When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
They do have steering wheel sensors and will seemingly randomly remind users to hold the wheel if they aren't doing so. But whether that info gets recorded I have no idea.
During a demo at the Tesla factory (Fremont) I recalled being told that there is a black box and it records everything that happens with the car and can be used just like a black box in an airplane post accident. I'd be surprised if investigators are not able to piece this together 1 for 1.
During a demo at the Tesla factory (Fremont) I recalled being told that there is a black box and it records everything that happens with the car and can be used just like a black box in an airplane post accident. I'd be surprised if investigators are not able to piece this together 1 for 1.
Don't most cars have some kind of "black box" now? Regardless, it only records what it was programmed to record. So will never have the complete story.
Most importantly, the Tesla technology failed and someone died. What if it had been a school bus or mini-van full of kids and he crashed into it?
How fast was he going at time of crash vs. speed limit?
I recall where a Tesla vehicle was recorded as vastly exceeding the speed limit in a mountainous area because Autopilot had been programmed by Tesla to drive at the handling extremes, not the posted speed limit.
2015 S550 Palladium/Deep Sea Blue, 2016 Tesla Model S 70D, 2015 Volvo XC70
Originally Posted by terrain
During a demo at the Tesla factory (Fremont) I recalled being told that there is a black box and it records everything that happens with the car and can be used just like a black box in an airplane post accident. I'd be surprised if investigators are not able to piece this together 1 for 1.
Understood, I know that data was pulled from the black box for the summon incident with the truck...I'm just saying that I don't know if the steering wheel "touch" would be recorded...maybe it is. But if it is and the guy wasn't holding the wheel at the time, you'd think Tesla would have put that in their press release...the accident happened in May.
About an hour ago the online edition of the Wall Street Journal has a headline "Tesla's Autopilot Vexes Some Drivers, Even Its Fans--Self Driving System is Flawed and Can Lull Owners Into Danger, Some Claim; Automaker Says AutoPilot Works as It Should"
This headline alone tells the story about Tesla and its dysfunctional culture. In the world of Autos, at the very least the AutoPilot system is defective from a warning standpoint. When I went to law school I learned this is the type of case that the automakers seem to always lose based on the fact that the warnings from the company are insufficient to keep people safe.
Musk is so bold that he tweeted after the accident that this accident is immaterial. Based on the company culture and the fact that Tesla appears to only want to advance "their cause" at the expense of human beings is another reason to not buy a Tesla on top of dysfunctional corporate governance.
Oil-leaking, stinky-gasoline-burning, noise-polluting, maintenance-heavy, 20th-century tech vehicles. You may keep them. 14 more years for MB EVs. Easy choice for me.
This comment is mind blowing in so many ways. You Tesla fan boys just have way too much time on your hands. You live in a world where you want everything to be your way and everyone to drive(excuse me) ride in a car that drives itself. You are not a car person at all. You are a tech guy who wants automotive equality.
By real world I mean as most sane people drive their vehicles in the real world. Any vehicle will go fast given enough time and then it becomes a game of who is stupid enough to drive triple digit speeds for prolonged periods on public roads and risk jail time if caught.
The point being when you are driving a P85D or P90D Tesla and you are driving in normal traffic and you want to pass someone, there is nothing they can do to prevent you from passing them.
We are not talking about track racing here and I'd never race anyone on public streets into triple digit speeds. We are talking about 1/8 mile acceleration or 0-60 type day to day driving scenarios. Basically if I'm stopped at a red light no one in a AMG or hellcat making silly farting exhaust sounds can get in front of me if I don't want them to. Conversely I can out accelerate and make a safe lane change in front of them with plenty of room to spare if I decide to do so and there is nothing they can do about it as the Tesla goes to warp speed in an instant.
Performance is not an area where you will see a Tesla loose in day to day driving. I'd stick to talking about the interior as that's where the tesla can improve
Hates the sound of a engine. Yet owns a E550 and ML350.
