[UPDATED] 2 die in Tesla crash - NHTSA reports driver seat occupied

[gearchruncher]

Either the rule is not necessary for any vehicle, or if it is necessary then it has to apply to all vehicles, and Tesla would be no different than anyone else. You are cherry-picking Tesla's automation systems specifically for criticism while ignoring the implications of your analysis to other vehicles. This is the very definition of bias.

Read the thread. I was responding to the following:

The use of the name by Tesla is completely appropriate, those who are "confused" should learn the meaning of the word instead of blaming others who use it correctly.

@ZsoZso was claiming that Tesla's AP is just like an aircraft AP, which does not replace a human, and the name is appropriate. I was pointing out that the FAA would never approve Tesla's AP as an "Autopilot" because Tesla clearly allows it to be used in environments where very fast takeovers are required. I was not saying Tesla's product shouldn't be allowed, but that the name Autopilot could be confusing and is actually not well aligned with standard aviation use of the name.

But this is also the case for regular cruise control, which has been available in automobiles for over 60 years. And in those 60 years, no such rule has been enacted by the NHTSA.

We have "cruise control" in airplanes too, it's called autothrottle. Nobody calls it an autopilot, and it has completely different standards given how different the risk is when it fails.

Given the altitude of most planes in flight there is more distance to cover in that time should something go wrong mid air unlike the extreme shorter distance to travel for a car on the road so not sure that's a fair comparison unless I'm misunderstanding what you said.

Aircraft autopilots can take off and land aircraft. They are close to the ground in many cases. But you are right in many cases an aircraft autopilot is way easier to make than one for a car. But the difficulty of making something is not relevant to how you name it- the name tells you what it's function is, and the function of Tesla's autopilot is much different than an aircraft autopilot due to the level of monitoring needed by the operator.

 

[qdeathstar]

Tesla's own statistics say that their cars without any active safety features (pre-2015 cars) get into accidents that trigger airbags at half the rate of the average car on the road. What do you believe this is if not demographics?

Who cares about how safe a car that isn’t in an accident is?

If I’m not in a wreck, I don’t care about whether or not a car gets into accidents.

I only care about a safe car while I am in a wreck, so obviously the most important factor in determining a “safe” car is what happens when you become a statistic.

But to play your game, id suggest the automatic breaking that occurs the moment you take your foot of the accelerator as a reason. (As opposed to an ICE engine which is always outputing some torque until you press the break. That extra half a second time it takes to switch from the gas to the break probably prevents quite a few accidents.

 

[gearchruncher]

If I’m not in a wreck, I don’t care about whether or not a car gets into accidents.

Literally 50% of Tesla's safety statistics come from them NOT GETTING INTO ACCIDENTS AT ALL. I'd much rather not have an accident at all than survive one. How come Tesla doesn't publish statistics about fatality/injury rates once in an accident instead of just the chance of an accident? This is why the demographics discussion came up- because the discussion is about the chance of getting into an accident, not the injuries that occur once the accident happens. Tesla's own data shows a Tesla is 50% less likely to get into an accident due to the demographics of the drivers, and then another 50% less likely due to the non-AP safety features.

But to play your game, id suggest the automatic breaking that occurs the moment you take your foot of the accelerator as a reason. (As opposed to an ICE engine which is always outputing some torque until you press the break.

What are you talking about? ICE vehicles decelerate greatly when the throttle is reduced. If it was literally true that positive torque was always generated by the engine, then an ICE car would accelerate forever, up to the speed of light, with nobody pressing the throttle.

Almost every car completely shuts off fuel when you are at no throttle and the RPM is above idle. There's literally no fuel being injected to create any kind of torque. Have you ever driven a manual car and felt how it slows down when you let off the throttle? Trucks even use this engine braking specifically because it's so effective ("jake brake").

The reason automatics coast is because they disconnect themselves from the engine, as the engine will cause dramatic braking. But this is not torque, it's just not any resistance from the engine.

 

[qdeathstar]

Literally 50% of Tesla's safety statistics come from them NOT GETTING INTO ACCIDENTS AT ALL. I'd much rather not have an accident at all than survive one. .

im not talking about Tesla, I’m talking about the end user, silly. My point is I agree with your second sentence.

What are you talking about? ICE vehicles decelerate greatly when the throttle is reduced.

nah ah. They coast and slow down due to wind drag. That’s different than Tesla which uses the motor to actively slow the car while recharging the battery. If you don’t understand that honey, I suggest you open up your Tesla manual. If you own one tho.

