German Der Spiegel sensationalist headline

[mrElbe]

English translation:

Investigations against Tesla: Automatically death

The fatal crash of a US-American in its computerized Tesla alerted the authorities. The Federal Ministry of Transport determines now against the electric carmaker - it threatens a shutdown of vehicles.

Looks to me that there is an effort to discredit Tesla. Tesla is a thorn in the eye of the established car manufacturers the closer it gets to critical mass production.

 

[zambono]

It's Germany what do you expect, they are loosing quite a bit of sales of MBZ, BMW, and VW brands to Tesla.

 

[ecarfan]

@mrElbe, can you give a link to the Der Spiegel article with that ridiculous headline? I have seen nothing about the German Federal Ministry of Transport threatening to stop Tesla selling in Germany.

Read this Reuters article Germany denies investigating Tesla over software updates titled "
Germany denies investigating Tesla over software updates"

Quote:

Germany's Transport Ministry denied a media report on Friday that it was investigating Tesla Motors Inc for updating driving assistance software without informing authorities, but said it was "clarifying technical issues" on the matter.

German magazine Der Spiegel reported, without citing a source, that there were indications Tesla uploaded new software features to a driving assistance system which had not been examined for security during regular approval proceedings.

The ministry therefore launched an investigation, it added.

"The report is incorrect," a ministry spokesman said. "There are no investigation proceedings against Tesla."

 

[AndreN]

Here's the Der Spiegel article: link

For some reason Google translate only translates a short portion of the article, so here's the Microsoft translate version which does the whole thing: link

 

[Tam]

Spiegel is unstoppable with another follow up:

German government report critical of Tesla Autopilot - Spiegel

1) "drivers are not alerted by the Autopilot system when the vehicle gets into a situation that the computer cannot solve"

The manual gives owners some situations that won't work but it also says these are not the only ones, there are more that are not listed. Thus, it makes sense that at this stage, drivers should not take a nap nor should they wait for computer to wake them up to solve a problem!

2) "the car's sensors do not detect far back enough during an overtaking manoeuvre"

It's kind of late to find that out! Owners have figured that out a long time ago before Autopilot was released over the air. Some posted that since there is not rear facing radar, and ultrasonic sensors are only 16 feet range owners still have to look for speeding car before doing an automatic lane change.

3) "the emergency brake also performs inadequately"

May be those people need to read the manual first. It says very clearly that the maximum it can do is to reduce speed, not to brake to a stop.

It seems Spiegel wants to stop Tesla at all cost.

Unfortunately for Spiegel, because unlike Britain, Germany is still under European Union which it must follow.

Since European Union approves Tesla to operate in its domain, Germany can do all the tests it wants but it just cannot stop Tesla.

 

[Todd Burch]

I sense a few German egos hurting.

 

[Patrick W]

Tesla issues thorough response following harsh critique of Autopilot by German authorities

https://electrek.co/2016/10/07/tesl...h-critique-of-autopilot-by-german-authorities