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

[Andyw2100]

And what follows from that?

The Tesla UI needn't strive to be intuitive?

thegruf pointed out that with all the confusion among members here, who are almost certainly better informed than the average Tesla owner, it was clear Tesla could be doing more to educate its owners on how the cars' features work.

You countered with the point about Apple and how UIs should be intuitive.

My point was that while that's all well and good, right now that isn't the case with Tesla's features, where the stakes are a lot higher, and where the cost of misunderstanding the features and how they work could be catastrophic. Sure, Tesla can work to get where Apple tries to be. But a quicker solution, that could be implemented much sooner, and could very possibly save lives, would be something along the lines of what thegruf was suggesting.

 

[Caligula]

Maybe Tesla should just make everything operate off of a single large button?

 

[AWDtsla]

And what follows from that?

The Tesla UI needn't strive to be intuitive?

Handguns are used by people to kill themselves and used incorrectly.
What follows from that?

A large percentage of the people will not read the manual for a handgun or for a Telsa.

Well designed cars, guns, cell phones, and everything else operate as intuitively as possible.

Documention is never a substitute for a good implementation.

 

[sms]

A little off topic? A number of responder have indicated that they set the distance/stopping time at 6 or 7 when driving at hwy speeds. Does anyone have an opinion whether if one is drafting behind a tractor/trailer or bus it would be safe at a lower number than when following a car because I assume that it takes the big rigs significantly longer to stop? Thanks

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A little off topic? A number of responder have indicated that they set the distance/stopping time at 6 or 7 when driving at hwy speeds. Does anyone have an opinion whether if one is drafting behind a tractor/trailer or bus it would be safe at a lower number than when following a car because I assume that it takes the big rigs significantly longer to stop? Thanks

 

[Deeppurple]

Here’s the excerpt from the Tesla Manual’s Automatic Emergency Braking section:


“When Automatic Emergency Braking has reduced the driving speed by 40 km/h (25 mph), the brakes are released. For example, if Automatic Emergency Braking applies braking when driving at 90 km/h (56 mph), it releases the brakes when the speed has been reduced to 50 km/h (31 mph).
Automatic Emergency Braking operates only when driving between 5 mph and 85 mph. “


Perhaps the system worked and the emergency breaking kicked in, reduced the speed of the car by 25mph and then disengaged letting the car continue to roll. The driver then applied the breaks hard.

 

[Andyw2100]

A little off topic? A number of responder have indicated that they set the distance/stopping time at 6 or 7 when driving at hwy speeds. Does anyone have an opinion whether if one is drafting behind a tractor/trailer or bus it would be safe at a lower number than when following a car because I assume that it takes the big rigs significantly longer to stop? Thanks

A lot of people think it is a pretty bad idea to draft behind tractor trailers. That being said, a quick Google search turned this up:

"At 55 mph, it takes a large truck two football fields to come to a stop. In general, it takes an 18 wheeler 40% longer to stop than an average car. In adverse road conditions, it can take much longer. "

 

[theslimshadyist]

Maybe Tesla should just make everything operate off of a single large button?

View attachment 108479

That was pretty damn funny!

 

[AWDtsla]

Maybe Tesla should just make everything operate off of a single large button?

View attachment 108479

You think it's a joke but go check out the other thread about owners not being able to tell their feet apart and accidentally hitting the gas.

 

[Ivo-G]

You think it's a joke but go check out the other thread about owners not being able to tell their feet apart and accidentally hitting the gas.

Tell their feet apart? I only use one foot to go or brake, my right foot.

Not being able to tell the pedals apart, or inadvertently striking both pedals if wearing booths, that I can imagine happening.

 

[LetsGoFast]

Here’s the excerpt from the Tesla Manual’s Automatic Emergency Braking section:


“When Automatic Emergency Braking has reduced the driving speed by 40 km/h (25 mph), the brakes are released. For example, if Automatic Emergency Braking applies braking when driving at 90 km/h (56 mph), it releases the brakes when the speed has been reduced to 50 km/h (31 mph).
Automatic Emergency Braking operates only when driving between 5 mph and 85 mph. “


Perhaps the system worked and the emergency breaking kicked in, reduced the speed of the car by 25mph and then disengaged letting the car continue to roll. The driver then applied the breaks hard.

Wow. That's a pretty terrible implementation.

 

[msnow]

Here’s the excerpt from the Tesla Manual’s Automatic Emergency Braking section:


“When Automatic Emergency Braking has reduced the driving speed by 40 km/h (25 mph), the brakes are released. For example, if Automatic Emergency Braking applies braking when driving at 90 km/h (56 mph), it releases the brakes when the speed has been reduced to 50 km/h (31 mph).
Automatic Emergency Braking operates only when driving between 5 mph and 85 mph. “


Perhaps the system worked and the emergency breaking kicked in, reduced the speed of the car by 25mph and then disengaged letting the car continue to roll. The driver then applied the breaks hard.