Here is another article from MIT Technology Review that once again shows that Musk and Tesla appear to be a "loose cannon" and overstate accident/death stats.
MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW Tesla’s Dubious Claims About Autopilot’s Safety Record
Figures from Elon Musk and Tesla Motors probably overstate the safety record of the company’s self-driving Autopilot feature compared to humans.
Tesla Motors’s statement last week disclosing the first fatal crash involving its Autopilot automated driving feature opened not with condolences but with statistics.
Autopilot’s first fatality came after the system had driven people over 130 million miles, the company said, more than the 94 million miles on average between fatalities on U.S. roads as a whole.
Soon after, Tesla’s CEO and cofounder Elon Musk threw out more figures intended to prove Autopilot’s worth in a tetchy e-mail to Fortune (first disclosed yesterday). “If anyone bothered to do the math (obviously, you did not) they would realize that of the over 1M auto deaths per year worldwide, approximately half a million people would have been saved if the Tesla autopilot was universally available,” he wrote. Tesla Motors cofounder and CEO Elon Musk.Tesla and Musk’s message is clear: the data proves Autopilot is much safer than human drivers. But experts say those comparisons are worthless, because the company is comparing apples and oranges.
“It has no meaning,” says Alain Kornhauser, a Princeton professor and director of the university’s transportation program, of Tesla’s comparison of U.S.-wide statistics with data collected from its own cars. Autopilot is designed to be used only for highway driving, and may well make that safer, but standard traffic safety statistics include a much broader range of driving conditions, he says.
Tesla’s comparisons are also undermined by the fact that its expensive, relatively large vehicles are much safer in a crash than most vehicles on the road, says Bryant Walker Smith, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina. He describes comparisons of the rate of accidents by Autopilot with population-wide statistics as “ludicrous on their face.” Tesla did not respond to a request asking it to explain why Musk and the company compare figures from very different kinds of driving.
Google has in the past drawn similar contrasts between the track record of its self-driving cars and accident statistics for humans, says Smith. He, Kornhauser, and other researchers argue that companies working on autonomous driving technology need to drop such comparisons altogether. In April, a RAND Corporation report concluded that fatalities and injuries are so rare that it would require an automated car to drive as many as hundreds of billions of miles before its performance could be fairly compared with statistics from the much larger population of human drivers.
Instead researchers say that Tesla and others need to release more data on the limitations and performance of automated driving systems if self-driving cars are to become safe and understood enough for mass market use.
The tragic crash disclosed by Tesla last week, to a chorus of negative headlines, provides a case study, says Smith. The company’s Autopilot branding and dubious comparisons with figures on human safety have encouraged people to think of it as fully competent, he says. If the company had spent the months since the feature’s October release talking about its development process and how it was refining the technology to deal with difficult situations, the reaction to the crash could have been different, he says.
“The crash could have been a continuation of an established narrative about the costs and benefits, not a surprise event,” says Smith. That more cautious approach may have sold less cars in the short run, but helped the prospects of Tesla and others banking on self-driving technology in the long term, he says. “Companies need to start saying what safety means, how they define and measure that safety and how they will monitor it,” he says.
Autopilot and the more sophisticated systems in testing by Google and others collect huge volumes of data on conditions around them and the actions they take at all times. In California and some other states that permit testing of autonomous cars, companies must report accidents or technology failures that required a human to take over. But the data is generally sparse, and collected in the form of letters, making it hard to scrutinize. Companies like Tesla that have put novel automated driving features on the market aren’t generally obligated to report special data on their performance.
Smith suggests that by releasing more of their data trove, companies could accelerate development of self-driving cars, better prove their worth, and inform efforts to develop ways to hold them to account from a safety perspective.
Elon Musk has said that Tesla would share some of its data on Autopilot with the U.S. Department of Transportation and other manufacturers, although the company has not released details about what will be handed over or when. And with Tesla, Google, established automakers such as GM, and newer startups all working on autonomous driving technologies, competitive pressures could make meaningful coöperation seem unlikely. Kornhauser at Princeton hopes that companies such as Google and Tesla will understand that they and society have more to gain if they do work together.
