Fatal autopilot crash, NHTSA investigating...

[jkk_]

To be clear, I was quoting from the link. I don't know where the quote icon is here...

I'd never heard of Consumer Watchdog before but was astounded by their tone, which is why I googled them.

You can insert quote from the little "+" icon (between video film and camera icon) or you can use the following syntax:

[QUOTE] quote here [/QUOTE]

 

[JeffK]

Consumer Watch Dog just sent to Elon Musk a demand letter yesterday.

If I understood correctly, they only ask for 2 things:

1) Disable it immediately.
2) Pledge to be liable if anything goes wrong when the self-driving system is engaged.

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/ltrmusk070716.pdf

This is such crap

 

[idoco]

Clearly an agenda against autonomous vehicles.

""...Google's robot cars can't reliably cope with everyday driving situations," said John M> Simpson of the nonprofit group 'Consumer Watchdog.' "There needs to be a licensed driver who can takeover, even if in this case the test driver failed to step in as he should have."

Google's Self-Driving Lexus involved in first crash caused by autonomous vehicle - Gasbuddy Gas Prices

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Or perhaps Tesla believes the vast majority of its customers are responsible drivers and shouldn't be advesley impacted with onerous "nag" messages and alarms--because a small minority' "may" behave foolishly.

One major lawsuit and a payout of millions or billions will quickly change that attitude, I'm afraid. Nags exist for a reason. Why would Tesla put its head on the chopping block over a belief that its customers are responsible? It's much more likely that Elon has a personal disdain for nags and that is the reason Autopilot has very few of them. However, that may not necessarily square with a regulator's view of whether Tesla has done everything it could have, or should have, to ensure less driver distraction. Autopilot, by its very nature, enables a higher degree of driver distraction. One would think that the onus is on Tesla to make a greater effort to monitor and/or reduce that level of distraction that it has just enabled.

 

[littlecloudy]

You can insert quote from the little "+" icon (between video film and camera icon) or you can use the following syntax:

Thanks!

I wouldn't take this consumer watchdog seriously - who talks like that? They sound like idiots. But I guess they have pushed forward their agenda in the past (good or bad, no matter).

It's good that the regulatory agencies are looking at this. Speaking as a future owner w/o actual experience with autopilot it seems there's a problem with the psychological aspect of AP and human interface. If something needs to be improved or changed or rethought, it should be.

The official investigations are on a whole different level than all the news media FUD and the possibly Koch driven oil promoting junk. A better level, I hope.

 

[Tam]

...Why would Tesla put its head on the chopping block over a belief that its customers are responsible?...

You can only do so much, up to a point to force people to follow instructions.

For example, at a rail road crossing, some are equipped with alarms and lights and manual locomotive horns to warn drivers not to cross, but people still do cross the tracks.

You then additionally put an automatic arm down to block drivers but they still go around the arm...

If there's a lock, there's a locksmith.

 

[Tam]

One major lawsuit and a payout of millions or billions will quickly change that attitude, I'm afraid. Nags exist for a reason...."

Autopilot, Autothrottles Engaged in UPS Crash

"...the NTSB revealed that the Airbus A300’s autopilot and autothrottles were engaged all the way to the point of impact about three quarters of a mile short of the runway..."

However, it blamed the flight crew for the crash, not Autopilot for the crash of UPS Flight 1354 (2013).

Air France 447 Said to Have Stalled After Loss of Air Speed

In the crash of Air France Flight 447 (2009), Autopilot was flawlessly flying the plane but then, its airspeed sensors failed and it automatically took itself off the Autopilot mode and gave the control back to human.

Clearly, it started with a component failure that eventually lead to the crash, but NTSB blamed the crew for it.

There have still been deaths with aviation Autopilot but the blame has always been human errors, not the faulty Autopilot computer code algorithm or its hardware component failures.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Tesla has put itself in a difficult position by telling drivers to keep their hands on the wheel, but not reinforcing it with an alarm or deactivation for several minutes.

Obviously, they know drivers aren’t keeping hands on the wheel, but that not doing so is a major attraction of Autopilot to Tesla's customers. It helps to sell more cars.

They should change the nag interval to seconds, not minutes. Doing so would put the system in line with other steering assist systems on the market. That is if Tesla is really concerned about safety, not just giving it lip service.