If it was literally true that positive torque was always generated by the engine, then an ICE car would accelerate forever, up to the speed of light, with nobody pressing the throttle.

Nah uh bro. Get out on your ice car And put in drive. hold down the break as hard as you can then floor the gas and tell me what happen. You no move. Cause the deceleration force is greater than the acceleration force. Science dude!

Almost every car completely shuts off fuel when you are at no throttle and the RPM is above idle. There's literally no fuel being injected to create any kind of torque.

let try this again. Put car in drive, let foot off break, what happen? Ahhhhh. Neat.

 

[gearchruncher]

let try this again. Put car in drive, let foot off break, what happen? Ahhhhh. Neat.

Oh, are we only talking at idle and at a stop, not while driving? I'd think any accidents that occur here are highly unlikely to cause injuries.
None of my ICE cars have "Drive". They are all manual transmissions. It's almost like bundling all ICE vehicles would be like bundling all EV vehicles (which have a large range of creep, regen, and even transmission behaviors).
If this behavior of rolling forward slowly while in gear is so dangerous, why can you tell a Tesla to do it (creep mode)? Why don't they turn it off in modern automatics? (it's just software that does this today, it has nothing to do with being an ICE engine).

nah ah. They coast and slow down due to wind drag. That’s different than Tesla which uses the motor to actively slow the car while recharging the battery. If you don’t understand that honey, I suggest you open up your Tesla manual. If you own one tho.

I'd suggest you do some research on "pumping losses" on ICE engines. It is not free to spin an ICE engine- in fact at low throttle settings almost 50% of your fuel can be spent just on creating a vacuum in the engine. It's a primary reason high horsepower engines get worse fuel economy- because they have to use lower and lower % power settings to cruise at legal speeds, and why small turbo engines can be so efficient. It's also why Diesel engines are more efficient as they have no throttle plate or manifold vacuum. If you are at any kind of speed and turn off the fuel and shut the throttle on an ICE engine, it can create just as much braking force as a Tesla. The unique thing electric motors do is maintain this to much lower speeds where an ICE engine would start to stall. We also tend to program this braking force out of ICE engines because it wastes energy (it's just converted to heat) while an EV can recapture it.

 

[qdeathstar]

Oh, are we only talking at idle and at a stop, not while driving? I'd think any accidents that occur here are highly unlikely to cause injuries.
None of my ICE cars have "Drive". They are all manual transmissions. It's almost like bundling all ICE vehicles would be like bundling all EV vehicles (which have a large range of creep, regen, and even transmission behaviors).
If this behavior of rolling forward slowly while in gear is so dangerous, why can you tell a Tesla to do it (creep mode)? Why don't they turn it off in modern automatics? (it's just software that does this today, it has nothing to do with being an ICE engine).


I'd suggest you do some research on "pumping losses" on ICE engines. It is not free to spin an ICE engine- in fact at low throttle settings almost 50% of your fuel can be spent just on creating a vacuum in the engine. It's a primary reason high horsepower engines get worse fuel economy- because they have to use lower and lower % power settings to cruise at legal speeds, and why small turbo engines can be so efficient. It's also why Diesel engines are more efficient as they have no throttle plate or manifold vacuum. If you are at any kind of speed and turn off the fuel and shut the throttle on an ICE engine, it can create just as much braking force as a Tesla. The unique thing electric motors do is maintain this to much lower speeds where an ICE engine would start to stall. We also tend to program this braking force out of ICE engines because it wastes energy (it's just converted to heat) while an EV can recapture it.

I guess you never driven a Tesla or other EV before. If you not understand EV slow down faster than ice cars then you are mistaken. It ok. Here cookie.

 

[Cheburashka]

I guess you never driven a Tesla or other EV before. If you not understand EV slow down faster than ice cars then you are mistaken. It ok. Here cookie.

Not really. It all depends on how you are driving. If regen is set to low on the Tesla it won't slow down faster at all.

If you downshift on an ICE car it will slow down really fast as well without needing to apply the brakes. Truck drivers use this technique all the time to slow down, while going down hills, etc.

 

[PhantomX]

Not really. It all depends on how you are driving. If regen is set to low on the Tesla it won't slow down faster at all.

If you downshift on an ICE car it will slow down really fast as well without needing to apply the brakes. Truck drivers use this technique all the time to slow down, while going down hills, etc.