“They may not want to help the competition, but we’re dealing with other people’s lives,” he says. “We should have more public spiritedness in the effort to do this thing.”
2015 S550 Palladium/Deep Sea Blue, 2016 Tesla Model S 70D, 2015 Volvo XC70
Originally Posted by MTrauman
Here is another article from MIT Technology Review that once again shows that Musk and Tesla appear to be a "loose cannon" and overstate accident/death stats.
Good article, thanks for posting. But they could have brought up another point: because Autopilot is supposed to supplement the driver, i.e., not be fully autonomous, if it has anything greater than 0% effectiveness, properly measured accident rates (which we don't have) are bound to look better than human-only accident rates, as long as humans are indeed using it to supplement their full attention to the road.
Don't most cars have some kind of "black box" now? Regardless, it only records what it was programmed to record. So will never have the complete story.
Most importantly, the Tesla technology failed and someone died. What if it had been a school bus or mini-van full of kids and he crashed into it?
How fast was he going at time of crash vs. speed limit?
I recall where a Tesla vehicle was recorded as vastly exceeding the speed limit in a mountainous area because Autopilot had been programmed by Tesla to drive at the handling extremes, not the posted speed limit.
No genius, Tesla technology did not magically fail but the driver apparently wasn't paying attention as he should have. There's only so much that can be done when an 18 wheeler does not yield to oncoming traffic and decides to cut across oncoming traffic.
This accident could have just as easily have happened in a Mercedes S Class if the driver activated lane keeping assist and didn't pay attention to the road as he should have.
Both the systems offered by Tesla and Mercedes are NOT fully autonomous and never meant to abdicate the responsibility of the driver to drive the car.
And what is that about the speed limit? The car drives the speed limit set by the driver as it should. You must live in a monetary if you drive the speed limit. When we travel long distances we set Tesla Autopilot to about 10 MPH over the speed limit so it keeps pace with traffic on the upper north east.
Astounding how our culture is increasingly lacking any sense of self responsibility. A driving aid that is not autonomous is used to the point where someone does not pay attention and when an accident is caused by a negligent truck driver cutting across oncoming traffic it is the fault of the car manufacturer because god forbid anyone be held responsible for their actions.
No genius, Tesla technology did not magically fail but the driver apparently wasn't paying attention as he should have. There's only so much that can be done when an 18 wheeler does not yield to oncoming traffic and decides to cut across oncoming traffic.
This accident could have just as easily have happened in a Mercedes S Class if the driver activated lane keeping assist and didn't pay attention to the road as he should have.
Both the systems offered by Tesla and Mercedes are NOT fully autonomous and never meant to abdicate the responsibility of the driver to drive the car.
And what is that about the speed limit? The car drives the speed limit set by the driver as it should. You must live in a monetary if you drive the speed limit. When we travel long distances we set Tesla Autopilot to about 10 MPH over the speed limit so it keeps pace with traffic on the upper north east.
Astounding how our culture is increasingly lacking any sense of self responsibility. A driving aid that is not autonomous is used to the point where someone does not pay attention and when an accident is caused by a negligent truck driver cutting across oncoming traffic it is the fault of the car manufacturer because god forbid anyone be held responsible for their actions.
This exact scenario happened in my e class and I stopped using distro
Good article, thanks for posting. But they could have brought up another point: because Autopilot is supposed to supplement the driver, i.e., not be fully autonomous, if it has anything greater than 0% effectiveness, properly measured accident rates (which we don't have) are bound to look better than human-only accident rates, as long as humans are indeed using it to supplement their full attention to the road.
Absolutely. This is the point that many people fail to grasp and this is really the most fundamental matter. Does it increase safety and does it make it less likely you will die or be in an accident. The answer is an unequivocal yes.