This is false. The Q50S function (which came out before Tesla's) is able to drive hands free up to 5 minutes at a time.
Infiniti’s ‘Auto Pilot’ Driving Straight Into the Future

Even for the older S-Class, although the timer nag is 12 seconds, the car keeps going hands free even if you ignore it (it just has a warning tone).
Semi-Autonomous Cars Compared! Tesla Model S vs. BMW 750i, Infiniti Q50S, and Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG - Feature
The 2017 E-class extends the nag to 1 minute. Even though they say there is a controlled shut down procedure (car slows down to a stop) if the nag is ignored, journalists who tested it were not able to confirm this actually existed.
New 2016 Mercedes E-Class: UK prices, specs and on sale date
http://jalopnik.com/2017-mercedes-benz-e300-mercedes-made-an-e-class-bette-1781983204

If the car keeps the lane keeping going even after the nag, I'm not seeing how this necessarily enhances "safety" (assuming hands on the steering wheel means you are not distracted, which is not necessarily true in the first place).

Tesla's 7.1 nag is about 3 minutes.

One major lawsuit and a payout of millions or billions will quickly change that attitude, I'm afraid. Nags exist for a reason. Why would Tesla put its head on the chopping block over a belief that its customers are responsible? It's much more likely that Elon has a personal disdain for nags and that is the reason Autopilot has very few of them. However, that may not necessarily square with a regulator's view of whether Tesla has done everything it could have, or should have, to ensure less driver distraction. Autopilot, by its very nature, enables a higher degree of driver distraction. One would think that the onus is on Tesla to make a greater effort to monitor and/or reduce that level of distraction that it has just enabled.

I doubt the length of nag will be seen as a safety or legal issue. NHTSA is investigating the accident, but from the gist of it, they are trying to determine if a malfunction or defect of the system was a cause of this accident, and will not take issue if it was operating as expected (including the known limitations of detecting cross traffic mentioned by Mobileye).

And nags about keeping hands on steering wheel may not necessarily be straightforward as a way to escape liability. Just because you have your hand/fingers on the steering wheel (or doing the tap to reset the timer) does not necessarily mean you aren't distracted. You can still easily watch a movie with your hand/fingers on the steering wheel, just to use the speculated situation in this crash. What automakers rely on instead to escape liability is the legal messages you have to click through to use the system.

It seems it is mainly non-Tesla owners who suggest more onerous nags. I have yet to see actual owners that want this (rather they want the opposite).

 

[birdsaresmarter]

Clearly an agenda against autonomous vehicles.

""...Google's robot cars can't reliably cope with everyday driving situations," said John M> Simpson of the nonprofit group 'Consumer Watchdog.' "There needs to be a licensed driver who can takeover, even if in this case the test driver failed to step in as he should have."

Wait...but here...they argue that having "a licensed driver who can take over"... even if driver fails to do so, is an adequate solution.

 

[JeffK]

there's a problem with the psychological aspect of AP and human interface.

A solution to this in the future might be an augmented reality HUD that overlays what autopilot is sensing with the real world. Not only does this keep your eyes looking where they should be, but also might alert the driver if autopilot is interpreting what it is sensing incorrectly.

 

[rog]

The German government agency for transportation (Bundesverkehrsministerium) allegedly also started an investigation into AP, more precisely into the lane change feature. They are checking whether that part is covered by the type approval that was given to the Model S (assuming also Model X), or if it was added illegally via OTA update, without having passed safety checks. The article claims that in case it is determined that the car's type approval has been voided by such an update, all Tesla cars in Germany might not be allowed to be driven anymore with immediate effect.

Verkehrsministerium ermittelt gegen Tesla - SPIEGEL ONLINE

 

[Tam]

The German government agency for transportation (Bundesverkehrsministerium) allegedly also started an investigation into AP, more precisely into the lane change feature....

May be it could be true one day if Germany decides to exit the EU?

At the present time, it was dispelled by Germany's Transport Ministry:

Germany denies investigating Tesla over software updates

“the report is incorrect. There are no investigation proceedings against Tesla."

 

[rog]

Interesting - so it's not an "investigation", but a "review".
But it's an interesting topic anyway - I'm wondering how and who decides whether certain software updates need a re-approval from any of the many agencies / watchdogs all over the world.

 

[Brian May]

What I find interesting is this claim that because AP is advertised as "beta" then it isn't ready for "prime-time".

I suspect there are two reasons why it is advertised as "beta" (1) because they want full autonomous operation which isn't yet possible, (2) to emphasis the fact there does need to a a driver monitoring it at all times and (3) It could also be to highlight that future changes will be required and they don't want users to get upset with these possible future changes, e.g. to the user interface. Software companies these days do receive a lot of criticism for changing user interfaces.

When it is safe to drop the "beta" tag in software can cause controversial. Do it too soon, people get upset; do it too late, other people get upset. Different people have different expectations as to what "beta" means. As an example, Google mail was in beta from 2004 to 2009. 5 years in beta for non-safety critical software. This does not imply that the software was not ready for "prime time" (IIRC it was very popular even then) or that the risks (e.g. losing email) were considered unacceptable for "prime time" usage.

