Two reports of Teslas on AP hitting stopped vehicles in their lane on the freeway

[St☰v☰]

When I'm on AP, it's starts braking a long way before the car in front slows. Maybe if you have it at 1 car length... mine is set at 5:

Tesla on autopilot rear-ended Connecticut cop car as driver checked on dog: police

And... a fire turck:

NTSB report says California Tesla driver was using Autopilot when he hit a firetruck

 

[Az_Rael]

When I'm on AP, it's starts braking a long way before the car in front slows. Maybe if you have it at 1 car length... mine is set at 5:

Tesla on autopilot rear-ended Connecticut cop car as driver checked on dog: police

And... a fire turck:

NTSB report says California Tesla driver was using Autopilot when he hit a firetruck

A known limitation of Autopilot is it won’t always brake for stopped cars at freeway speeds. In the fire truck incident, they did not have follow set to 1, it was set to one of the higher settings.

 

[MP3Mike]

When I'm on AP, it's starts braking a long way before the car in front slows. Maybe if you have it at 1 car length... mine is set at 5:

Tesla on autopilot rear-ended Connecticut cop car as driver checked on dog: police

Or it wasn't actually on AP, or the driver had their foot on the accelerator, or...

 

[DOCAL]

A moving object is tracked, if it slows then your car slows. However, in this case the police car wasn't moving, it was stationary.

While the radar can see stationary objects, a lot of them are ignored on purpose because you don't want the car slamming the brakes on for signs at the side of the road, signs above the road, bridges etc.

It's a documented limitation of AP, and AEB in other cars too.

 

[St☰v☰]

And Tesla's legal loop hole, "it's a beta version" and the idiot admits he was fumbling around in the back seat with his dog.

 

[Evoforce]

So in the meantime, how many ICE cars have hit police and emergency vehicles today?

 

[seattlite2004]

So in the meantime, how many ICE cars have hit police and emergency vehicles today?

I'm thinking zero that were on "autopilot".

 

[eye.surgeon]

The concerning thing is several other manufacturers have solved this problem. My son's subaru WRX would not have done this. Eyesight is considerably better than autopilot in this regard.

 

[Fredneck]

Or it wasn't actually on AP, or the driver had their foot on the accelerator, or...

I know my car doesn't even start slowing down until it is pretty late when coming up on cars stopping at lights. If they aren't close by it seems like the Tesla assumes they are moving along, then it has to start braking hard to get stopped. I'm not certain it will get stopped in time, so now I always disengage the autopilot before I get very close.

Stupid smart car.

 

[Evoforce]

I'm thinking zero that were on "autopilot".

Sure, since other manufacturers don't call it by that name when they have driver assist... or maybe they had none at all and still hit others.

 

[WilliamG]

A moving object is tracked, if it slows then your car slows. However, in this case the police car wasn't moving, it was stationary.

While the radar can see stationary objects, a lot of them are ignored on purpose because you don't want the car slamming the brakes on for signs at the side of the road, signs above the road, bridges etc.

It's a documented limitation of AP, and AEB in other cars too.

And I can say from experience that the Tesla is miiiiiiles better in this regard than my previous 2016 Golf R with adaptive cruise. If the Golf didn't see/detect the car up ahead at the stop light moving at any time, it will just crash into it. It has to have detected the car moving for it to "tag" it as a a car. The Tesla may work the same way, but I've never had it almost crash into someone on AP like my Golf almost did in adaptive cruise.

 

[St☰v☰]

The concerning thing is several other manufacturers have solved this problem. My son's subaru WRX would not have done this. Eyesight is considerably better than autopilot in this regard.

You know, you're right. Most cars today have some form of a collision avoidance system, not based on AP. But Tesla doesn't, and I'm wondering why they don't, this is a question for Elon. I think they missed the mark on this issue.

 

[Fernand]

It's cute and very worthwhile to inform the public of the looming Tesla threat.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

My son's subaru WRX would not have done this. Eyesight is considerably better than autopilot in this regard.

I thought Eyesight could only stop reliably up to a given speed differential?

From the various test results, I’m not aware of a system in mass production today from any manufacturer that will reliably avoid a collision into a stopped object when the vehicle is initially at freeway speed.

I’d be interested in knowing whether the Tesla detected the car and did any AEB before the collision.

We’ll probably never know though. Doesn’t look like an 60mph collision result, so maybe it slowed a bit. Like I said, we’ll probably never know.

 

[MrBadger]

And its not just Tesla btw

Why Tesla's Autopilot Can't See a Stopped Firetruck

The same is true for any car currently equipped with adaptive cruise control, or automated emergency braking. It sounds like a glaring flaw, the kind of horrible mistake engineers race to eliminate. Nope. These systems are designed to ignore static obstacles because otherwise, they couldn't work at all.

 

[Petrlol]

My son's subaru WRX would not have done this. Eyesight is considerably better than autopilot in this regard.

Better tell your son to be careful.
('19+) - 2019 - Adaptive cruise/EyeSight not recognizing stopped traffic?

 

[JTWIRE]

When I'm on AP, it's starts braking a long way before the car in front slows. Maybe if you have it at 1 car length... mine is set at 5:

Tesla on autopilot rear-ended Connecticut cop car as driver checked on dog: police

And... a fire turck:

NTSB report says California Tesla driver was using Autopilot when he hit a firetruck

Heard the guy in Ct. was looking after his pet.

 

[Saghost]

The fire truck was a couple years ago, and I don’t think it would happen with today’s firmware.

I don’t know what happened with this new case in CT, but I’m guessing it is some form of mode confusion - the car didn’t think it was doing what the driver thinks it is doing.

As someone noted above, one obvious way for this to happen is the driver accidentally pressing the accelerator while they twist in the seat to look behind them.

Detecting stopped cars is a fundamental challenge for all Adaptive Cruise Control and Autonomous systems, but these days Tesla has gotten pretty good at it.

 

[mystery]

What are the push bumpers on police cars used for? One use is in police chases and trying to pit a perp's vehicle but what about pushing a vehicle out of a travel lane on a busy highway? In NYC, NYPD will push cars around / off to the side of the road, if it means safety / unobstructing a traffic blockage. If the vehicle is completely disabled to the point where it can't be even physically pushed, perhaps that is another story. Of course we dont know how long the disabled vehicle was disabled and how long the police vehicle was on-site / whether it could have physically pushed the disabled vehicle.

 

[azred]

My wife seldom uses AP — or even ACC — on her Tesla, but I use AP or ACC almost everywhere on mine. I trust it to stop but it makes her nervous when she is the passenger — and admittedly the car does brake late and hard. Heaven forbid it fails to brake as I would have mere seconds to manually apply the brakes. Tesla has greatly improved the lag time for AP to accelerate from a stop in traffic, but stopping definitely needs work.

Now if they would just solve merging lanes!