Whether in a Tesla or a Mercedes I would like the added benefit of safety systems watching over my shoulder in ASSISTING me avoid accidents. There will still be accidents and people will still die. But if the rate of accidents is cut down by 50% or 300% that is good because it means fewer dead people.
This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Tesla's SEMI AUTONOMOUS system was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles.
Already the Tesla system is better than a human and similar systems are offered by Mercedes, Audi, Hyundai, and other car companies. And these systems will get better by leaps and bounds and will SAVE lives and REDUCE accidents, as they already are doing.
You'd have to lack a brain to process simple math to proclaim that we should remove these systems from public roads when they are ALREADY reducing the rate of accidents.
As Churchill said, perfection is the enemy of progress. If these systems are 2X better than a human at reducing the rate of accidents what point is there in withholding or blaming this technology?
When used as directed you are far safer in a car with these systems and a vigilant driver than you are in a car with just a vigilant driver who is subject to all the distractions, tiring, anger, and other issues humans are subject to that reduce our effectiveness.
This exact scenario happened in my e class and I stopped using distro
And the automatic braking happens in a Tesla too. An accident was avoided in the video below when someone turned in front of a Tesla without yielding.
However the important thing is that these are driver ASSIST systems. Both Tesla and Mercedes describes these systems as such. While they will reduce the possibility of accidents as they do now, they are not infallible. This is why a vigilant driver is required to monitor the safety of the vehicle at all times.
None of these driving aids are designed to abdicate responsibility for paying attention and driving the car. They are not perfect but they will reduce accidents and save lives as they are doing now. These systems will get substantially better in the coming years.
This is what the driver had to say:
"Was travelling a little under 45 mph. There was some rain, but roads were pretty dry. I was watching stopped traffic to my right. I did not touch the brake. Car did all the work."
Hates the sound of a engine. Yet owns a E550 and ML350.
I've been a Mercedes fan for over a decade before Tesla offered a vehicle I could buy.
Yes I hate the stupid farting sounds a combustion engine makes along with the vibration and the stupid gear shifts that are sometimes not where I need them to be. None of these deficiencies are needed for the uncompromised instant acceleration I get in the Tesla.
I still own the E550 because it is pretty much all depreciated and we like having a third vehicle around for when we have friends or family visiting so they have a vehicle to use. The ML350 is what I bought for my girlfriend a while back and we are likely going to replace it with a Model X once they ramp up production and fix some of the production issues.
So yes, I happen to have two Mercedes vehicles in our household but I happen to think those two combustion vehicles have more in common with a gasoline lawnmower than a modern premium car. When I drive either the E550 or the ML350 it is like I'm driving something from a past era. Quite quaint actually.
Good article, thanks for posting. But they could have brought up another point: because Autopilot is supposed to supplement the driver, i.e., not be fully autonomous, if it has anything greater than 0% effectiveness, properly measured accident rates (which we don't have) are bound to look better than human-only accident rates, as long as humans are indeed using it to supplement their full attention to the road.
Good point about the supplement.
This is the reason the Tesla AutoPilot will be deemed to have been deemed defective in a court of law. When one pulls all the evidence together that can be admitted into court it is likely to be determined that there is a Product Defect in the AutoPilot for an ineffective warning. Part of the problem is Musk himself and the way the company has conducted themselves. They have let people believe that the AutoPilot (via the companies and Musk's actions) is more than a supplement. AND this is where the courts (if this ever would end up there or NHTSA) would determine that the system is defective due to improper product warnings as to the exact use of the system. And yes when you turn on the system it gives warnings but the courts in the US will look at more than this and Tesla as a company has not conducted themselves to the standards of a proper product warning. I am not an expert on this subject but I know enough of the case law to speculate what could happen.
No genius, Tesla technology did not magically fail but the driver apparently wasn't paying attention as he should have. There's only so much that can be done when an 18 wheeler does not yield to oncoming traffic and decides to cut across oncoming traffic.
This accident could have just as easily have happened in a Mercedes S Class if the driver activated lane keeping assist and didn't pay attention to the road as he should have.
