the driver as overriding what it's doing. It's not going to realize the driver isn't making intention inputs.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: dhanson865

This weird statement ...
Screen Shot 2019-03-03 at 23.02.54.png

.. reads as if no sensors are designed to detect a stationary object in the planned path, implying that whether they do is considered coincidental.

For the purposes of AP detecting a slow-moving perpendicular truck up ahead, it is effectively a stationary object.

This is the essential ingredient of Firetruck Super-Destruction [ironic FSD] mode.
 
On the contrary, it is hard, cold logic. If it cannot be "unavoidable" if the vehicle was mechanically capable of coming to a full stop before contact with a stationary object.

This isn't just semantics, and it most certainly does NOT make the feature useless. Scrubbing speed from 60mph to <edit>35mph, for example, represents a 100% * (60^2 -35^2)/60^2 = 66% reduction in the energy of the crash. That's often in the range of lifesaving.

Why do this, why would you design the system to wait until it is "unavoidable" to kick in? Because you are keeping clear of the false positive zone, AKA "phantom braking". You're doing important, useful work without potentially creating by-product harm via braking when it isn't necessary.

I feel that Phantom Breaking is a separate issue. I have driven my Model 3 for a while now since last year, and I have not experienced even one phantom breaking/false breaking by AEB, even if there were small objects littered on the street that might falsely trigger AEB.

I am more disturbed by Tesla not programming the car to attempt full stop in the event a possible collision is detected. Currently, the car is programmed only to decrease the speed by only 30 mph (when the car is going faster than 50 mph).

I understand that sometimes when a possible collision is detected--like a truck/trailer pulling in front of you--there may not be enough distance to completely come to a complete stop and avoid the collision, but why only decrease speed by only 30 mph, instead of applying maximum break force to attempt a complete stop and therefore decrease the impact speed (and therefore impact kinetic energy) to the lowest possible?

The argument of trying to prevent or minimize rear-end collisions on highway by having AEB reduce the speed by only 30 mph is also not valid. If my car is about to hit a motorcyclist in front of me, I would want to car to attempt a full stop even if it means that the car behind me might rear-end my car. I would rather deal with a rear-end collision than plowing over a motorcyclist.
 
You're reading to pony up something like an order of magnitude more cash* today for a car for the tech required to do that? You expect that to be a viable mass market product?

*Just a guess, could be even more than that at this point given that the $300K vehicles driving in city environments, rather than highway speeds, still are fighting phantom braking problems.

It is Tesla's job to fix the design flaws in their product.

An upgrade of the radar sensor to reliably detect stationary objects in planned path would go a long way towards remedying this lamentably dangerous situation and BTW it has been reported in 2018 that Bannon has been working to design their own presumably improved radar.

The 200 People Behind Tesla Autopilot

"Mr. Bannon’s group is working on a new microchip for the computer that powers Autopilot software, so that Tesla would, in theory, have more control of the overall product, be able to run the software faster, and avoid paying Nvidia for its graphical processors. Mr. Musk has said it would ship in new cars by the second quarter of next year, and older cars can be retrofitted with the new computer. Mr. Bannon has told people he also has been trying to design a new radar. Mr. Bannon has around 70 employees, according to the company’s employee list."
 
It is Tesla's job to fix the design flaws in their product.
It is also their job to set design scope. What you are suggesting is outside the design scope of their vehicles and every other vehicle currently on the road. It isn't actually a design flaw, it is an inherent limitation of reality at this point.

For reasons I just gave. You're not being realistic.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SageBrush
It is Tesla's job to fix the design flaws in their product.

An upgrade of the radar sensor to reliably detect stationary objects in planned path would go a long way towards remedying this lamentably dangerous situation and BTW it has been reported in 2018 that Bannon has been working to design their own presumably improved radar.

The 200 People Behind Tesla Autopilot

"Mr. Bannon’s group is working on a new microchip for the computer that powers Autopilot software, so that Tesla would, in theory, have more control of the overall product, be able to run the software faster, and avoid paying Nvidia for its graphical processors. Mr. Musk has said it would ship in new cars by the second quarter of next year, and older cars can be retrofitted with the new computer. Mr. Bannon has told people he also has been trying to design a new radar. Mr. Bannon has around 70 employees, according to the company’s employee list."
This is why we can’t have nice things. Entitled people back up by lawyers.

Read and head the F’n warnings.
 
Bad news. Your feelings don't hold up in the face of reality.

Agreed.

There is automatic emergency braking which is a REALLY hard braking event that decreases the speed by 30mph. That's a pretty major event and you'd definitely feel it. I've never had a false braking event which is a good thing. The likely reason its only a 30mph decrease is to try to really minimize false positions to an almost never event on thousands of vehicles.

There is Phantom braking under TACC that I experience rather often At least one on every major 400+ mile trip on the freeway. It's not hugely bad. Usually I can predict the situations where it might happen like a low hanging over head sign. Or in corners where it gets spooked by the car ahead of me, but in the other lane.

Phantom braking has always been an issue with adaptive cruise control vehicles. I don't think anyone ever has ZERO over a long period of time. In the old days it was really bad as it happened so often that the local Range Rover dealer didn't even carry any vehicles with the feature because of how prone they were to this.

In actual experience I was really happy with the infrequency of them in my Model S (with AP1), and a little annoyed about the frequency of them with AP2.5. It has been less in recent months so hopefully this trend continues.
 
  • Like
Reactions: OPRCE
I understand that sometimes when a possible collision is detected--like a truck/trailer pulling in front of you--there may not be enough distance to completely come to a complete stop and avoid the collision, but why only decrease speed by only 30 mph, instead of applying maximum break force to attempt a complete stop and therefore decrease the impact speed (and therefore impact kinetic energy) to the lowest possible?

The argument of trying to prevent or minimize rear-end collisions on highway by having AEB reduce the speed by only 30 mph is also not valid. If my car is about to hit a motorcyclist in front of me, I would want to car to attempt a full stop even if it means that the car behind me might rear-end my car. I would rather deal with a rear-end collision than plowing over a motorcyclist.

You must not have EAB pulled an errant stop on you yet, otherwise you'd be completely on the other side of this. I've had 2 of those in the last couple of years, and I'm very thankful that it didn't try to stop me to 0 in the middle of 60mph traffic.

The time it takes to slow down by 30mph is enough to alert you and if needed respond by stomping on the break pedal before it lets go again. It won't cause a reduction in stopping distance if it stopped all the way.
 
why wouldn't anyone want to come to a complete stop, instead of just slowing down by 30 mph? Are there situations in which you wouldn't want to come to a complete stop?

Two reasons (at least.)

1. Often, the worse accident is caused by cars following those which have an accident! Suddenly stopping to zero is likely to cause additional accidents, often worse ones. (If EAP was driving, it would have probably already been braking ahead of time, so other drivers would be more aware and the additional panic stop is less likely to cause worse accidents.)

2. If EAP is not engaged and you're driving, then you have your foot on the pedals. During the time that the car brakes from 70 to 40 (or whatever) you've certainly moved your foot to the brake and can continue to brake IF THAT'S THE CORRECT ACTION. As the driver, you can choose whether to deflect left or right, or to just continue to to brake. Perhaps the obstacle in front of you has already crossed the road (deer? Cross traffic?) and you can see the road is now clear. If so, you do NOT want to continue to panic brake and cause someone behind to rear-end you or to panic-turn into oncoming traffic and cause an unnecessary fatality.
 
  • Like
Reactions: OPRCE and DR61
Status
Not open for further replies.