Tesla employee killed in crash involving FSD?

[Supcom]

Sure, if someone in the area wants to drive the specific road with both features it might be interesting. But really only AP/Autosteer needs to be tested since FSDb was nearly certainly not in use.

And they need to be sh$t faced drunk while they do it.

My hypothesis on this crash was that the driver was on AP. He got a wheel nag and, being drunk, tugged the wheel too hard and accidentally disengaged. Maybe the music was cranked up too loud to hear the chimes, or maybe he was just too drunk to steer the car.

 

[Tam]

And they need to be sh$t faced drunk while they do it.

My hypothesis on this crash was that the driver was on AP. He got a wheel nag and, being drunk, tugged the wheel too hard and accidentally disengaged. Maybe the music was cranked up too loud to hear the chimes, or maybe he was just too drunk to steer the car.

According to Electrek:


"Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Robert Madden, who led the investigation, has rolling tire marks at the site of the crash, which means that the motor kept sending power to the wheels at the time of impact.

There were also no skid marks found.

Madden said

“Given the crash dynamics and how the vehicle drove off the road with no evidence of a sudden maneuver, that fits with the [driver-assistance] feature”"

The steering would not be that straight if the AP were not active. The speed would be reduced unless the driver was pressing on the accelerator.

Tesla did report to NHTSA that “a driver-assistance feature had been in use at least 30 seconds before impact.” The question is whether AP, EAP, FSD, or FSDb are certainly not manually driving.

 

[Supcom]

According to Electrek:


"Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Robert Madden, who led the investigation, has rolling tire marks at the site of the crash, which means that the motor kept sending power to the wheels at the time of impact.

There were also no skid marks found.

Madden said

“Given the crash dynamics and how the vehicle drove off the road with no evidence of a sudden maneuver, that fits with the [driver-assistance] feature”"

The steering would not be that straight if the AP were not active. The speed would be reduced unless the driver was pressing on the accelerator.

Tesla did report to NHTSA that “a driver-assistance feature had been in use at least 30 seconds before impact.” The question is whether AP, EAP, FSD, or FSDb are certainly not manually driving.

Could have been TACC if the wheel was tugged too hard.

 

[Tam]

Could have been TACC if the wheel was tugged too hard.

True. With TACC, the machine controls the speed to almost perfection, but you lose the perfect steering. The steering would leave a tire mark indicating that it's controlled by an imperfect human driver or, even worse, utterly out-of-control with no controls from a machine or human.

But you do have the point. The NHTSA only requires OEM to report when accidents happen with L2 (ADAS) but not below L2.

AP is L2 and is a required reporting.

TACC alone is not L2, so initially, Tesla did not report to NHTSA. Only after a "complaint" that Tesla finally did.

So, this thread is not about whether an L2 was not used in this case, but it's about, hey, not FSDb if you can prove it!

 

[Tam]

@AlanSubie4Life & @flutas

I am not sure what you disagree with.

NHTSA does not require L2 accident reports?

TACC alone is below L2 so not a required report?

Something else???

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

@AlanSubie4Life & @flutas

I am not sure what you disagree with.

NHTSA does not require L2 accident reports?

TACC alone is below L2 so not a required report?

Something else???

The algorithm knows what I want:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1757809345092595927

The NHTSA only requires OEM to report when accidents happen with L2 (ADAS) but not below L2.

This seems incorrect based on this Tweet.

Anyway: You seem to be making the argument that Tesla knows an ADAS was active, and it is clear from the detailed reporting and quotes above that that is not the case. That is what I disagree with and not sure why you are making that argument.

No one knows, and no one will ever know (we do have to take Tesla’s word for it that they have no cellular data, though).

 

[Yeahnah…….]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2024/tesla-full-self-driving-fatal-crash

WaPo reporting on an FSD-involved fatality of a Tesla employee. Did we already know about this or is this breaking news?

Elon said that the car did not have FSD reality is that the driver was intoxicated

 

[zoomer0056]

The algorithm knows what I want:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1757809345092595927

This seems incorrect based on this Tweet.

Anyway: You seem to be making the argument that Tesla knows an ADAS was active, and it is clear from the detailed reporting and quotes above that that is not the case. That is what I disagree with and not sure why you are making that argument.

No one knows, and no one will ever know (we do have to take Tesla’s word for it that they have no cellular data, though).

Basic Autopilot consists of two features. Autosteer and Traffic Aware Cruise Control. Techgnostic uses the word Autopilot instead of Autosteer. The phrase "Autopilot or TACC" only makes sense if using the terms incorrectly.

 

[Tam]

The algorithm knows what I want:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1757809345092595927

This seems incorrect based on this Tweet.

