Model X Crash on US-101 (Mountain View, CA)

[SMAlset]

The brand/design of the car is relevant here for three reasons:

(i) The battery-sled design confused firefighters (who weren't sure how to put out the fire) and there was a need for firefighters to remain on the scene for an extended period of time to monitor the battery for flare ups before it could be safety moved; and....

Not sure about the comment they weren't sure how to put out the fire. From what I read and saw discussed by them on TV coverage, one of the issues they had with the battery was that the crash had split the car in two and the power cables were cut. They may have trained for disconnecting the 12v battery and other scenarios already but this likely was the first time they encountered this scenario and guessing from Tesla's response in general they too have never seen damage like this or so severe. I think the concern was what might still be live and keeping their guys safe. Initially I thought they weren't trained how to handle a damaged car with a battery like this but changed my mind from some more indepth comments that were made. As it was the Tesla techs were able to detemine the battery was still at 70% and that the batteries needed to be weakened before it was safe to move the car. I did hear a comment by one of the onsite personnel that it was going to stretch the resources of the fire department if the ended up having to secure the car for hours before it being moved and then having to monitor it for some period afterwards in case a fire broke out afterwards.

 

[f-stop]

anyone got any more pictures of the deformed crash structure before the Tesla accident?

I am trying to work out if it presented a planar surface at a slight upwards angle that may have deflected the radar return upwards thereby meaning the MX radar didnt get a return, possibly explaining why it may not have seen the obstacle.

Have you already seen the dashcam video, post #211 way back in this thread that shows the already collapsed barrier about 1.5hrs prior to the accident?

 

[22522]

? What are you taking about? That isn't anything Tesla has talked about is it?

When they changed navigation, a little digging found Nvidia and Tom Tom assembling data for high res GPS. I thought Tesla was a part of that.

Tesla uses tomtom now? | Tesla

Back then I had a better link. I have always seen Tom Tom as second tier in the US. The only reason I saw for Tesla to use them was the HD mapping.

 

[SMAlset]

I think your ignorance of AP is going to make it difficult for you to have a proper conversation about this topic. AP doesn't "go haywire" and it's as easy to regain control as it is to cancel CC on any other vehicle.

Agreed. I've never heard of AP going rogue. It's not HAL9000, so no "Sorry Dave, I won't do that".

 

[SMAlset]

NOPE! Not driver inexperience, he’s licensed and all. It’s his understanding of Tesla’s functioning. Did Tesla train him on the functioning of AP? I’m just genuinely concerned how much does everyone understand these settings. Do you take a new driver on a drive or info session and show them all the ways they aren’t supposed to use it ?

Every new car these days you encounter has it's own tech to some level and does it their own way. Any new owner of a car is responsible for reading through the owner's manual and learning how to use the car's features. I see it as though you are trying to blame Tesla here, but I'll pose the question if you just bought a new (fill in the blank...Toyota, BMW, etc) do they provide you with operation training. Everyone who buys a car to drive would be licensed to drive on the road. Properly operating what you drive on the road falls to the driver every time.

 

[MP3Mike]

When they changed navigation, a little digging found Nvidia and Tom Tom assembling data for high res GPS. I thought Tesla was a part of that.

Tesla uses tomtom now? | Tesla

Back then I had a better link. I have always seen Tom Tom as second tier in the US. The only reason I saw for Tesla to use them was the HD mapping.

My understanding is that Tesla just uses TomTom for the speed limit database, not for maps or navigation.

 

[Barklikeadog]

The hidden inequality of who dies in car crashes

This data is 8 years old, but adds some data to this point.

It is easy to assume a higher level of safety with the combo of AP and attentive driving... I dont think the difference in safety is as enormous as touted. A few years ago evannex did a survey and found out the typical tesla owner was:
88% male
Age 35-50
Avg AGI 290k

Easy to have those low accident numbers when your owners are mostly from a group who are very safe drivers no matter what they drive.

 

[CSFTN]

I have a dumb AP question as I have never experienced it...

Does AP exceed the speed limit or does it abide by the law?

Its not a nanny. It does what you tell it to do. You set it for speed limit + 7, it goes speed limit +7.

The driver is always in charge.

 

[Krazaak]

Its not a nanny. It does what you tell it to do. You set it for speed limit + 7, it goes speed limit +7.

