Witnessed Tesla crash (pictures)- Collision Avoidance?

[Cr8it]

We were taking my wife's Mercedes into the dealer and literally in front of the dealership a beautiful Model S rear ends the Mercedes in front of the dealership. Was wondering why collision avoidance didn't prevent this. Shouldn't it that have kicked in?

To add insult to injury ever Mercedes salespeople seemed happy to see it (I was one of the customers they lost to Tesla) and were telling customers in the showroom, this wouldn't happen with Mercedes collision avoidance system. One salesperson actually said to his customer, "well if you've seen the news about the company they are having nothing but problems with the collision avoidance and auto pilot." "We have people come to trade Tesla's in all the time."

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[B8BB8B]

Can you buy a base model Tesla without collision avoidance?

If so, that possibly could have happened?

 

[Dstrohl]

From the model S manual:

Warning: Automatic Emergency Braking is not designed to prevent a collision. At best, it can minimize the impact of a frontal collision by attempting to reduce your driving speed. Depending on Automatic Emergency Braking to avoid a collision can result in serious injury or death.​

If you are following too close, there's nothing that will be able to help. (possibly what we REALLY need is a bug on the dash that says "WARNING, following distance too close to safely stop!")

I can't speak for the Mercedes system, but I suspect it says something along the same lines.

 

[Phoenixhawk101]

Did you see the actual accident? I'm wondering how it happened. As I understand it current collision avoidance is more of a collision severity reduction, it will still allow the crash, but tries to reduce the damage.

 

[chillaban]

So, judging from the damage, it looks like a collision under 10mph of impact speed, which may be well within the realms of the collision mitigation system. Tesla's system, like most systems, is not meant to stop 100% of collisions. It's meant to dramatically reduce the impact velocity and severity of collisions.

I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader, but I am sure you can find a lot of images of Mercedes vehicles (including the S classes that come with standard collision avoidance) that have gotten in rear-end accidents. And maybe even a youtube video of a demonstration gone horribly wrong.

I think it's awfully disingenuous of the salesperson to misrepresent Mercedes as having an impervious collision avoidance system, because that cannot be further from the truth.

 

[Zaphod]

*Sigh*...here we go again...

 

[trils0n]

It is certainly possible to crash even with AEB and FCW. Follow too close (most people do) and you simply don't have enough distance to avoid a collision, regardless of how quick the computer can apply the brakes.

 

[Cr8it]

Did you see the actual accident? I'm wondering how it happened. As I understand it current collision avoidance is more of a collision severity reduction, it will still allow the crash, but tries to reduce the damage.

Saw it seconds after it happened. Your description and the word AVOIDANCE makes it clear - it isn't Collision ELIMINATION.

 

[trils0n]

"We have people come to trade Tesla's in all the time."

This is a pretty common dealership tactic, whatever competing brand of car you mention they say have people trade them in all the time.

(And Model S is outselling the MB S Class by a good amount.)

 

[LastGas]

Can you buy a base model Tesla without collision avoidance?

No, you can't, at least not since Tesla cars started coming with AP hardware.

 

[Chopr147]

We have people come to trade Tesla's in all the time."

This comment to an informed person would be laughed at. I would have asked that salesman to show me one Tesla trade-in.
It is of course common practice but I am leary of any salesperson knocking another brand. This does not help their cause to me. And another example of dealership BS we have had to endure for the last 50 years

Sorry, back to the OP's subject. Mercedes has been advertising accident avoidance for years. I would like to know , would it have stopped?

 

[virtualsmack]

that looks staged. what a great marketing tactic. i kid, i kid.

on the note about cheesy sales tactics... a toyota salesman told me once that they get lamborghini owners buying prius' all the time. wtf. haha.

 

[siteexperts]

If a dealer told me "his" cars would avoid such an accident, I would just ask him to get the keys and prove it to me.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Older Model S, pre-AP, don't have collision avoidance. You can't tell from a distance how old that Model S was. And as others have pointed out, the system merely slows down the car - it doesn't slam on the brakes to completely avoid the collision.

BTW, it is entirely possible that the Mercedes collision avoidance system is better than the current Tesla implementation. I have yet to see a review comparing that feature head to head (maybe for obvious reasons!).

 

[MP3Mike]

No, you can't, at least not since Tesla cars started coming with AP hardware.

Actually you can, every single one of them. What you can't avoid buying is a car without AEB, Automatic Emergency Braking. (Well unless you count all cars delivered between now and when they reenabled AEB late this year or early next year.)

 

[AMPd]

Older Model S, pre-AP, don't have collision avoidance. You can't tell from a distance how old that Model S was. And as others have pointed out, the system merely slows down the car - it doesn't slam on the brakes to completely avoid the collision.

BTW, it is entirely possible that the Mercedes collision avoidance system is better than the current Tesla implementation. I have yet to see a review comparing that feature head to head (maybe for obvious reasons!).

It's a facelift model S

 

[larmor]

I had AEB kick in on I-5 with a new glc 300 mercedes and recently with my model X where it detected a stopped car two cars ahead...

 

[AudubonB]

Very seriously, that could have been our Tesla. Here's how:

1. About 15 months ago, we were less than two miles south of that very location.

2. Our 2013 P85 does not have Collision Avoidance.....but that is irrelevant to what happened!

3. Because...we were stopped at an intersection....and the dingledong directly in front of us, upon our red light turning green...started up in reverse and whammed into us. Had she been going faster, our front end could have looked like that. As it ws, her insurance company just paid for a new nosecone.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Was wondering why collision avoidance didn't prevent this

Doesn't sound like it was the case in this instance, but another aspect of AEB is that when activated it will reduce the speed by 25 mph, then disconnect.

 

[BobbyKings]

My parents in law crashed their Mercedes (fully equipped) two weeks ago rear ending a car in slow heavy traffic.

My Model S slammed the breaks today in slow heavy traffic because the car in front of the car I was following suddenly stopped.

Tesla wins according to my experience.