Especially with manual transmission. That's why people do heel-toe during downshift to get the lower gear to slow down the car, like you mentioned about truckers slowing their truck using lower gears.

 

[qdeathstar]

Not really. It all depends on how you are driving. If regen is set to low on the Tesla it won't slow down faster at all.

If you downshift on an ICE car it will slow down really fast as well without needing to apply the brakes. Truck drivers use this technique all the time to slow down, while going down hills, etc.

there are always weird margin cases. But I’d bet 90 percent of EV peeps drive with regen on. Which would help explain the lower crash rate brodensky.

only 2.7 percent of cars sold were manual so y’all’s little diddy about stick shifts seems irrelevant

 

[gearchruncher]

I guess you never driven a Tesla or other EV before. I’d you do not understand EVs slow down faster than ice cars then you are just mistaken. It ok.

Ok, we'll go with this for a second. It appears you fully agree that once on the friction brakes, the EV regen doesn't matter, it's all about tires. So it's only the time you are between the throttle and the brake in an emergency where you get a bit of extra braking. Let's say you're really slow on the pedals and it takes you 500ms to get from fully lifting off the throttle to being fully on the brakes.

Tesla limits regen to about 0.16G for passenger comfort, and has a max regen of 60kW. 0.16G for 500ms is 1.8 MPH. So this extra braking slows you down an extra 1.8 MPH vs a car with perfect coasting. Not a lot of people are hurt in 1.8 MPH accidents.

Realize that full ABS brakes are about 1G- so the friction brakes are 6X as effective as regen. It's not the fault of an ICE car if people aren't braking sufficiently, and this can be overcome with non-EV technologies like automatic emergency braking. Are you actually suggesting that the reason Teslas get into 1/2 as many airbag deployment accidents is the EV regen between throttle life and brake application?

 

[qdeathstar]

Ok, we'll go with this for a second. It appears you fully agree that once on the friction brakes, the EV regen doesn't matter, it's all about tires. So it's only the time you are between the throttle and the brake in an emergency where you get a bit of extra braking. Let's say you're really slow on the pedals and it takes you 500ms to get from fully lifting off the throttle to being fully on the brakes.

Tesla limits regen to about 0.16G for passenger comfort, and has a max regen of 60kW. 0.16G for 500ms is 1.8 MPH. So this extra braking slows you down an extra 1.8 MPH vs a car with perfect coasting. Not a lot of people are hurt in 1.8 MPH accidents.

Realize that full ABS brakes are about 1G- so the friction brakes are 6X as effective as regen. It's not the fault of an ICE car if people aren't braking sufficiently, and this can be overcome with non-EV technologies like automatic emergency braking.

I think it slows you down faster than you say, but my point is that crashes that wouldn’t have resulted in impact are instead near misses due to the faster deceleration.

 

[PhantomX]

there are always weird margin cases. But I’d bet 90 percent of EV peeps drive with regen on. Which would help explain the lower crash rate brodensky.

only 2.7 percent of cars sold were manual so y’all’s little diddy about stick shifts seems irrelevant

Actually, any modern automatic transmission that has manual mode can shift to lower gears by the driver. Some of the more sporty cars has modes that will automatically downshift to increase engine braking when brake is applied.

I would say my Model 3 regen braking is strong compared to normal engine braking in our BMW X7 (no manual downshift), but it is less strong than engine braking in my previous BMW M3 with DCT (just letting the gas go in the sports mode).

 

[WaitingForRoof]

Isn’t brake horsepower a big thing with professional race car drivers down shifting to slow down before a curve?

Kinda curious what would stop faster 60 - 0 MPH, 4000 lb EV with regen or 1800 lb Lotus with sport brakes.

 

[gearchruncher]

I think it slows you down faster than you say,

Nice. Man the world has become a post-truth society. Go grab a data logger and prove the people that collected data in the past wrong. You can do it with your phone.

only 2.7 percent of cars sold were manual so y’all’s little diddy about stick shifts seems irrelevant

Tesla's US market share is about 1.5%, so your little diddy about EV regen seems irrelevant.

but my point is that crashes that wouldn’t have resulted in impact are instead near misses due to the faster deceleration.

Earlier you were saying that they avoid 50% of accidents because of regen instead of the driver demographic. You really think that 50% of accidents are a case where if the driver had just been able to slow down 1.8 MPH more, the whole accident would be avoided?

