Model 3 collision in autopilot

[xieshuai2011]

We had a collision with our new Model 3 last week, the car hit another car in front with autopilot turned on. Sadly, the autopilot didn't brake in time for the hard brake from the car in front us.

We had large damage and sent to Pfaff Autoworks in Vaughan for estimate with Insurance Appraiser. Is this correct option for me now? And do you think would this be a write off?

 

[darkenergy]

It pains me to see that. Condolences on your Tesla

 

[P85_DA]

Wow sorry to see this ..did airbags go off?

Also I probably wouldn’t mention autopilot etc to appraiser ...in case they try and push back on claim

 

[xieshuai2011]

Wow sorry to see this ..did airbags go off?

Also I probably wouldn’t mention autopilot etc to appraiser ...in case they try and push back on claim

No, the airbag didn't come out. They didn't ask that question.

 

[P85_DA]

No, the airbag didn't come out. They didn't ask that question.

Hard to say if writeoff as insurance companies have formulas based on damage done ..looks like a lot of damage surprised airbag didn’t go off

 

[hohohong]

Sorry to hear about your Tesla. I hope you and your passengers are ok. I'll be more cautious when i use autopilot. I presume it wasn't in traffic jam stop and go situation?

To me, since the repair cost of Tesla is high, it's border line write off. If they choose to repair, I've read online that it'll take a while for the repair.

Do keep us posted.

 

[Cocoabean]

To me, since the repair cost of Tesla is high, it's border line write off. If they choose to repair, I've read online that it'll take a while for the repair.

Do keep us posted.

The entire front of the car is destroyed, as is half of the left body. There's no way any car avoids being written off at this stage.

 

[felixculpas]

I would be asking Tesla to investigate further so you at least know what was occurring. I got too close to a vehicle turning off the highway once and emergency braking initiated producing one of the hardest deceleration's I've ever experienced (unnecessarily). This gave me confidence that hitting someone in front of you would be rare though these systems are not 100% perfect and in certain conditions will not be effective.

Automated-Emergency-Braking Systems Don't Always Work - Test Results

 

[noicepls]

We had a collision with our new Model 3 last week, the car hit another car in front with autopilot turned on. Sadly, the autopilot didn't brake in time for the hard brake from the car in front us.

We had large damage and sent to Pfaff Autoworks in Vaughan for estimate with Insurance Appraiser. Is this correct option for me now? And do you think would this be a write off?

Sorry to see this happen to anyone, let alone to you in a Model 3 on autopilot. Yes, it's a good thing that you took the damaged car to a Tesla certified bodyshop such as Pfaff Autoworks.

FYI, this is what the owners manual says regarding Emergency Braking (page 91) :

Warning: Automatic Emergency Braking is not designed to prevent a collision. At best, it can minimize the impact of a frontal collision by attempting to reduce your driving speed. Depending on Automatic Emergency Braking to avoid a collision can result in serious injury or death.
Automatic Emergency Braking does not apply the brakes, or stops applying the brakes, when:
• You turn the steering wheel sharply.
• You press and release the brake pedal while Automatic Emergency Braking is applying the brakes.
• You accelerate hard while Automatic Emergency Braking is applying the brakes.
• The vehicle, motorcycle, bicycle, or pedestrian is no longer detected ahead.
Automatic Emergency Braking operates only when driving between approximately 7 mph (10 km/h) and 90 mph (150 km/h).
etc.

As one might expect, it is easy to defeat emergency braking as the chances are pretty good that a driver will instinctively do what the first two bullet items above specify!

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

That's a write off. In cases like this, evasion is the best course of action as AEB won't fully stop you from hitting whatever is in front.

There's barely any impact damage to the soft hood. I assume you attempted to evade and veered to the right - sheering the panels like an aluminum can .

What do the logs say? What was the follow distance and speed?

Personally, if it's not 5pm bumper to bumper traffic, I set AP follow distance to 7 and let the crazies zoom in. The car follows the average speed of traffic/map data and doesn't accelerate like crazy.

 

[Watts_Up]

Personally, if it's not 5pm bumper to bumper traffic, I set AP follow distance to 7 and let the crazies zoom in.
The car follows the average speed of traffic/map data and doesn't accelerate like crazy.

I also always keep my finder on top of the right roller button on the steering wheel, so I can adjust the speed I'm comfortable with.
In particular if the car in front of me change lane, the Auto Pilot starts to accelerate to reach the maximum seed limit or speed current setting.
Also this allow me to easylly decelerate if a car try to merge in front of me, something occuring quite often when I set the maximum distance.

 

[Watts_Up]

I would be asking Tesla to investigate further so you at least know what was occurring. I got too close to a vehicle turning off the highway once and emergency braking initiated producing one of the hardest deceleration's I've ever experienced (unnecessarily). This gave me confidence that hitting someone in front of you would be rare though these systems are not 100% perfect and in certain conditions will not be effective.

Automated-Emergency-Braking Systems Don't Always Work - Test Results

The 50 km/h (30 miles/hour) braking test seems okay, look at the video at 2:00, but it would be interesting to test at 100 km/h (62 miles/h)

 

[Watts_Up]

We had a collision with our new Model 3 last week, the car hit another car in front with autopilot turned on. Sadly, the autopilot didn't brake in time for the hard brake from the car in front us.

We had large damage and sent to Pfaff Autoworks in Vaughan for estimate with Insurance Appraiser. Is this correct option for me now? And do you think would this be a write off?

Sorry about your loss. I imagine that you didn't have any dashcam?

 

[xieshuai2011]

Sorry about your loss. I imagine that you didn't have any dashcam?

It actually the second day we were driving, we didn't plug in the usb drive. And we found later we don't have FSD installed on the first day!

 

[hohohong]

What following distance did you set your autopilot? 1 car length? Roughly at what did did the collision happen?

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I've driven with TACC a lot, and I feel like it adds a level of safety. It does because the following distance I set it to is typically larger than I'd use driving manually. The reason I do this is so I have time react if the car isn't behaving as expected.

I also don't have a good feel for how hard it can brake itself because it's not like we can test that. So in situations similar to yours I'm typically taking over fairly quickly to error on the side of caution.

I'm not sure what all the talk about AEB is about. The AEB won't activate if the brakes are already active. It was already braking so it kinda defeats the entire purpose of AEB, and AEB is only designed to cut the speed by up to 30mph so it won't prevent a collision at freeway speeds.

 

[Lloyd]

What following distance did you set your autopilot? 1 car length? Roughly at what did did the collision happen?

Usually collisions happen when the following distance gets to Zero!!

 

[jkoya]

The results of that crash look awful, I hope nobody was injured...

 

[VT_EE]

Definitively a write off. Two sides are totaled.

 

[xieshuai2011]

We set up for 2 car distance. We are in the middle from traffic jam to normal traffic, I believe someone merged in our lane caused this hard brake in front us.