Auto Pilot Is Dangerous

[theStig]

Please point me to articles that prove that Autopilot has caused deaths. Just because AP was ON when a fatal accident occurred does not mean that AP was the cause. Of the fatalities that occurred in a car where AP was on, none were CAUSED by a failure of AP.

AP is there to assist the driver, not replace them. The driver is still responsible to pay attention while driving and take evasive measures when needed.

Cruise Control helps maintain a consistent speed - the driver still needs to stop/control the car
Power Steering helps making steering easier - the driver still needs to steer
Power Brakes help stop the car - the driver still needs to press the brake pedal
Auto Pilot helps drive the car - the driver still needs to pay attention, keep their hands on the wheel, and keep their feet where they can apply the brakes in the event of an emergency.

It’s a BETA system given to users with zero training. The reason it hasn’t been proven at fault in those accidents is all liability falls on the driver for a system that is in testing while we are all the lab rats. Sign your life away and agree to abide by a half a**ed manual where ppl have to resort to forums to figure out what the system is actually supposed to do.

Take a look at that smart summon video that got it banned in this province. The car doesn’t follow legally marked lines and routes back to the owner. That is illegal and dangerous. Especially when there are pedestrians walking and other drivers parking at the mall. I don’t want my kid in front of that car. Proof of the problem is that IIHS found the Tesla pedestrian detection system is not 100% effective. Far from it actually. I won’t take anything less than 100%

Don’t expect ICE drivers to know about these cars. Their driving tests don’t mention self summon cars that will come towards them in oncoming traffic with no one behind the wheel.

Tesla needs to get their act together or government agencies will ban use of the autopilot system, just like in this situation and that will be a sad day for those of us who paid for and would like to use the feature in the future.

 

[drtimhill]

Proof of the problem is that IIHS found the Tesla pedestrian detection system is not 100% effective. Far from it actually. I won’t take anything less than 100%

Please give an example of any safety system that is 100% effective in any industry.

 

[theStig]

Correction. I’ll take 99% effective. Nothing is 100%

 

[Kevy Baby]

It’s a BETA system given to users with zero training.

1. What training should there be with AP?
2. What training have you ever got when you bought ANY car?
3. I was shown how it worked when I took test drive and then was offered to be shown when I picked up the car (declined because I already saw it).

The reason it hasn’t been proven at fault in those accidents is all liability falls on the driver for a system that is in testing while we are all the lab rats.

Have you read up on any of the incidents? I took the time to do so and in every case, I can't see where AP CAUSED the accident but rather, it HAPPENED to be on and the driver would have had the same opportunity to to avoid the accident (in most cases: none) as if they had been in a traditional car. The only reason these stories made the news it was because the fact it was a Tesla.

Take a look at that smart summon video that got it banned in this province. The car doesn’t follow legally marked lines and routes back to the owner. That is illegal and dangerous. Especially when there are pedestrians walking and other drivers parking at the mall. I don’t want my kid in front of that car. Proof of the problem is that IIHS found the Tesla pedestrian detection system is not 100% effective. Far from it actually. I won’t take anything less than 100%

While I am not discounting the issues with Summon in its current state (which is already improving BTW), the "illegal and dangerous" comment is quite heavy-handed and sensationalistic.

If you want 100% effective, then you should not be driving any car or be in any form of mechanized transportation. Nothing is 100% effective.

Don’t expect ICE drivers to know about these cars. Their driving tests don’t mention self summon cars that will come towards them in oncoming traffic with no one behind the wheel.

Um, yes they do: they teach you to be alert for anomalous, dangerous situations, regardless of whether it is a Tesla or a 73 Ford Pinto. Cars can be coming at you down the wrong way for any host of reasons.

Tesla needs to get their act together or government agencies will ban use of the autopilot system, just like in this situation and that will be a sad day for those of us who paid for and would like to use the feature in the future.

Tesla has their act together. You are ignoring the fact that this vehicle has made quantum strides in a relatively short period of time. Are we all late-stage Beta testers? Yes. But it has to be that way. There is only so much testing that can be had by Tesla before releasing to everyone. If you notice, they don't do wholesale fleet-wide introductions, but rather slow rollouts to limited cars and then wider release. And this happens ONLY after they have done Alpha testing internally then ACTUAL Beta testing before releasing to the general population.

Also, you are completely disregarding the fact that the driver is in ACTIVE control of the car the entire time it is moving with Summon. The driver must hold a button on their phone the entire time the car is moving: release the button and the car stops immediately.

 

[theStig]

Does the remote control holder have the ability to steer the car while in summon as well? Can the user steer the car according to the lanes, lines and rules? No. It may be active but it is not complete control.

These stories made the news because it’s a new system that is unrefined and because people don’t comprehend it’s limitations. VW, Ford and the like also made the news many times over. Not because of their brands but because of the problems they had to address.

