Daniel in SD
(supervised)
Not very hard. I did it with one hand through the window. Yeah I’m scared to try to turn it on a pavement too, it feels like the steering wheel is flexing.
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Auto Pilot Is Dangerous
- Thread starter Toppatop55
- Start date
Tam
Well-Known Member
Maybe that's why you are not working at NHTSA because after the fatal accident of Joshua Brown with his Autopilot hardware 1, the system has been now going ahead and advancing to hardware 2.0, 2.5, and now 3.0 which very far from being shut down!
Be reasonable, the tractor-trailer is much bigger than the elephant in the room so would slamming into it and killed its driver is an acceptable design whether it is called prototype, alpha or beta?
Deaths will continue to happen if drivers ignore the imperfections of beta and unless there's a policy change in NHTSA, being shut down is very remote despite of deaths.
AdamMacDon
Member
Wow, kinda weird to see a modern car without that. I suppose it's more of a holdover from the days when you could just hop in a manual car and throw it in neutral and get someone to tow you behind their car, theft made easy. Even with modern automatics there is usually a shift interlock that lets you put it in Neutral even without the key in or the brakes on, which is I suppose why they still have the feature. You're sure your car wasn't on?
Anyhow I'm sure the fail safe systems are plenty good. How often do you hear about drive by wire accidents compared to the old throttle cable systems? Generally they are much safer and all around better, despite the fear mongering the media had about it in the late 90's early 2000's.
I know that the system is a beta, what worries me is that when you're relaxing in your car, doing 110km/h on a freeway, the car suddenly decides to pull hard to either side. Even if there is an available line you're going to be in trouble doing hard turns at that speed. If the AP feels that it has to pull like that I would prefer that it disengaged instead.
But yes, the autopilot is dangerous. It works just well enough to fool people into thinking they don't have to do anything, but not well enough not to teach them a lesson.
Side note: a colleague's Leaf decided he was in a dangerous situation on the highway and locked up his steering wheel. He had to use both hands to wrestle it loose and get into the neighboring lane to avoid a collision. He said his wife would not have been strong enough to do that. I hope he was exaggerating.
But yes, the autopilot is dangerous. It works just well enough to fool people into thinking they don't have to do anything, but not well enough not to teach them a lesson.
Side note: a colleague's Leaf decided he was in a dangerous situation on the highway and locked up his steering wheel. He had to use both hands to wrestle it loose and get into the neighboring lane to avoid a collision. He said his wife would not have been strong enough to do that. I hope he was exaggerating.
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
I think steering column locks are to prevent you from hot wiring the car and driving. On old cars you could just cut the ignition wires and short them together.
Drive by wire throttle seems easier to make safe than electric power steering. I’m sure there are industry standard ways to make it safe though. I’ve read that the EPS rack in the Model 3 has some sort of redundancy necessary for autonomous driving. I’d imagine that for a robotaxi it would not disengage on steering wheel torque. Hopefully they’re doing enough to ensure that it doesn’t get in that mode accidentally!
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Given the system was explicitly not intended to be used anywhere there's cross-traffic? 100% acceptable.
That's literally what the NHTSA investigation found too- system working exactly as designed and intended. Death from user error.
Fixed your post for you
Mind you- none of the above has anything to do with the actual original posters problems- which are clearly something wrong with his actual car not a beta AP bug.
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Whau - scary videos. Glad you and toddler survived this AP incidence.
To me writing “beta” or disclaimers in manual doesn’t matter. The underlying problem is that Tesla happily deploy functions that are 95% finished and then improve on them in real world. Other car companies have chosen to make them 99.9% finished before releasing them. Just different philosophy behind.
Kiwiadventure
Member
Other companies cannot get their act together. Tesla goes ahead and does things and it's up to Tesla owners if they use or not.
Jonathantuba
Member
In over 40k miles driving using Autopilot I have never seen behaviour as shown in the videos.
I think the conclusion is there must be major fault with the sensors, or bug with computer in car. So the obvious thing to do is get to service center to check out with at much data as possible - and do not use Autopilot in the interim as you obviously have a faulty car.
I think the conclusion is there must be major fault with the sensors, or bug with computer in car. So the obvious thing to do is get to service center to check out with at much data as possible - and do not use Autopilot in the interim as you obviously have a faulty car.