The driver is always in charge.

Up to a limit, if you accelerate past 95 while autopilot is in control, you get thrown in the penalty box. AP will refuse to reengage until you've stopped and put the car in park.

 

[NerdUno]

Nissan's ProPilot Assist definitely isn't an autopilot, but is still quite useful

Despite your experience, it seems that Pro-Pilot has an affinity for drifting regardless of barriers...

The article didn't suggest "an affinity for drifting," and we haven't found that to be typical behavior. You can certainly design a curve that neither the Tesla nor Nissan can handle. But our experience with the Nissan is that you never see the lane darting that you will encounter with Tesla AP2 when it loses lane markings. And, yes, both vehicles will sometimes drift over a lane marking if a curve is sharp enough. As I said, it's quite similar to what we experienced in AP1 vehicles prior to purchasing our AP2 Tesla. That makes total sense as the Nissan is equipped with Mobileye just like Tesla's AP1 cars. A better synopsis comparing Tesla to Nissan would be that neither ProPilot Assist nor Tesla's AutoPilot is a hands-free autopilot. Both require driver attention at all times and may require the driver to take control of the vehicle depending upon road conditions on a moment's notice.

 

[kkboss]

I would not be making pre-judgments on a system you don't have extensive and practical experience with.

You don't have the experience to determine for yourself what should be permissible and what is not permissible.

You certainly don't have the experience to determine for others what should be permissible and not permissible.

And no, this is not a personal attack.

This is putting emotion and hysteria aside and laying out reasoned and factual arguments.

T

I would not be making pre-judgments on a system you don't have extensive and practical experience with.

You don't have the experience to determine for yourself what should be permissible and what is not permissible.

You certainly don't have the experience to determine for others what should be permissible and not permissible.

And no, this is not a personal attack.

This is putting emotion and hysteria aside and laying out reasoned and factual arguments.



And the first time you engage AP with your family in the car - are you going to return and walk back your statement?

I don't like the hidden undertones that you are somehow more responsible than the rest of us who do engage AP with family in the car..

You are doing exactly what you are asking me not to do, i.e. declaring a system safe to operate for people of all skill levels and backgrounds. Most of us here are in the field of technology, and we know the limitation of technologies. I agree with the fact that semi-autonomous cars are fully autonomous car will make the road safer but how do we get there? AP is safe for the people with knowledge and training on how AP operates on various road conditions, weather conditions, visual backgrounds, camera and sonar limitations. They know what they are getting into.

I feel sad for the drivers who trust the system as advertised and become paying testers of Tesla.

 

[MP3Mike]

Unfortunately, resetting the barrier might not help. To a Model X weighing 2,500kg travelling at 70mph (maybe even faster since no braking), the crash attenuator is no better than a 10-inch memory foam. Below is a video (at 8:50) for 900kg and 1300kg cars hitting an attentuator at 50mph, the car in the video is light so the attentuator improperly bounces the car backward. However, the Model X is so heavy and I can imagine there is no way to bounce even from a restored attentuator. All the resulting force has no way to go but up! Not only the barrier ripped the car wide open loosening everything to the dashboard, the impact also created a huge upward lift, which then flips the car spitting out its guts, sends the driver to the panoramic windshield, and when the car flipped halfway upside down, both a-pillars maybe were crushed there and left the windshield and the rear view mirror (not sure about a dashcam) on the tarmac, some other cars hit it again and again, and finally completes its flipping approaching the barrier. I wonder if both a-pillars were already crushed at the impact.

The ones in the beginning of that video are not the type of crash cushion that Caltrans uses. They look like they have a lot of disposable parts, where the ones Caltrans uses only have to have two bolts replaced to reset them. The other thing is that the Caltrans ones are supposed to vary the absorption rate based on the impact energy rather than being static.

 

[Barklikeadog]

Its not a nanny. It does what you tell it to do. You set it for speed limit + 7, it goes speed limit +7.

The driver is always in charge.

Sorry... I guess I dont understand why a safety system like autopilot would be allowed to perform something as dangerous as speeding. Will Tesla's Full Self Driving system exceed the speed limit as well?