 

[Knightshade]

It’s a BETA system given to users with zero training. The reason it hasn’t been proven at fault in those accidents is all liability falls on the driver for a system that is in testing while we are all the lab rats. Sign your life away and agree to abide by a half a**ed manual where ppl have to resort to forums to figure out what the system is actually supposed to do.

Meanwhile back in reality there's been exactly one death ever on AP on a road AP is intended to be used on (Walter Huang)- and even then his death was a result of using AP and not paying any attention to the car for way more than enough time to have avoided the crash entirely.

The other 2 famous deaths on AP were idiots using it on undivided roads with cross-traffic- a location explicitly not intended for the system to be used at all.


That's 1 AP-used-in-right-place death, total. In 2 billion miles driven on autopilot so far.

A vastly lower death rate than cars not on AP. (Hell, even if we included the 2 idiot drivers, 3 in 2 billion miles would still be FAR FAR lower than the non-AP death rate in cars).

It's factually safer than not having it. But you don't seem interested in facts.

Take a look at that smart summon video that got it banned in this province. The car doesn’t follow legally marked lines and routes back to the owner. That is illegal and dangerous.

Depends.

The system is explicitly only intended for use on private property. In most (maybe all?) US states, rules of the road do not apply to private property.

Same thing in at least Ontario in Canada.

So it's perfectly legal.

Seems that's NOT the case in BC though.

 

[emmz0r]

They should really follow the markings though. FSD has to do that anyway, so why not release software that will at least try to do it? I mean it's < 1.5 months till automatic city driving, so I would have expected some traffic rule logics to trickle into smart summon a bit before...

 

[Knightshade]

They should really follow the markings though. FSD has to do that anyway, so why not release software that will at least try to do it? I mean it's < 1.5 months till automatic city driving, so I would have expected some traffic rule logics to trickle into smart summon a bit before...

It's less than 1.5 months until early access city driving- not general release.

And remember- smart summon has to work on HW2.5 (since it was the last promised feature for EAP).

FSD (city driving) will not and requires HW3.


Again anything you're seeing in the limited 2.5 NNs tells you nothing useful about what the much larger HW3 NNs will/can do or how they will act in comparison.

 

[emmz0r]

It's less than 1.5 months until early access city driving- not general release.

And remember- smart summon has to work on HW2.5 (since it was the last promised feature for EAP).

FSD (city driving) will not and requires HW3.


Again anything you're seeing in the limited 2.5 NNs tells you nothing useful about what the much larger HW3 NNs will/can do or how they will act in comparison.

even if it's hw 2.5 they sorta have to do it, at least for Europe, or they either have to not release it in Europe ever, or upgrade everyone with EAP too with HW3...

Now that John Carmack is getting into AI, one can hope he can optimize the libraries they are using making them squeeze more into 2.5

 

[Knightshade]

even if it's hw 2.5 they sorta have to do it, at least for Europe, or they either have to not release it in Europe ever, or upgrade everyone with EAP too with HW3...

err.... what? Not sure I'm understanding you.

EAP is now feature complete. Smart summon was the last feature promised. EAP owners aren't getting HW3 unless they buy FSD.

City driving requires FSD and HW3 (hardware which everyone with 2.x gets upgraded to for free if they bought FSD)

 

[emmz0r]

err.... what? Not sure I'm understanding you.

EAP is now feature complete. Smart summon was the last feature promised. EAP owners aren't getting HW3 unless they buy FSD.

City driving requires FSD and HW3 (hardware which everyone with 2.x gets upgraded to for free if they bought FSD)

In Europe parking lots can be public and they have to follow the rules thus following markings, or they might not be able to release it, or geofence it to death... So either they have to retrofit HW3 to Europeans and people in BC or they have to squeeze it into HW2.

Anyway it's not feature complete in my eyes if it can't navigate safely through the parking lot following the rules.

 

[Kevy Baby]

@GreenT - You've marked two of my posts "Disagree". Do you care to elaborate why?

 

[Kenz]

Auto pilot is a drivers assist feature. The driver is responsible to control the vehicle at all times.
In any other car when you put on cruise control you need to hit the brakes and take control to slow down or you will hit the car in front of you. Auto pilot assists the driver but the driver is the one in control at all times. (keep hands on the wheel)
If you do not understand this you should not be using this feature.
When FSD is fully released and approved by the regulators things may be different, but until then you are fully responsible.

 

[Kenz]

Anytime a feature like Auto Pilot acts in an unexpected manner push the speaker button and make a BUG REPORT.

If any unexpected behavior is to be quickly analyzed it needs to be promptly reported so the logs can be saved by Tesla and reviewed.

 

[DopeGhoti]

make a BUG REPORT

Can confirm some correlation with the bug report function and positive changes. After a few weeks of submitting "Bug report: incorrect speed limit", someone at whenceforth Tesla gets its speed limit info updated the speed limit for the road in question.

