WARNING: I rear-ended someone today while using Auto Pilot in my brand new P90D!

[KJD]

The service manager at Tesla informed me that the engineers who analyzed the logs from my car found no anomaly: the TACC performed as designed. The system triggered the emergency alarm when the collision was imminent, and the driver (me) applied the brakes after approximately one second (so much for my catlike reflexes). At the time of the accident TACC was fully functioning: no faulty camera or sensor.

I asked why the car didn't stop on its own--why was I required to slam on the brakes in the first place? The service manager told me that I bore all responsibility. I told him I accepted all responsibility. But the emergency alarm sounded only one second before the time of the collision, I explained, rendering it essentially useless. He repeated that the accident was the driver's responsibility and that he wasn't in the car to witness what happened.

I told him that I didn't remember going that fast at the time of impact (it was a fender-bender after all), and that it seemed like the car should have stopped. It wasn't at all like an emergency braking situation (until the very last second). He told me the accident was my responsibility. I may have sworn at him.

I asked about my speed at the point the emergency alarm went off and he promised to ask the engineers. "We can't know if you were going downhill, if there was ice on the pavement. We can't know any of this," he said. I apologized for being so rude.

I've had time to reflect on this minor accident and I've read all the posts in this string and my conclusion is the following: the accident was entirely my fault. I don't blame the car one iota. I wasn't careful enough and I had unrealistic expectations for the technology. After talking to Tesla, I drove home with my broken nose cone, set the distance to seven, and engaged the AP (my hands hovering above the steering wheel, my foot covering the brake). It worked beautifully.

Thank you for your honesty. It must have been painful to write that post. Hopefully others can learn something from your experience.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Yeah, I drive with the steering wheel slipping through my fingers in my lap - I find that I can apply a little bit of torque here and there just to let the car know I'm here.

Sounds like a lawyer got to the Tesla guy before talking to you. It would be nice to know why the TACC didn't brake in time. But I guess their answer is that TACC won't brake in time in all cases. Nice to know.

 

[Discoducky]

I remember that the car I was following switched lanes, and apparently my car picked up the scent of the unfortunate victim. His car gradually slowed, and I gradually slowed, until we were traveling at around 10 MPH. I remember his car stopped, my car slowed but didn't stop, I slammed on the brakes and hit him. He pulled over on the left shoulder of the highway. I tried to motion him to the right shoulder but to no avail.

The service manager at Tesla informed me that the engineers who analyzed the logs from my car found no anomaly: the TACC performed as designed.

If I could ask you a few questions about the time right before the incident it would be helpful in understanding why the system didn't mitigate all the crash energy or stop prior to impact.

My suspicion is that your manual input to the brake right before impact may just have not been enough force. Do you think you could have put more force on the brake pedal? Or do you think more force to the brake pedal would have stopped the car faster?

Also, was the car in front of you that you hit completely in your lane? And were the lines on the road bright and clearly visible? Was the segment of road straight or was it curved? Were you on a slope at all or was the road slope flat?

 

[theslimshadyist]

Gosh, such a callus response from the Tesla rep but due to the circumstances, he was in full legal defense mode from the very beginning. I'd make a poker play and "raise him", ask for the logs so you have a copy of them. If he won't release then tell him that your attorney will obtain via subpoena! You can bet your sweet A$$ that either Elon or one of his executive team members will be giving you a call to provide you with more courteous details.

Sit back, relax, and grab the popcorn!

 

[jeffro01]

Gosh, such a callus response from the Tesla rep but due to the circumstances, he was in full legal defense mode from the very beginning. I'd make a poker play and "raise him", ask for the logs so you have a copy of them. If he won't release then tell him that your attorney will obtain via subpoena! You can bet your sweet A$$ that either Elon or one of his executive team members will be giving you a call to provide you with more courteous details.

Sit back, relax, and grab the popcorn!

For what purpose? The issue seems pretty cut and dry so why try to take it further than it needs to go?

Jeff

 

[theslimshadyist]

For what purpose? The issue seems pretty cut and dry so why try to take it further than it needs to go?

Jeff

Well, that's a good question but let's just "assume" that Tesla was at fault and something in the system failed, do you think they would be so easily forthcoming with the information? In today's world, I'm not simply satisfied with that sort of reply unless someone can point out or show me the data to support the conclusion.

So, if you took your vehicle, any vehicle for that matter in for maintenance and the service adviser said, "All of your tires are worn out and need to be replaced". Are you going to believe him at his word or will you personally look at the tread patterns yourself before you authorize the work?

 

[Max*]

Gosh, such a callus response from the Tesla rep but due to the circumstances, he was in full legal defense mode from the very beginning. I'd make a poker play and "raise him", ask for the logs so you have a copy of them. If he won't release then tell him that your attorney will obtain via subpoena! You can bet your sweet A$$ that either Elon or one of his executive team members will be giving you a call to provide you with more courteous details.

Sit back, relax, and grab the popcorn!