I thought he said TACC had slowed the car to about 5 mph but didn't stop which resulted in the accident. If that was the case AEB wouldn't have kicked in because it was outside of the lower limit.

 

[JST]

Wow. That's a pretty terrible implementation.

I've been thinking the same thing and trying to figure out why they would do it that way.

Best I can guess, they figure AEB is a system to buy time for the driver to react--it's not supposed to fully take over, just brake hard and fast to bridge the gap between the need for action and the driver reacting.

As for why it doesn't work under a certain speed, my SWAG here is that the parking lot case is hard for the car to deal with; when the car is moving that slow, it's presumably because there are obstacles around that the driver is aware of and paying attention to. Discriminating between a stopped car and a slow moving one that the driver is aware of is probably harder when the closing speeds are that low.

Again, just a guess.

It also sounds like TACC will generally slow the car down to a full stop when enabled. This is separate from AEB. In this case, it sounds like TACC got confused at a very low speed, below the threshold for AEB. The OP fell into a gap between AEB and TACC capabilities.

All of this, to me, is just further evidence that these systems aren't as advanced as maybe we think they are.

Edit: I will also note that I really wonder about the summon feature, in light of the lower limit on AEB. Is the calculus there that the "driver" is going to be paying careful enough attention that she will be able to stop the car if the sensors lose the plot? Or are there different default rules for what the car does under "summon" than what it does when using TACC?

 

[brec]

You think it's a joke but go check out the other thread about owners not being able to tell their feet apart and accidentally hitting the gas.

Hitting the ... what?!

 

[msnow]

Hitting the ... what?!

You remember don't you? Back in the day they used to have this thing called a "gas pedal".

 

[AWDtsla]

Hitting the ... what?!

Don't worry, no carbon was released in that post.

 

[Andyw2100]

Edit: I will also note that I really wonder about the summon feature, in light of the lower limit on AEB. Is the calculus there that the "driver" is going to be paying careful enough attention that she will be able to stop the car if the sensors lose the plot? Or are there different default rules for what the car does under "summon" than what it does when using TACC?

I'm not sure how you are comparing Summon and TACC. With Summon the car is moving very slowly, and presumably using the sonar sensors to maneuver very precisely. Summon, driving at 1 or 2 MPH , if that, is certainly going to allow the car to get closer to known objects than the car is ever intentionally going to get when TACC is engaged.

 

[dhanson865]

Hitting the ... what?!

The long skinny pedal on the right.

I learned in physics class in high school that calling it an accelerator pedal is a misnomer because the brake pedal causes acceleration as well.

Acceleration, in physics, is the rate of change of velocity of an object. An object's acceleration is the net result of any and all forces acting on the object, as described by Newton's Second Law.

Notice that it doesn't say that the value has to be positive or negative. Some people get caught up on the term deceleration and assume acceleration is the opposite when in fact acceleration in physics is a neutral term that covers both gaining speed and losing speed.

 

[bws]

Hi,

I would like to provide an alternative view. It is not necessary to set the TACC distance lower either because your speed changed, because traffic is is heavier (or lighter), or because you are driving in California with more aggressive drivers.

We drive in the San Francisco Bay Area in heavy traffic all the time. Both my wife and I leave the TACC distance set to 7 at all times. While it may be annoying the first few days when a few people cut in front of you, if you are able to take a few deep breaths and relax, you may find that AP allows you to drive with less stress and build a lot less road rage. With the value at 7, there is much more time to react to situations when you need to take over, and once you give up on trying to prevent anyone from 'getting in front of you' your stress level when driving in heavy traffic will go way down. Even at 7, the car will come to a complete stop in heavy traffic, you do not need to lower the value. (The distance decreases dramatically when going at low speeds, I am not sure you can even tell the difference between 4 and 7 when going under 10 MPH, I don't change it, but you are quite close enough even at 7).

I hope this perspective is useful to some,

-Brent

 

[Ocelot]

I've been following this thread since day one and it is appalling that people continue to attack the OP.

Also, I hate to say it but even if there was an anomaly with TACC/AP, Tesla isn't going to come out and admit it.

You may consider filing a report with NHTSA if you truly believe that there was a fault.

Disclaimer before anyone attack a me: I have an S, am an investor in TSLA (2012), enthusiast, and have an X reservation.

I agree completely with Bhuwan.

The only thing I hope he is wrong about is the admission of guilt. If there is something wrong history tells us best to admit it and move on...rather than cover things up...GM ignitions...Toyota sudden unintended acceleration etc. I find it super surprising that some people can be such staunch defenders of a brand new technology with still lots of unknowns. For full disclosure I am heavily invested in TSLA.