Anyway: You seem to be making the argument that Tesla knows an ADAS was active, and it is clear from the detailed reporting and quotes above that that is not the case. That is what I disagree with and not sure why you are making that argument.

No one knows, and no one will ever know (we do have to take Tesla’s word for it that they have no cellular data, though).

Thanks! That really clears it up!

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Thanks! That really clears it up!

A little follow up on this RE: the follow-up Tweet above. I think these SGO (Standing General Order) rules are great because they capture cases outside the 30-second window (like cases where the owner incorrectly thought ADAS was engaged!). And maybe other edge cases as well (like being out of cell contact which might make it unreported by Tesla even if the computer is intact - so owner would have to self-report to start investigation). So disagree with Rohan there. Wide nets are good as long as the result is not overwhelming.

Anyway this should be no surprise to anyone reading between the lines of the WaPo article, which was really unclear on this point, though it was easy to draw this conclusion if you kind of drew the most reasonable interpretation from the article text. There was no confusion in this case, as is claimed as a reason to reconsider the SGO rules.

Impressive the amount of "conclusions" and factual statements are being made in the complete absence of confirmable facts in this case. Can anyone please let us know the actual facts of this case? Not hearsay, not speculation - facts.

Please see this thread and direct inquiries here. There is little in dispute in this case, and the only witness alleged that AP was in use (though his memory is foggy). Tesla doesn’t really dispute that - they just say there is no way to know and no one will ever know. And they would say use of AP was specifically not recommended here (though notably not prevented, which regulators would definitely care about). But anyway please address that here.

 

[DrGriz]

I share Alan's frustration with WaPo and their reporting about anything Tesla. They always conflate AP and FSD, even in this article about a possible first fatality. And they never seek to educate. I have also seen no reporting of the follow up tweet clarification of no FSDb download, which would be germane. It's so predictable that it has to be willful.

I also believe that the most likely scenario was AP disengaged with TACC still running. The driver had multiple disengagements and persisted in turning it back on, so it wasn't handling the curves which also fits with AP. I drive very similar roads with both AP, and FSDb when I decide it's worth it, and AP fails to negotiate many such curves well depending on grade and speed. I'm talking yesterday.

When that's happening, common sense says do not keep doing it! It's on him and sad for his family but it's no wonder no attorney will take the case.

WaPo can bite me.

 

[flutas]

@AlanSubie4Life & @flutas

I am not sure what you disagree with.

NHTSA does not require L2 accident reports?

TACC alone is below L2 so not a required report?

Something else???

I'm disagreeing with this part specifically.

The steering would leave a tire mark indicating that it's controlled by an imperfect human driver or, even worse, utterly out-of-control with no controls from a machine or human.

Because that's not how physics work.

Cars, by the very nature of physics want to go straight (if properly aligned). They won't randomly start swerving like you imply.

My guess, from the police report graphic:

He was using AP, it nagged him, he tugged the wheel too hard, the car went straight off the road, he hit the brakes (which disabled TACC) and then slammed into the tree, pinning the accelerator.

 

[Tam]

I'm disagreeing with this part specifically.



Because that's not how physics work.

Cars, by the very nature of physics want to go straight (if properly aligned). They won't randomly start swerving like you imply.

View attachment 1018641

My guess, from the police report graphic:

He was using AP, it nagged him, he tugged the wheel too hard, the car went straight off the road, he hit the brakes (which disabled TACC) and then slammed into the tree, pinning the accelerator.

Thanks for the explanation.

However, I would caution on the theoretical physics and real-life application.

It is pretty much like Elon Musk's physics, which predicts that his tunnel would have a supersonic speed of 700 MPH, but in reality, the current Boring Company has a maximum speed of 40 MPH.

In real life, there are other factors that affect the perfection of theoretical physics, such as there might be a dip or bump when the car departs the road, there might be uneven surfaces, potholes, rocks... on the dirt shoulder that throw off the alignment of the tires. That's why it needs the automation of the machine to keep it straight while compensating for the imperfection of the dirt surface.

 

[MikeChicago]

No one seems to acknowledge that Tesla told investors that “it’s impossible to know if FSD was engaged, records lost, car didn’t ping home during accident due to poor cellular coverage.” Then publicly said “FSD could not be engaged because it was not installed.”

So, which is it then?

To add insult to injury, Musk tweets it wasn’t installed “unfortunately” because it would have prevented the accident. His words. Not mine.

So, again I ask, which is it and why isn’t anyone, including the publication in question, asking these questions?

This isn’t journalism. This also isn’t corporate transparency. Choose your side. Both have some explaining to do, in my opinion.