If this is true, all EV's with regen should follow this. The Chevy bolt has stronger regen than a Tesla, so it should be even safer. The Nissan Leaf has regen, and so do all Hybrids. Does a Chrysler Pacifica hybrid get into less accidents than a pure ICE Pacifica? If you can really prove this, you should go work on making it a legal requirement- it's pretty trivial for an ICE car to automatically slow down when you get off the throttle. As mentioned, manual cars already do this and it's specifically programmed out of automatics in the interest of fuel economy.

Seen this recently? Teslas aren't even the safest cars out there. Go get a Volvo, Porsche, or Land rover if safety is your goal and you believe it's all about the car, not the driver demographic:

 

[gearchruncher]

Isn’t brake horsepower a big thing with professional race car drivers down shifting to slow down before a curve?

And the reverse- you often rev match to not brake when you don't want to and upset the car, because the ICE engine will slow down the car so damn much. It's why lots of modern performance cars come with auto rev matching even on full manual transmissions.

Kinda curious what would stop faster 60 - 0 MPH, 4000 lb EV with regen or 1800 lb Lotus with sport brakes.

Tires matter more than anything else. If short braking distances were super important to vehicle safety, we'd all drive around on very sticky R-Comp tires in the summer. I can hit 1.3G in my Model 3 with R-Comps and ~0.9G with all seasons. That's way more important than 500ms of regen, and regen means absolutely nothing to stopping distance once you are on the friction brakes since friction brakes can always overwhelm your tires in a single panic stop.

 

[qdeathstar]

Actually, any modern automatic transmission that has manual mode can shift to lower gears by the driver. Some of the more sporty cars has modes that will automatically downshift to increase engine braking when brake is applied.

I would say my Model 3 regen braking is strong compared to normal engine braking in our BMW X7 (no manual downshift), but it is less strong than engine braking in my previous BMW M3 with DCT (just letting the gas go in the sports mode).

More irrelevant stories. Neat.

 

[qdeathstar]

Nice. Man the world has become a post-truth society. Go grab a data logger and prove the people that collected data in the past wrong. You can do it with your phone.

I wasn’t saying you were wrong about the deceleration spe

Tesla's US market share is about 1.5%, so your little diddy about EV regen seems irrelevant.

Well, except we were comparing Tesla crashes to ice vehicles, no?

Earlier you were saying that they avoid 50% of accidents because of regen instead of the driver demographic.

nope, I didn’t say that.

You really think that 50% of accidents are a case where if the driver had just been able to slow down 1.8 MPH more, the whole accident would be avoided?

I said possibly and some.

.

If this is true, all EV's with regen should follow this. The Chevy bolt has stronger regen than a Tesla, so it should be even safer. The Nissan Leaf has regen, and so do all Hybrids. Does a Chrysler Pacifica hybrid get into less accidents than a pure ICE Pacifica? If you can really prove this, you should go work on making it a legal requirement- it's pretty trivial for an ICE car to automatically slow down when you get off the throttle. As mentioned, manual cars already do this and it's specifically programmed out of automatics in the interest of fuel economy.

I’m not sure, are ev chevys safer? Just because something can make a car safer doesn’t mean it should be required

Seen this recently? Teslas aren't even the safest cars out there. Go get a Volvo, Porsche, or Land rover if safety is your goal:

View attachment 657254

I didnt say safest, I said one of the safest. I agree with me, you agree with me, and the facts agree with me. Excellent!

 

[Cheburashka]

There is zero actual evidence that regen somehow helps avoid accidents.

All the evidence presented here is purely anecdotal.

I think most if not all the hybrid cars, of which there are a lot, have regen too, right? Never heard it being a factor in accident avoidance but it sure is an "interesting" take more in line with fiction than fact.

 

[gearchruncher]

Earlier you were saying that they avoid 50% of accidents because of regen instead of the driver demographic.

nope, I didn’t say that.

Watch those vids and tell me Tesla’s aren’t one of the safest cars on the roads... someone trying to bring up demographics... man get the *sugar* outta here....

But to play your game, id suggest the automatic breaking that occurs the moment you take your foot of the accelerator as a reason. (As opposed to an ICE engine which is always outputing some torque until you press the break. That extra half a second time it takes to switch from the gas to the break probably prevents quite a few accidents.

I think it slows you down faster than you say, but my point is that crashes that wouldn’t have resulted in impact are instead near misses due to the faster deceleration.

 

[Soda Popinski]

On the investment call, they mentioned the steering wheel was deformed, so there was likely someone in the driver's seat upon impact. Also, all seatbelts were unbuckled. They weren't able to recover the SD card data.