Personally I do not think I would use any autonomous features...until much more proven.

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Written by lawyers for Tesla's protection in far out, corner cases, and it's self-contradictory.

If the OP is reporting accurately, this was NOT a far out, corner case.

While I've only read the first and last few dozens of posts, I have an educational background in Human Factors Engineering, and also the viewpoint of having both "Classic" and an AP Model S's in the garage.

The OP is to be highly commended for pointing out what happened, and should not have been subject to the remarkable vitriol from many posters here, some of whom appear to not even be driving AP MS's. Here's a tip, especially for them: You're not in a position to understand the HF changes that occur in using AP, ESPECIALLY over time. Tesla cannot introduce an AP system that works 99.9% of the time. Or even 99.99% of the time. We need better than six sigma reliability here.

Random thoughts:

1. Of great concern, if the AP failed--which appears to be the case based on OP's comments--the system needs to have more aggressive/robust system monitoring and failure alerting.

2. Given the OP's and car's inexperience with AP, a more cautious approach would have had the distance set to far more than "2," and the guidance from the DS to set it at "2" wasn't good advice. Having said that, it is a legitimate setting and the OP was well within norms to use that setting.

3. The idea of AP is enhance the driving experience. If it works 999 times in a row, bringing the car to a safe stop, but then fails to do so on the 1,000th stop, this is a MAJOR problem for Tesla, notwithstanding the legal disclaimers. To have to intensely monitor AP to catch that "1 in a 1,000" time it won't stop the car is an absurd proposition.

4. Tesla should give the OP a P90D loaner, impound the accident car, have Tesla engineers carefully review logs and measure equipment mounting and connectivity, and then remove all the applicable AP components and bench test them until it finds out what went wrong.

Trust me when I tell you this as it's based on personal experiences that I need not get into in such a public forum (and were from events in 2013, dozens of SW revisions ago): Tesla is far from perfect; best to find errors early and quickly.

That about sums it up.

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This is the most infuriating thread. The driver didn't stop the car because he thought AP/TACC/SOMETHING in this amazing car was going to stop the car automatically like it had 500 times before. OK? Can we stop pretending that is a question?

At the same time, the driver has accepted full responsibility for the accident. So can we stop acting as if he didn't?

All he wants to know (and all the clear-headed people on this thread want to know) is: what happened? Did he accidently turn TACC off? Did a sensor fail? Is there a corner case where the algorithm fails - what might that corner be? You'd think Tesla would want to know, because it would help them make a car where this would be less likely to happen (whether it was the driver's fault or the car's).

Maybe I can break it down another way: LEGALLY, it's the drivers fault. Done, end of story. SCIENTIFICALLY, we don't know what happened and would like to find out, because all of us rooting for Tesla to become more and more successful want to see this happening less and less in the future, regardless of the drivers' competence.

All the posters smugly saying "it's the driver's fault, end of story" are the worst kind of blind "you're holding it wrong" fanboys - not only are you not helping the company you're such a fan of get better, you're making forward progress that much more difficult.

So can we please have a New Years Miracle and let the rest of the posts in this thread be about why the crash happened and not about who's fault it was? Because the latter question has been answered 50 times by the OP himself.

Well that helps sum it up as well.



here is another thread with several reports of the near same experience as OP...

What the Heck is up with Autopilot?

 

[Ivo-G]

Hi,

I would like to provide an alternative view. It is not necessary to set the TACC distance lower either because your speed changed, because traffic is is heavier (or lighter), or because you are driving in California with more aggressive drivers.

We drive in the San Francisco Bay Area in heavy traffic all the time. Both my wife and I leave the TACC distance set to 7 at all times. While it may be annoying the first few days when a few people cut in front of you, if you are able to take a few deep breaths and relax, you may find that AP allows you to drive with less stress and build a lot less road rage. With the value at 7, there is much more time to react to situations when you need to take over, and once you give up on trying to prevent anyone from 'getting in front of you' your stress level when driving in heavy traffic will go way down. Even at 7, the car will come to a complete stop in heavy traffic, you do not need to lower the value. (The distance decreases dramatically when going at low speeds, I am not sure you can even tell the difference between 4 and 7 when going under 10 MPH, I don't change it, but you are quite close enough even at 7).

I hope this perspective is useful to some,

-Brent

Thank you Brent, you may not often post but when you do...!

I will certainly consider using the TACC at setting 7 after reading this and thinking deeply about it (once I get my car that is).
In my experience people will try to cut in front of you no matter how big a gap you leave, so best to have te room to react than to try and dissuade them with smaller gaps.