Life isn’t black and white. It’s okay to consider both sides and ask important questions with an open mind and in good faith.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

No one seems to acknowledge that Tesla told investors that “it’s impossible to know if FSD was engaged, records lost, car didn’t ping home during accident due to poor cellular coverage.” Then publicly said “FSD could not be engaged because it was not installed.”

Two different issues. Discussed above.

One is ADAS use. (Did they really say they didn’t know whether FSD Beta specifically was engaged? Where is the press release for that claim you are making?)

One is which ADAS options were available. Elon was careless and should have specified FSD Beta was unavailable. Now FSD includes FSD Beta, but was not the case then. (There’s an issue now that if you get ahead of the Beta development version then you cannot get the latest FSD beta, but you still have access to FSD Beta…I think (? Someone please correct me if I am wrong since I am always on the held back branch so don’t know what is actually on the latest branch…but pretty sure we are in wide release).) But it was totally different back then since the base version did not include and FSD Beta at all though it did include some irrelevant FSD features previously discussed.

 

[MikeChicago]

Two different issues. Discussed above.

One is ADAS use. (Did they really say they didn’t know whether FSD Beta specifically was engaged? Where is the press release for that claim you are making?)

One is which ADAS options were available. Elon was careless and should have specified FSD Beta. Now FSD includes FSD Beta but was not the case then.

“We don’t have access to the logs. The police were not able to recover it after the fire, and Tesla reportedly told the police that it didn’t receive the logs over the air. Therefore, it couldn’t confirm if any driver-assist features were activated at the time of the crash.”

 

[stopcrazypp]

No one seems to acknowledge that Tesla told investors that “it’s impossible to know if FSD was engaged, records lost, car didn’t ping home during accident due to poor cellular coverage.”

They said it's impossible to know if ADAS was engaged at the time, they didn't say it was impossible to know if FSD Beta specifically was engaged. Statements like yours show how the telephone game that happens in the media can lead to misleading statements.

Then publicly said “FSD could not be engaged because it was not installed.”

So, which is it then?

To add insult to injury, Musk tweets it wasn’t installed “unfortunately” because it would have prevented the accident. His words. Not mine.

So, again I ask, which is it and why isn’t anyone, including the publication in question, asking these questions?

This isn’t journalism. This also isn’t corporate transparency. Choose your side. Both have some explaining to do, in my opinion.

Life isn’t black and white. It’s okay to consider both sides and ask important questions with an open mind and in good faith.

Musk meant FSD Beta was not installed. Also, from the video footage of the system active in the car, the owner didn't have FSD Beta, so that can be ruled out. That doesn't mean however he couldn't have had NoA, Autosteer, or TACC active. That bit is what Tesla can't say if it was active or not, given the records were destroyed.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

“We don’t have access to the logs. The police were not able to recover it after the fire, and Tesla reportedly told the police that it didn’t receive the logs over the air. Therefore, it couldn’t confirm if any driver-assist features were activated at the time of the crash.”

Yes! This is a correct statement (if you believe them anyway). They said nothing about FSD and really what was relevant (in terms of your alleged contradiction) was FSD beta as discussed above.

Quite straightforward.

There is no contradiction other than Musk’s misstatement, which is explained above, and is understandable since he was using the colloquial term for the Safety-Score-validated narrow release of FSD Beta which was a special software branch limited at that time to a few thousand people (not sure the exact number, you’d have to review contemporaneous posts guessing at that).

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Also, from the video footage of the system active in the car, the owner didn't have FSD Beta, so that can be ruled out.

I am not aware that the video footage proves lack of access to FSD Beta. You cannot tell from what I saw. It simply shows NOA use on the freeway, which is what an FSD Beta user in the high Safety Score group who had received the special FSD Beta download would have had access to at that time in that ODD (and any EAP or FSD buyer would have had the same access in that ODD).

We have to take Musk’s word for that (but it seems very likely given the very limited release).

All quite straightforward. It’s weird that the WaPo just does not provide a flowchart; it is their specialty.

 

[kabin]

According to Electrek:


"Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Robert Madden, who led the investigation, has rolling tire marks at the site of the crash, which means that the motor kept sending power to the wheels at the time of impact.

There were also no skid marks found.

Madden said

“Given the crash dynamics and how the vehicle drove off the road with no evidence of a sudden maneuver, that fits with the [driver-assistance] feature”"

The steering would not be that straight if the AP were not active. The speed would be reduced unless the driver was pressing on the accelerator.

Tesla did report to NHTSA that “a driver-assistance feature had been in use at least 30 seconds before impact.” The question is whether AP, EAP, FSD, or FSDb are certainly not manually driving.

I thought someone said the wheels were spinning after it stopped.

If so I thought all new vehicles were designed to disable the engine (motor) upon air bag deployment. I'm pretty Tesla does it as well. If not it might be time for another recall.