 

[JohnSnowNW]

The article didn't suggest "an affinity for drifting," and we haven't found that to be typical behavior. You can certainly design a curve that neither the Tesla nor Nissan can handle. But our experience with the Nissan is that you never see the lane darting that you will encounter with Tesla AP2 when it loses lane markings. And, yes, both vehicles will sometimes drift over a lane marking if a curve is sharp enough. As I said, it's quite similar to what we experienced in AP1 vehicles prior to purchasing our AP2 Tesla. That makes total sense as the Nissan is equipped with Mobileye just like Tesla's AP1 cars. A better synopsis comparing Tesla to Nissan would be that neither ProPilot Assist nor Tesla's AutoPilot is a hands-free autopilot. Both require driver attention at all times and may require the driver to take control of the vehicle depending upon road conditions on a moment's notice.

Hey, I haven't found AP2 to have an affinity for barriers, so it seems that ascribing affinity for actions of each system is entirely subjective.

 

[SMAlset]

How can Tesla advertise like this:

Automatic Emergency Braking
Designed to detect objects that the car may impact and applies the brakes accordingly

Front Collision Warning
Helps warn of impending collisions with slower moving or stationary cars
​

In my opinion this is clearly misleading, at the best. Seems like the car did not alert the driver at all immediately before the accident, nor did it activate the brakes. So how can someone say the systems did work properly as advertised

Read the Manual for the car and truly understand what it says. It does those things but there are conditions it explains are not covered. How it works has been described previously in this thread. For you to make this statement leads me to believe you don't own a Tesla and are coming at this from excuse me but a clueless position. I can understand not knowing and wanting to learn about it but your position instead appears to be one of Tesla's misleading it's owners or worse. Anyone buying the car will get the manual. It's their responsibility to read through it and understand it before getting in the car and driving.

 

[malcolm]

Was not expecting the choice of music.

 

[kkboss]

No system is perfect. I'd still argue that a system that requires you to be looking forward every 4 seconds is better than one you can jam an orange/water bottle into the steering wheel or your knee against the bottom and close your eyes. In Tesla's defense, I'd say they're both preferable to a car with no insight into driver awareness at all, since we all know that many people don't let a little thing like driving a car interfere with texting and reading.

In the case of the fire truck, perhaps it fell into the overlap where it was unavoidable by the driver and beyond the abilities of the car to detect. In any case, it doesn't invalidate the ability of the Tesla safety systems to benefit in numerous other instances. If every car on the road were forced to go autonomous today and they killed ~18,000 people per year, it would still be a huge improvement.

I'm happy with the Tesla autopilot today. It's consistently improving and I look forward to the point where it advances to match it's full advertised capabilities. I'll continue to treat it with the level of attention that was given to my 16 year old behind the wheel with their permit.

Yep. Be safe out there. AP is not the drive assist system but rather the driver is AP assist system. Once that is clear, AP will improve.

 

[pete8314]

It is easy to assume a higher level of safety with the combo of AP and attentive driving... I dont think the difference in safety is as enormous as touted. A few years ago evannex did a survey and found out the typical tesla owner was:
88% male
Age 35-50
Avg AGI 290k

Easy to have those low accident numbers when your owners are mostly from a group who are very safe drivers no matter what they drive.

I would imagine those stats have drifted if they're a few years old. Back then, it was just Model S, X(?) and Roadster owners, and the vast majority would have bought new. Now you can pick up an S for $40k, and the 3's obviously start to have an impact.

That said, current demographic stats from my site (i.e. people buying accessories, so very likely to be owners - I don't capture AGI):

90% male
Age:
<34: 24%
35-44: 38%
45-54: 24%
>54: 14%

 

[SMAlset]

What about recalls, still driver fault, huh ?

If you are referring to Friday's recall on the steering issue, it was to replace 2 bolts that in northern climates with the use of some kinds of road salt can lead to corrosion and subsequently a part failure, it seems Bosch is the one picking up that tab. Apparently they provided the parts that were at issue here. Not Tesla or driver's fault. Lot of attitude in that short statement.

 

[mongo]

A window could be created with a limited vertical height from the road and a limited horizontal width slightly wider than the vehicle and any stationary object within a specified distance that falls in that window coupled with the vehicles known trajectory should start to apply the brakes to slow the vehicle down.

If the the car had a phased array or other form of steered beam radar, that would work.