 

[eli_]

Bug report doesn't actually send anything to Tesla though, it just writes some data and screenshot to local storage on your car and Tesla support can pull it off the car if they choose. But if there's no support ticket open then no one is looking at your bug reports. I imagine if those "reports" actually went somewhere they'd be 99% noise that isn't actionable, it doesn't even capture more than a few words. If you want action then you gotta start opening service tickets and sending letters and emails and Tweeting at Elon.

 

[DopeGhoti]

I know that correlation is not causation; all I have is my anecdotal experience: Road had wrong speed encoded for a month. Started using 'Bug report'. Limit was corrected.

 

[Toppatop55]

*******UPDATE******

Sooooo, I take a day off today, wake up early, got my 8 month old dressed and ready for the long trip and drove two hours to Rhode Island service center. When I arrived, I was greeted and treated well which is more than I could say about the Milford SC. The first problem I encountered at the service center was when the tech stated "so, I see your here for a homeland install. It should be about 90 minutes and we'll get you out of here and on your way." I think he was literally able to see steam emanating from my ears lol. After a brief moment of "wooosa and goos-fraba," I explained my entire ordeal too him, at which point he confessed he had no idea and stated he would look into it. after sit-in in the SC for about 20 minutes, he returned and stated they would keep the car overnight and processed a loaner performance model 3 (brand new with 123 miles....Nice). So assuming he would eventually realize the issue with the car and gain access to all of the video and messages I've sent to Sean who I had been talking to for the past few weeks, I took the loaner and began my two hour journey back to CT.
An hour after arriving at home, I get a call from another tech (lets call him Fred). Fred tells me he was told that I had issues with my auto pilot and wanted to ask my permission to allow one of the service techs to drive my car home to Massachusetts (40 miles one way) in attempt to recreate the auto pilot issue. This did not seem normal and I certainly did not feel comfortable with someone I didn't know taking my precious home to a place I don't know. After telling Fred I was not on board with that idea, he then stated he would need my vehicle for approximately 2 days to attempt to recreate the issue before making repairs. At this point the remainder of the steam escaped from my ears. I then politely....Well not too polite, but I explained to him that the purpose of sending several videos and rescheduling my appointment was for me to come in and have the reapers done, not reinvent the wheel. Frank then told me he had to call Sean who was off today and confirm that the parts that were ordered for my car had been cleared for install. ......head scratch... So I stated to him, "You (Tesla) remote diagnose my car, determined parts need to be replacing, you ordered the parts and have me drive a total of 4 hours without clearing that the parts could be installed. After Sean apologized, he stated he had no knowledge about my car and the history of issue with the auto pilot, he then told me he would contact Sean and get back to me.........and now, I am waining for that call back to see where this blind train ends up. .....Stay tuned....

 

[Az_Rael]

Fred tells me he was told that I had issues with my auto pilot and wanted to ask my permission to allow one of the service techs to drive my car home to Massachusetts (40 miles one way) in attempt to recreate the auto pilot issue.

I have had them make this request before. It was back in the "white glove" days of service, so while it is unusual from another make, it might not be that unusual for Tesla. (I did let them take my car, but that was in the "good old days" of service where I was confident Tesla would take care of anything that happened).

Unfortunately, I am not surprised at all that when you showed up they had no idea what you were talking about. I have wasted MANY a 1.5 hour one way drive down to the service center only to have them look at the ticket (apparently for the first time) and say "oh. Well, we dont have those parts, and this other thing will be fixed in firmware later, so here are your keys back as there is nothing we can do today". Then I just fume on the 1.5 hour drive home and dream of buying a decent EV from a company that can actually do service. One one of those drives home, my husband actually suggested maybe an ICE would be better. We haven't dropped that far off the deep end though.

 

[Toppatop55]

I have had them make this request before. It was back in the "white glove" days of service, so while it is unusual from another make, it might not be that unusual for Tesla. (I did let them take my car, but that was in the "good old days" of service where I was confident Tesla would take care of anything that happened).

Unfortunately, I am not surprised at all that when you showed up they had no idea what you were talking about. I have wasted MANY a 1.5 hour one way drive down to the service center only to have them look at the ticket (apparently for the first time) and say "oh. Well, we dont have those parts, and this other thing will be fixed in firmware later, so here are your keys back as there is nothing we can do today". Then I just fume on the 1.5 hour drive home and dream of buying a decent EV from a company that can actually do service. One one of those drives home, my husband actually suggested maybe an ICE would be better. We haven't dropped that far off the deep end though.

Honestly, if the Ford Mach-E was available today I would give this car back and pick one up at a local dealer. Don't get me wrong, I love my car and I have the upmost high hopes for Tesla's success....just not at my expense especially for a premium luxury brand. Tesla needs to wake the hell up and realize service is one of the most important part of the auto business, not just sales.