In this case would Consumer Watchdog be happier is Tesla dropped the beta tag? Would it actually make any difference? Or would it be considered premature? If it is considered premature to drop the beta tag now, what needs to happen to first before they can drop the beta tag?

What I think happens is that people associate the "Beta" to mean buggy software that has never properly been tested and there are likely to be numerous error conditions waiting to be found. Such as typical software for a desktop computer. Where - in user's minds - error condition can be anything from a serious error condition resulting in the software aborting (e.g. Window famous blue screen of death) through to the system not detecting something it was not designed to detect (such as the truck in this example), to a software developer however these are very different situations.

 

[Tam]

What I find interesting is this claim that because AP is advertised as "beta" then it isn't ready for "prime-time"...

Aviation Autopilot was first developed by Sperry Corporation in 1912.

For the past 104 years, airplanes with autopilot still crash.

In this modern day, Autopilot should not but it can still slam into a mountain.

As mentioned before, automotive "Auto-pilot" was first introduced in 1958 Imperial cars or 58 years ago. It was a dumb cruise control to keep a constant speed.

Smart cruise has been on the market for about 20 years. In the beginning, it would produce annoying alarms that made drivers to turn those noise off.

It was then advanced to the ability reduce the throttle but could not brake.

It was then further advanced to be able to brake to reduce the speed but still could not stop.

Now, it can brake and it can stop and it can prevent a rear end crash in many instances.

So now you see for the history for Aviation Autopilot as well as Automobile Autopilot, the journey has not been bug-free. Along the way, even today, deaths still happen.

So whether you call them "beta" or not, the fact is they can prevent many accidents and deaths but NOT ALL.

So for the past 104 years for airplanes and 58 years for cars, Autopilot would never be this advanced as you can see today if we would withhold the technology just because it's not ready for prime-time or just because it is called "beta".

In allowing incremental advancement of imperfect technology, it has always been human operators who are responsible to operate the machine safely. Human should be able to control an airplane or a car and you just can't say because it's beta so I forgot how to fly or how to drive.

 

[calisnow]

What I find interesting is this claim that because AP is advertised as "beta" then it isn't ready for "prime-time"...What I think happens is that people associate the "Beta" to mean buggy software that has never properly been tested and there are likely to be numerous error conditions waiting to be found.

'

EXACTLY. I've been thinking this a lot the last couple days. Mercedes has a far less capable self steering system (I don't buy the idea that they are purposely crippling it - I think Tesla may in fact have a technological lead on the rest of the industry due to proprietary fleet learning which has ironed out corner cases in a way which cannot be done without using tens of thousands of cars sending exceptions back to headquarters to be baked into the neural network) - yet Mercedes does not label it "beta" - and nobody bothers Mercedes.

Perhaps Tesla never should have used the term "beta" to begin with - simply told everyone that the system is ever-evolving, to keep their hands on the wheel and be careful.

If they had taken this route the media would not, at least, be claiming that Tesla is now "using" its customers as "human guinea pigs."

 

[JeffK]

'
If they had taken this route the media would not, at least, be claiming that Tesla is now "using" its customers as "human guinea pigs."

How many brilliant people do you know that went into journalism or communications?

 

[EinSV]

'

EXACTLY. I've been thinking this a lot the last couple days. Mercedes has a far less capable self steering system (I don't buy the idea that they are purposely crippling it - I think Tesla may in fact have a technological lead on the rest of the industry due to proprietary fleet learning which has ironed out corner cases in a way which cannot be done without using tens of thousands of cars sending exceptions back to headquarters to be baked into the neural network) - yet Mercedes does not label it "beta" - and nobody bothers Mercedes.

Perhaps Tesla never should have used the term "beta" to begin with - simply told everyone that the system is ever-evolving, to keep their hands on the wheel and be careful.

If they had taken this route the media would not, at least, be claiming that Tesla is now "using" its customers as "human guinea pigs."

And on that note .... MB just took out full page ads for the E-Class in Car and Driver and Road & Track (and probably elsewhere) with the tag line: "Introducing a self-driving car from a very self-driven company." LOL

 

[stopcrazypp]

And on that note .... MB just took out full page ads for the E-Class in Car and Driver and Road & Track (and probably elsewhere) with the tag line: "Introducing a self-driving car from a very self-driven company." LOL

I wonder if the Tesla naysayers that criticized Tesla about their advertising of autopilot will go on some Mercedes forums and take issue with that.

 

[EinSV]

I wonder if the Tesla naysayers that criticized Tesla about their advertising of autopilot will go on some Mercedes forums and take issue with that.

I assume they are busily expressing their outrage on MB forums across the planet even as we speak