The NHTSA likely notified Tesla they were announcing the preliminary investigation and that prompted Tesla to make the Blog Post concurrently.
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The NHTSA likely notified Tesla they were announcing the preliminary investigation and that prompted Tesla to make the Blog Post concurrently.
sillydriver
Member
First, I feel very sorry for the man who died and for his family.
Looking at the street view pictures I think it is very unlikely that any driver who is on this road and who is focused on driving would not see a large white semi turning in front of them from a very long distance away. Particularly if the sun was not low in the sky near sunset. I think the truck driver probably assumed that a car in the far distance going, say, 60 would see his truck and slow down to, say, 30, which if done at the point where an attentive driver would normally see the truck would send the car safely behind the truck. I imagine the truck driver had been waiting for a break in the traffic, and when he saw one where cars in the distance would be safe if they slowed down, he crossed the road. His action would be technically illegal but normal in the real world, kind of like any of us coming to a ‘rolling stop’ instead of a complete stop at a stop sign.
TACC is simply not designed to react to radar echoes from stationary objects, and likewise with the Mercedes system. The fact that the truck was moving laterally would not register on any Doppler radar. Because radar in our cars would receive an almost constant stream of stationary echoes as we drive along, and because 99.9999…% of them aren’t a truck crossing the road, TACC’s slamming on the brakes for any of them will almost surely be a false positive, which would be dangerous and upsetting. As a result, Tesla’s TACC won’t brake until the echo is so strong and so near that a collision is unavoidable, at which point all the emergency braking system can do is slow the car before impact.
Think about it: I’m sure Tesla would like to provide emergency braking that would avoid a collision, but they don’t. Why don’t they? Because that would trigger many dangerous false positives where the car hits the brakes when it shouldn’t. If that happened more than once in my MS, I would be so upset that I would block or disconnect the radar for safety reasons.
So the problem is literally a TACC shortcoming, but in reality it’s just as much AP because it’s AP that gives drivers the confidence to take their eyes off the road. Had the driver in this case just been using TACC and not AP, he would have to have been looking at the road for lane keeping and thus he would have seen the truck a long way off.
I think the combination of TACC and AP will not be able to handle this ‘corner case’ of a truck and an inattentive AP-using driver until visual scene analysis improves enough to detect the hazard without producing false positives for braking and swerving. This is way harder than lane keeping, and I expect is years, not months away.
As a result, I feel strongly that Tesla’s only option – and I predict this will be the outcome – is to geofence the use of AP such that it can only be activated on highways that are whitelisted to be limited access, not just divided. This is unfortunate, but I fear it is inevitable.
A commercial truck is a large, slow-moving target, that does not "dart out" in front of you... i.e., you can see a tractor-trailer from a half mile away. My guess is that the Tesla driver was going very fast and paying no attention (maybe distracted). Still, this crash will probably be considered the truck driver's fault, because the vehicle on the divided highway would have had the right of way. Report from FMCSA will follow.
I'm surprised it didn't start that way. "Autopilot available" notification when you enter a qualifying roadway (in qualifying weather conditions) seems like a sensible option to "save people from themselves" if you will. I know that would upset some people who use it properly in many different scenarios, but these types of incidents can have far broader ramifications than just one unfortunate person's life.
This is not unreasonable in my opinion. Make TACC available anywhere, but restrict AP to divided freeways (the ones that have no side traffic).
As a very avid user and an AP fan, I would take that as a reasonable compromise
JeffK
Well-Known Member
Or release a smarter, better, autopilot 2.0 with new sensors and the new Mobileye tech and trust that current Model S owners with current tech are responsible adults.
Coming later this year...
JeffK
Well-Known Member
You're correct.
NHTSA lists Date Investigation Opened: JUN 28, 2016
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/cs/jaxrs/download/doc/UCM530776/INOA-PE16007-7080.PDF
Expecting a technology to be released only after it can handle *ALL* the edge cases one can think of, is silly and detrimental. If it handles a specific set of use cases, and that is clearly communicated then we should be good to go.
for all the hyperventilation by the Tesla haters in Seeking Alpha, the stock has actually shrugged off and is up today 
nikielizabeth
Member
Hm...nope. But what I do know is that I have better things to do with my time than start an argument on a forum.
Have a lovey day, and I hope your *sighs* go away. Waste of a good breath if you ask me...
I don't know all the facts, but I do know that tractor trailers turn slow as molasses AND it's easy to misjudge speed at these intersections. It seems entirely possible
The burden of proof will be on Tesla and I can see regulators taking a very cautious and conservative stance on this. I would also be in favor of a geofenced AP even though that would reduce the convenience of the feature.
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
Has anyone seen any mention of an autopsy? I haven't seen anything that confirms the driver was conscious at the time of the collision to rule out a medical issue and a car flying along on autopilot.
1999 South Dakota Learjet crash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
You see a car so you don't think about it like you would a plane crash but the diagnostics should be similar. The vehicle can maintain a course after a driver dies or is otherwise incapacitated. You can't assume with any certainty that the driver even had the option to "pay attention".
1999 South Dakota Learjet crash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
You see a car so you don't think about it like you would a plane crash but the diagnostics should be similar. The vehicle can maintain a course after a driver dies or is otherwise incapacitated. You can't assume with any certainty that the driver even had the option to "pay attention".
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Blastphemy
Member
You can't watch a movie on the center console. That having been said, this was just released by Reuters:
DVD player found in Tesla Model S in May 7 crash -Fla officials
DETROIT, July 1 (Reuters) - The Florida Highway Patrol said on Friday that it found an aftermarket digital video disc (DVD) player in the wreckage of a Tesla Motors Inc Model S involved in a fatal May 7 crash.
"There was a portable DVD player in the vehicle," said Sergeant Kim Montes of the Florida Highway Patrol in a telephone interview.
She said there was no camera found, mounted on the dash or of any kind, in the wreckage.
(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
Now if they also find a Harry Potter DVD in the player, then the truck driver's story may have some credibility, at which point I shall dine on crow.
DVD player found in Tesla Model S in May 7 crash -Fla officials
DETROIT, July 1 (Reuters) - The Florida Highway Patrol said on Friday that it found an aftermarket digital video disc (DVD) player in the wreckage of a Tesla Motors Inc Model S involved in a fatal May 7 crash.
"There was a portable DVD player in the vehicle," said Sergeant Kim Montes of the Florida Highway Patrol in a telephone interview.
She said there was no camera found, mounted on the dash or of any kind, in the wreckage.
(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
Now if they also find a Harry Potter DVD in the player, then the truck driver's story may have some credibility, at which point I shall dine on crow.
The law is one thing but people saying that they naturally trust a navy seal more than a truck driver in this situation is another matter.
From a legal perspective I am not sure it's going to be as simple as you think to put it all on the truck driver considering the driver did not even apply the brakes at all.
When the car sensors are combined with Automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast (ADSB) transponders which are going to be required on all aircraft (and airport ground vehicles) by 2020, the car will have much better situational awareness. The economies of scale should make the price of these technologies come down exponentially like they did for EZPASS type transponders. This ADSB (out) installed on vehicles will be required for the mix of older and newer semi-autonomous vehicles. The good news is the standards and technology have been refined in the aerospace realm and could be spun off to vehicles with minimal R&D costs.
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