Sigh, why do you think Tesla is hiding something? Autopilot is a driver's aid, everyone agrees the OP is responsible.

As a side note, if you believe Tesla is hiding something, don't you think they'd fudge the logs?

- - - Updated - - -

The only thing I'd like to understand is why AEB didn't kick on. That's it. Was it a limitation of AEB? Malfunction? Etc.?

It wouldn't shift the blame, but I don't get why it didn't work... If OP was decelerating does that counter AEB?

 

[theslimshadyist]

Sigh, why do you think Tesla is hiding something? Autopilot is a driver's aid, everyone agrees the OP is responsible.

As a side note, if you believe Tesla is hiding something, don't you think they'd fudge the logs?

- - - Updated - - -

The only thing I'd like to understand is why AEB didn't kick on. That's it. Was it a limitation of AEB? Malfunction? Etc.?

It wouldn't shift the blame, but I don't get why it didn't work... If OP was decelerating does that counter AEB?

I dunno if they are or not, none of us actually know only Tesla knows this! Call it a conspiracy theory!

 

[drsaab]

That is strange. I would have thought they would have said tacc disengaged because you hit the brake but saying tacc was active and you didn't brake in time makes me feel the system is at fault. I have driven 20k on tacc and i would expect it to brake in this situation on its own. The only time I would not is if the car in front changed lanes. The tesla tracked that car and then did not engage lock on the car actually in front of you in time. I have seen this happen multiple times in mb distronic (which I drove 30k miles on), and tacc from tesla. But it's always getting better with the updates in locking on the correct car quicker. If it was locked on the correct car, it should have stopped and to me that is a tesla failure.

 

[theslimshadyist]

As a side note, if you believe Tesla is hiding something, don't you think they'd fudge the logs?

I don't know, the OP doesn't have the logs in order to validate. Didn't I read somewhere that VW is going through a "fudging" issue themselves?

 

[ElectricTundra]

Does the forward facing camera do any image recording? Can techs or engineers access this? What does it show about the crash?

Was this a new use case that they need to account for — TACC is slowing for car A (in front of Tesla) that is slowing, car A moves over a lane, TACC doesn't find the car B in front of car A in time for TACC to react? What is the solution?

 

[Canuck]

I don't know, the OP doesn't have the logs in order to validate. Didn't I read somewhere that VW is going through a "fudging" issue themselves?

Volkswagen set out to deceive. That's different than a cover-up (not that Tesla is engaged in a cover-up, that makes no sense to me).

To the OP, sandstruck, you're a honest and forthright person, from reading of your posts. I have a lot of respect for you. You have a right to be concerned and thank you for sharing your experience. I plan to own a AP car in the not too distant future, and this gives me more reason to wait for 2.0. You deserved to be treated better by Tesla, especially because you took full responsibility and just wanted some answers.

 

[Electricfan]

The service manager at Tesla informed me that the engineers who analyzed the logs from my car found no anomaly: the TACC performed as designed. The system triggered the emergency alarm when the collision was imminent, and the driver (me) applied the brakes after approximately one second (so much for my catlike reflexes). At the time of the accident TACC was fully functioning: no faulty camera or sensor.

I asked why the car didn't stop on its own--why was I required to slam on the brakes in the first place? The service manager told me that I bore all responsibility. I told him I accepted all responsibility. But the emergency alarm sounded only one second before the time of the collision, I explained, rendering it essentially useless. He repeated that the accident was the driver's responsibility and that he wasn't in the car to witness what happened.

I told him that I didn't remember going that fast at the time of impact (it was a fender-bender after all), and that it seemed like the car should have stopped. It wasn't at all like an emergency braking situation (until the very last second). He told me the accident was my responsibility. I may have sworn at him.

I asked about my speed at the point the emergency alarm went off and he promised to ask the engineers. "We can't know if you were going downhill, if there was ice on the pavement. We can't know any of this," he said. I apologized for being so rude.

I've had time to reflect on this minor accident and I've read all the posts in this string and my conclusion is the following: the accident was entirely my fault. I don't blame the car one iota. I wasn't careful enough and I had unrealistic expectations for the technology. After talking to Tesla, I drove home with my broken nose cone, set the distance to seven, and engaged the AP (my hands hovering above the steering wheel, my foot covering the brake). It worked beautifully.

Well, I wonder why this has never happened to me? I drive with AP every single day, in rush hour traffic on weekdays, and Houston traffic is always thick even on weekends. I'm glad it was just a fender bender, and again, I can't thank you enough for sharing the experience. I suspect you didn't get the whole story from the service manager, but then I didn't think you would. I just can't picture them telling you "Yes, the car glitched, we're sorry." There isn't a business in existence that's as honest as that. Of course, maybe AP just didn't have time, since it was set to following at "2". But car companies are a little worse than average on the honesty front (GM ignition debacle, etc). Maybe its because their liability is so great. Its sad Tesla is no better than the rest. Two pieces of advice, for what its worth - keep your distance setting on 7, and get a dashcam with high quality video. I have one on most of the time, although since its not wired into the car I forget to turn it on sometimes.