Tam
Well-Known Member
This thread seems to claim that beta should not be dangerous or otherwise, the government wouldn't allow it.
On the contrary, the government has been on the side of beta systems that is nowhere near the safety standard. When something goes wrong, the ones who will be in trouble is not the faulty software engineers but the users such as drivers.
In the death of Elaine Herzberg, NTSB admits that the Uber autonomous software is severely intentionally short from the standard: The automatic braking was intentionally disabled, Uber intentionally allowed the operation of the system without telling its drivers that it is aware that the software system has not been written for a jaywalker scenario...
While the agency has cleared Uber's software and the company itself of any criminal charges but its driver Rafaela Vasquez is still under investigation for a potential criminal charge for the pedestrian death.
Both the government and Tesla allow inadequate beta system on the road because it is perfectly safe with a driver who is competent in the basic skills of braking, steering, and accelerating.
It's only dangerous if the system is operated by someone who acts as if they can't exercise the basic skills of braking, steering, and accelerating.
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Knightshade
Well-Known Member
It's also dangerous if they have an actually defective vehicle.
Which is what this thread is actually about
The OPs car has something wrong with it. Which is why he's experiencing dangerous behavior from the car way outside the expected, much less dangerous, behavior from a correctly working Tesla AP system.
Yep, we're talking about the OP's malfunctioning AP, not Tam's rant about beta and how that's normal if you monitor the car.
I've added four more videos from a drive tonight. Same issue persists with bouncing around within the lane and crossing the solid white lane several times. For those whom do not read the entire thread, I do have my second S appointment on Wednesday and have sent them the new videos.
Tesla Autopilot - Google Drive
Tesla Autopilot - Google Drive
DopeGhoti
Active Member
The strange thing is that in those videos, the icon of the steering wheel generally is indicating (as best I can tell, some of the videos were focused on the road and not the screen) that the car wants to keep proper lane positioning, but it's just not. It's as though the motor can't "grab" the wheel to turn it, which is really strange because I imagine the same mechanism is used for LDA, and that does appear to be working based on some of the observed 'ping-pong' behavior.
the whole thing is wonky. It went 4 days without any issues and then started again.
DopeGhoti
Active Member
You got that right, friend. I really hope your upcoming SC appointment's technician is one who takes you -- and this behavior -- seriously.
****UPDATE*****
the SC called Me today and told me they completed the remote diagnostic with the corporate engineers. He told me they were unable to pin point the cause of the autopilot problem,SO they ordered a bunch of parts and they plan to have me drop off the car next Wednesday Nov 20. Their plan is to start replacing parts until the problem is solved. When I asked how long? He said it will be a trial and error type of situation. They replace a couple parts and I pickup the car. If the issue continues then I drop off the car again and they replace more parts. While I’m glad they have a plan and he told me he bid committed to resolving the issue, driving 4 hours round trip isn’t fun for me not to mention wasting of my time from work. And mist of all what about the 160 mile round trip I would put in my leased car which is another list for me. Is this a fair deal or am I being too Whiny.
the SC called Me today and told me they completed the remote diagnostic with the corporate engineers. He told me they were unable to pin point the cause of the autopilot problem,SO they ordered a bunch of parts and they plan to have me drop off the car next Wednesday Nov 20. Their plan is to start replacing parts until the problem is solved. When I asked how long? He said it will be a trial and error type of situation. They replace a couple parts and I pickup the car. If the issue continues then I drop off the car again and they replace more parts. While I’m glad they have a plan and he told me he bid committed to resolving the issue, driving 4 hours round trip isn’t fun for me not to mention wasting of my time from work. And mist of all what about the 160 mile round trip I would put in my leased car which is another list for me. Is this a fair deal or am I being too Whiny.
Yea, i mean when you bought the car the service center was in the same place so you accepted that risk, and i agree it is going to be a trial and error thing and something they can’t fix on a remote basis. If i was you i would demand a loaner and for them to agree to send you a video of it working before you pick up the car. I don’t see why they can’t run tests in the wild and see if it works....
I agree that the location of the SC was something I accepted when purchasing my car. But I never thought I would have to make this many trips back and forth. I’m leaning more in the line of, if the SC and the corporate engineers cants figure out the issue on a brand new car, they should replace it and keep the car to chase the ghost in the system.
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