Tesla recalls 2 million vehicles to limit use of Autopilot

[wdolson]

Airplanes have "flown themselves" for a long time because autopilots are generally glorified cruise controls. There's no intelligence or automatic decision making. They fly courses, altitudes, and speeds programmed by the pilot(s). It's a very manual process. You don't just hit "fly me there" like with FSD and you don't just dial in a destination like in a car GPS.

Airliners do have tech to avoid collisions. TCAS has been around since the early 90s. If two planes with TCAS detect they are on a collision course, there are automatic responses the planes will make to steer away from one another.

The vast majority of airports in the US do not have "people on the ground watching everything". At these smaller airports the pilots handle it themselves using eyes and radio, just like drivers at a roundabout. And many people flying those little airplanes VFR never file flight plans no matter where they're going.

Private plane pilots are encouraged to file flight plans and many do when flying any distance. The traffic around most private plane airports is very low. Any airport where traffic is getting anywhere close to 1/10 what you would encounter on a city street, there is ground control monitoring air traffic. Every city also has a regional air traffic center that tracks all air traffic in the region, even flying in and out of smaller airports. They aren't necessarily in contact with those aircraft, but the aircraft are being tracked. If one of those aircraft starts getting close to commercial air traffic they will be contacted.

I worked in the avionics end of the aviation industry for a while. I've watched that same air traffic data the ground control people monitor in the lab. I could sit there and watch every plane in the air over the Puget Sound area on one screen.

Planes can go dark on that system by switching off the transponders. That's what the 9/11 hijackers did. There was talk after the attack to put in radar in the ground systems to detect aircraft with their transponders off. I don't know if they did that or not. I've been out of the aviation business since 2001.

 

[fholbert]

The vast majority of airports in the US do not have "people on the ground watching everything". At these smaller airports the pilots handle it themselves using eyes and radio, just like drivers at a roundabout. And many people flying those little airplanes VFR never file flight plans no matter where they're going.

But hands down, the vast majority of air traffic is separated by Air Traffic Controllers on the ground. Even those departing uncontrolled airports often call an Air Traffic Control facility after airborne for separation from other traffic. In addition, most aircraft have equipment that broadcast tail number, position, altitude and ground speed every second. That transmission is received by ground stations and other aircraft and seen on a display in the cockpit and ATC facilities.

If a pilot chooses not to participate in some or all of the above they are restricted to lower altitudes, slower airspeeds, can not use most ‘major highways’ or get within 30 miles of a large airport. There are a few exceptions to this, but they will be slowly going away.

With all that, in aviation minimum horizontal separation is measured in miles vs feet in a car.

Pilot over 51 years​

Former Air Traffic Controller both USAF and FAA.​

 

[AndrewZ]

NHTSA head steps down. May be we won't have more recall later.

NHTSA head who led Tesla Autopilot investigation to step down

Acting NHTSA Chief Ann Carlson has announced plans to step down, after she oversaw a two-year investigation into Tesla's Autopilot system.

www.teslarati.com

Or it gets worse, that's a possibility as this person was just an acting head of the department and there are limitations around how long someone can stay in a temporary role like that

 

[fholbert]

Doesn’t it limit use of FSD to limited access highways?

I hope you’re right.

All versions of autopilot needs to be limited to highways where traffic isn’t encountering stop lights and stop signs. Where traffic isn’t turning across lanes of opposite direction traffic. Where pedestrians aren’t interacting with traffic.

It‘s clear people aren’t smart enough to turn it off on city streets, so it needs to be forced.

 

[zroger73]

I've noticed that almost like clockwork over eight months of ownership, I tend to receive updates after ~15% of the fleet gets them according to NotATeslaApp/TeslaFi for my '23 MY w/HW3 with software update preference set to advanced. As of this post, 2% of the fleet has 2023.44.30.1. Maybe this update will roll out more quickly since it contains a recall - we'll see.

About six hours after posting this, I received 2023.44.30.1 last night while the fleet was still at 2%. The fleet is at 6% as of this post.