Good luck, and thanks again.

 

[James Chan]

Maybe he lightly tapped the brake by accident to cancel AP? I think i've done that once before...(or i assumed..)

 

[ecarfan]

@sandstruck, thank you for posting what Tesla had to say. I appreciate your candor and your accepting responsibility.
To me the lesson here is that all the aspects of AP, including TACC, are driver aids only and are not substitutes for good driver judgement. Just because TACC lets you follow a car closely doesn't mean that it will always be capable of preventing an accident no matter what the surrounding vehicles do.
Tesla AP is in its infancy. It will improve dramatically in the near future, I am sure. But we are years away from highly reliable autonomous driving.

 

[vgrinshpun]

I want to second posts by many who thank Sandstruck for sharing his unfortunate experience, while persevering through many unkind to him posts to inform our community in the most objective manner.

I own an older MS, without the AP, and have a question that was prompted by Tesla's representative's statement that TACC performed as designed. From what I've read in this thread any driver input, including applying the brakes cancels the TACC. The question though, does applying the brakes by driver cancels the AEB system as well? I hope that it does not, because if it does, such design would almost eliminate the benefit of the AEB system. If the driver applies brakes to stop the car before an impending collision, but does it with less force that would have been applied by AEB system, while cancelling the AEB, it could lead to an accident in situation when, if not cancelled, AEB system could help to avoid it by applying more braking force than a driver. Based on this it seems that AEB system should not be cancelled by applying the brakes, so that it could provide more braking force if necessary.

I think that situation could be different with TACC and it could have been indeed cancelled by application of the brakes.

So a follow up question to Tesla would be whether the TACC was cancelled once the brakes were applied by the driver, and, additionally, whether the the AEB system operated as designed, and whether it was cancelled or not when brakes due to application of brakes by driver.

May I also suggest communicating with Tesla over e-mail, rather than telephone - in my experience it might be a more productive way of communication/resolving the problems.

 

[Discoducky]

Maybe he lightly tapped the brake by accident to cancel AP? I think i've done that once before...(or i assumed..)

AEB braking function is still on in that scenario. It is cancelled however, if the accelerator or brake is manually pressed (aka manually override takes precedence)

 

[Andyw2100]

I own an older MS, without the AP, and have a question that was prompted by Tesla's representative's statement that TACC performed as designed. From what I've read in this thread any driver input, including applying the brakes cancels the TACC. The question though, does applying the brakes by driver cancels the AEB system as well?

No. (See below.)

AEB braking function is still on in that scenario. It is cancelled however, if the accelerator or brake is manually pressed (aka manually override takes precedence)

That's incorrect.

Here is what the manual has to say:

--
Automatic Emergency Braking does not apply the brakes, or stops applying the brakes, in situations where you are taking action to avoid a potential collision. For example:
• You turn the steering wheel sharply.
• You press the accelerator pedal.
• You press and release the brake pedal.
• A vehicle, motorcycle, bicycle, or pedestrian, is no longer detected ahead.
--

Note the "Press and release the brake pedal." So clearly simply pressing the brake pedal is a different situation, and one that does not cause AEB to not apply the brakes or to stop applying the brakes.

- - - Updated - - -

AP is not very dependable, it happen to me several time already in situation that accident could happen <Snip>
yesterday, with 7.1 update, AP enable, I signal lane change to the left, there is a car at left upper corner, his car back at about my car front with some overlaping. however, my car still try to make the change which almost hit his car. I quickly step in.

I am surprised that no one has pointed this out yet. The above was 100% user error. It is the driver's responsibility to make certain that the lane you are planning to change into is clear --BEFORE-- engaging the turn signal. Once you engage the turn signal, you are telling the car to change lanes.

From the release notes:

 

[Discoducky]

Didn't realize it said in the manual was a brake press and release that overrides AEB. Wonder if it is actually implemented that way in the current software? That could be easily verified...

 

[NoMoGas]

Green1, I am certainly not trying to shirk responsibility. I accept it. But I wonder if you have used the AP feature yet. If you don't trust it, you can't use it at all. The car brakes for you (mine was set at a two car distance so other cars don't come into my lane). It had been working flawlessly until that point.

Well for starters 2 doesn't mean 2 car distance. At 7 it means you will occupy the space the vehicle in front of you is in 3.5 seconds. Having this set so low "so people won't cut in front" makes that response time less and less, in your case 1 second. No way should you beset to 2 on a 65mph freeway. Two things to consider, 1) any chance your foot was resting on gas overiding AP? 2) Remember the instant you hit the brakes you disengage AP.

My settings: 6, 15,000 AP miles in 26 states from NY to LA. Does a car cut in front once in a while? yes. If i get too upset I just hit the go pedal and drive one pedal but truth is it sets me back all of a few car lengths a day who cares? Being overly concerned about people getting in front of me isnt worth the stress, or insurance rates.