Both the systems offered by Tesla and Mercedes are NOT fully autonomous and never meant to abdicate the responsibility of the driver to drive the car.
And what is that about the speed limit? The car drives the speed limit set by the driver as it should. You must live in a monetary if you drive the speed limit. When we travel long distances we set Tesla Autopilot to about 10 MPH over the speed limit so it keeps pace with traffic on the upper north east.
Astounding how our culture is increasingly lacking any sense of self responsibility. A driving aid that is not autonomous is used to the point where someone does not pay attention and when an accident is caused by a negligent truck driver cutting across oncoming traffic it is the fault of the car manufacturer because god forbid anyone be held responsible for their actions.
WEBSRFR,
Carful who you call genius. Since you work for Tesla you maybe called as a witness to the defect in the AutoPilot system.
The AutoPilot seems to be defective from a product standpoint due to improper warnings.
As to the AutoPilot system. This system should have detected the trailer of the truck---PERIOD.
AND NO to WEBSRFR the genius that he is, this could not have happened in a Mercedes Benz. I remember looking at some early tests on MB's distronic cruise control system. Before they released the distronic system to the public they showed an S Class rear ending another S Class during a test. They at first had difficulty figuring out what happen. MB finally figured out that in some tunnels there was interference in their radar system and they corrected this BEFORE unleashing the product into the market place--because they conducted the proper R&D. Again another reason I would choose an MB product over a Tesla product any day of the week.
Tesla simply is not testing their systems appropriately. They put the AutoPilot system into the public's hand without the proper R&D and the accident that happened is the result. Now they are dealing with the backlash and the backlash will have broad implications because Musk appears to be a "loose cannon" or a "cowboy" to advance his worldly causes without the company acting like an auto manufacturing company. In the US, Tesla will be held to the standard of a typical auto company in the courts.
WEBSRFR is again showing his lack of intelligence by blaming Joshua Brown for the accident that occurred in his Tesla. There are many factors I am sure that caused the accident and Mr. Brown's death but one factor may certainly be a defective product due to an improper warning with the Tesla AutoPilot system.
It is interesting that WEBSRFR stated the truck driver was negligent. How many court proceedings has WEBSRFR been involved in? Clearly he does not have a legal background. One needs to prove all the elements of negligence before one can say they are negligent. This is different for product manufacturers since auto manufacturers do not need to be found negligent in distributing their products they simply need to be found to have a product sent into the stream of commerce that is found to be defective from a warning, manufacturing, or design standpoint to be strictly liable.
Absolutely. This is the point that many people fail to grasp and this is really the most fundamental matter. Does it increase safety and does it make it less likely you will die or be in an accident. The answer is an unequivocal yes.
Whether in a Tesla or a Mercedes I would like the added benefit of safety systems watching over my shoulder in ASSISTING me avoid accidents. There will still be accidents and people will still die. But if the rate of accidents is cut down by 50% or 300% that is good because it means fewer dead people.
This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Tesla's SEMI AUTONOMOUS system was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles.
Already the Tesla system is better than a human and similar systems are offered by Mercedes, Audi, Hyundai, and other car companies. And these systems will get better by leaps and bounds and will SAVE lives and REDUCE accidents, as they already are doing.
You'd have to lack a brain to process simple math to proclaim that we should remove these systems from public roads when they are ALREADY reducing the rate of accidents.
As Churchill said, perfection is the enemy of progress. If these systems are 2X better than a human at reducing the rate of accidents what point is there in withholding or blaming this technology?
When used as directed you are far safer in a car with these systems and a vigilant driver than you are in a car with just a vigilant driver who is subject to all the distractions, tiring, anger, and other issues humans are subject to that reduce our effectiveness.
Holly hell! Is WEBSRFR retarded
If anyone reads WEBSRFR's post they can figure out that he is being paid by Tesla and is the software developer that is responsible for the AutoPilot.
Continually repeating Tesla's 130 million BS--Does WEBSRFR not get it? Clearly does not.