 

[Tha_Ape]

I hope you’re right.

All versions of autopilot needs to be limited to highways where traffic isn’t encountering stop lights and stop signs. Where traffic isn’t turning across lanes of opposite direction traffic. Where pedestrians aren’t interacting with traffic.

It‘s clear people aren’t smart enough to turn it off on city streets, so it needs to be forced.

Dumb cruise control (L1) works anywhere as long as you're going over 20(?)mph in most cars since the 90s. Didn't matter if there were stoplights or not.

Almost all cars with L2 work everywhere as well, as long as you're going over a certain speed and the cameras can see lines. My 2010 Prius has no restrictions on where to use it and there are literally 100s of car models that can do lane keeping and dynamic cruise. Why penalize Tesla over their implementation? Admittedly they're at the higher end of L2, but it's still in the same category as my 2010 Prius was.

Once you get to L3+, I agree, highway use only. L2 is still wholly the drivers responsibility to use correctly.

 

[rlsd]

About six hours after posting this, I received 2023.44.30.1 last night while the fleet was still at 2%. The fleet is at 6% as of this post.

I only see 4.3% pending update as of this post.

 

[zoomer0056]

I only see 4.3% pending update as of this post.

NotATeslaApp screen shot installed, not pending

 

[AndrewZ]

Dumb cruise control (L1) works anywhere as long as you're going over 20(?)mph in most cars since the 90s. Didn't matter if there were stoplights or not.

Almost all cars with L2 work everywhere as well, as long as you're going over a certain speed and the cameras can see lines. My 2010 Prius has no restrictions on where to use it and there are literally 100s of car models that can do lane keeping and dynamic cruise. Why penalize Tesla over their implementation? Admittedly they're at the higher end of L2, but it's still in the same category as my 2010 Prius was.

Once you get to L3+, I agree, highway use only. L2 is still wholly the drivers responsibility to use correctly.

The NHTSA is reactive in nature and doesn't know there are problems unless people complain or there is legal action, Tesla is being penalized because users/owners submit complaints and because there have been plethora Autopiloted-related lawsuits in courts. If the same treatment hasn't been applied to other cars, it's because those complaints/lawsuits don't exist and thus it hasn't become a problem for the NHTSA to address.

If you have a problem with the ADAS in your 2010 Prius, you should submit a complaint.

 

[zoomer0056]

The NHTSA is reactive in nature and doesn't know there are problems unless people complain or there is legal action, Tesla is being penalized because users/owners submit complaints and because there have been plethora Autopiloted-related lawsuits in courts. If the same treatment hasn't been applied to other cars, it's because those complaints/lawsuits don't exist and thus it hasn't become a problem for the NHTSA to address.

If you have a problem with the ADAS in your 2010 Prius, you should submit a complaint.

That ^^^ plus Tesla is the King of the hill and one of a kind, making it a target with all spotlights pointing their way.

 

[sublimejackman]

I hope you’re right.

All versions of autopilot needs to be limited to highways where traffic isn’t encountering stop lights and stop signs. Where traffic isn’t turning across lanes of opposite direction traffic. Where pedestrians aren’t interacting with traffic.

It‘s clear people aren’t smart enough to turn it off on city streets, so it needs to be forced.

Tesla could fix this for regular AP.

Like they've already written software that does a pretty good job of detecting intersections (EAP and FSD, not perfect but better than doing nothing).

Tesla could just add a safety feature to regular AP that does that flashing red nag and beep beep when approaching an intersection and if the driver doesn't react timely, bring the car safely to a stop. Heck, it could even suspend AP for a pre set of time if this happens.

But they won't. Cause they spent too many years gaslighting the community.

 

[AndrewZ]

That ^^^ plus Tesla is the King of the hill and one of a kind, making it a target with all spotlights pointing their way.

Pushing boundaries risks being pushed back upon, for sure

Tesla is much more inclined to take risk than the big legacy OEMs

 

[fholbert]

The NHTSA is reactive in nature and doesn't know there are problems unless people complain or there is legal action, Tesla is being penalized because users/owners submit complaints and because there have been plethora Autopiloted-related lawsuits in courts.

Why are the Tesla owners different?

Were they promised something other manufacturers didn’t promise?

 

[sublimejackman]

Why are the Tesla owners different?

Cause they are new. But also cause the CEO can't keep his mouth shut. Also, any short seller, hater, or attention seeker with $30k can buy one and drum up controversy by filming themself doing something dumb.

But mostly cause the CEO can't keep his mouth shut

 

[AndrewZ]

Why are the Tesla owners different?

Were they promised something other manufacturers didn’t promise?

That seems plausible, perhaps this is even influenced by something as mundane as system naming conventions

Hmmmm

Selling vehicles with Full Self-driving Capability surely doesn't suggest driver attention isn't necessary and that the cars can drive themselves.

Maybe snubbing regulators and portraying them as crotchety fun-ruiners who deserve to be circumvented is... Nah that doesn't contribute to people buying wheel weights and covering up cameras.

 

[Mardak]

Tesla is being penalized because users/owners submit complaints

Don't need to be an owner or even from the US to submit fake complaints. Unclear if majority of complaints are still fake or led to this recall.

Tesla report shows most negative NHTSA complaints are 'fake' and a tactic from 'detractors'

According to an email obtained by Electrek, Elon Musk shared with Tesla employees a report from last week that shows most NHTSA...

electrek.co

 

[zoomer0056]

Pushing boundaries risks being pushed back upon, for sure

Tesla is much more inclined to take risk than the big legacy OEMs

Yeah, I get that. Also, Tesla is Tesla and is not restricted by status quo restrictions and boundaries.

 

[AndrewZ]

Don't need to be an owner or even from the US to submit fake complaints. Unclear if majority of complaints are still fake or led to this recall.

Tesla report shows most negative NHTSA complaints are 'fake' and a tactic from 'detractors'

According to an email obtained by Electrek, Elon Musk shared with Tesla employees a report from last week that shows most NHTSA...

electrek.co

Complaints are tied to VIN and duplicates etc are removed, and the NHTSA follows up with people in some cases

Legal action and reported accidents, however, are likely the real determinant.


People/organizations who have a hate on for Tesla might even buy their products and use them to submit complaints

 

[sublimejackman]

Don't need to be an owner or even from the US to submit fake complaints. Unclear if majority of complaints are still fake or led to this recall.

Tesla report shows most negative NHTSA complaints are 'fake' and a tactic from 'detractors'

According to an email obtained by Electrek, Elon Musk shared with Tesla employees a report from last week that shows most NHTSA...

electrek.co

Yeah. NHTSA responds to legal actions mostly. Then initiate an investigation, then collect data, then if a defect is found they work with manufacturer to issue a recall for the defect. It's a process.

NHTSA, in this case, after a few crashes leading up to 2021 involving mostly Teslas but also other car companies, made it mandatory for manufacturers who had level 2 automation or higher report when they were aware of any collisions involving those vehicles if the system was on within 30 seconds of the collision.

In 2022, only Tesla reported these incidents using telemetrics directly to the NHTSA. In 2023 Subaru and GM also began reporting collisions via telemetric means as well.

In 2023 there have been 900+ collisions involving a Tesla reported to the NHTSA, ~200 of which were in conditions that most of us would consider inappropriate for AP usage (snow, fog, signle lane backroads, intersections, etc...). This is compared to GM and Subaru reporting fewer than 100 total collisions in any conditions, combined.

The NHTSA concluded that the AP system was being abused (and just in this forum thread we can see it is) and that Tesla wasn't doing enough to curtail this abuse.

So, working with Tesla, they issued this recall. Completely reactionary, starting with legal complaints before 2021.

 

[shonline]

I wonder if we're going to get stuck with this new nag festival up here in Canada? US laws do not apply to us because we are a different country but knowing Tesla, they'll just lump us in with this silliness as well.