And the automatic braking happens in a Tesla too. An accident was avoided in the video below when someone turned in front of a Tesla without yielding.
However the important thing is that these are driver ASSIST systems. Both Tesla and Mercedes describes these systems as such. While they will reduce the possibility of accidents as they do now, they are not infallible. This is why a vigilant driver is required to monitor the safety of the vehicle at all times.
None of these driving aids are designed to abdicate responsibility for paying attention and driving the car. They are not perfect but they will reduce accidents and save lives as they are doing now. These systems will get substantially better in the coming years.
This is what the driver had to say:
"Was travelling a little under 45 mph. There was some rain, but roads were pretty dry. I was watching stopped traffic to my right. I did not touch the brake. Car did all the work."
Excellent! If WEBSRFR does work for Tesla he better prepare for termination since to republish this video that will help the Brown's estate may not be looked upon with favor by Musk and his new management team since everyone is leaving Tesla.
This will help Joshua Brown's estate recover damages in a law suit.
This type of video helps prove that the Tesla AutoPilot has a defect in design.
At the very least the AutoPilot system should have braked before the moment of impact. Since it did not read "the White Side of the Trailer" the Brown estate will allege defect in design. This video will be helpful to Joshua Brown's estate against Tesla.
I've been a Mercedes fan for over a decade before Tesla offered a vehicle I could buy.
Yes I hate the stupid farting sounds a combustion engine makes along with the vibration and the stupid gear shifts that are sometimes not where I need them to be. None of these deficiencies are needed for the uncompromised instant acceleration I get in the Tesla.
I still own the E550 because it is pretty much all depreciated and we like having a third vehicle around for when we have friends or family visiting so they have a vehicle to use. The ML350 is what I bought for my girlfriend a while back and we are likely going to replace it with a Model X once they ramp up production and fix some of the production issues.
So yes, I happen to have two Mercedes vehicles in our household but I happen to think those two combustion vehicles have more in common with a gasoline lawnmower than a modern premium car. When I drive either the E550 or the ML350 it is like I'm driving something from a past era. Quite quaint actually.
The stupidity of this post is amazing
"Stupid farting sounds"--this is what a two year old says.
"Combustion vehicles have more in common with a gasoline lawnmower than a modern premium car". Really
This post is so full of sh-- I cannot stop laughing!
You just have to read some of the stuff the Tesla Owners are talking about the Tesla accident that claimed Mr. Brown's life. It is very sad. They are suggesting that by this accident or having people getting killed by Tesla's AutoPilot instead of the proper R&D by the company it will actually help Tesla sell more cars.
Here it is:
Did AutoPilot Accident(s) Actually Help Tesla?
Did AutoPilot Accident(s) Actually Help Tesla?
Submitted by jinx on July 8, 2016
I had a few associates after hearing about the accident, who knew, I drive a Tesla, state, that they "Never knew the car could actually drive itself, wow!".
I would explain to them how it works, and that it is really more of a driver assist if anything. But that I do really love the feature and used on a recent business trip to Chicago (300+ miles). The car did 80% of the driving, I would add.
I would also state, that when I first bought the car, it couldn't "drive itself", but that feature, along with many others came via a software update, kinda of like your phone. "Wow!" again...
The stock price actually went up the next day, and continues to hold steady.
How the accident helps Tesla:
1. Tesla can enhance autopilot going forward in future models or possibly with the current hardware, by making sure the front radar looks a little more higher.
2. More people are now aware of what the Model S can do, and are actually somewhat impressed.
3. Other automakers, will not release their version of "auto-pilot" or keep it scaled it down, because they wouldn't want to take the risk.
What do you all think? Could this sad event actually have helped Tesla?
We may become subject to product liability claims, which could harm our financial condition and liquidity if we are not able to successfully defend or insure against such claims.
Product liability claims could harm our business, prospects, operating results and financial condition. The automobile industry experiences significant product liability claims and we face inherent risk of exposure to claims in the event our vehicles do not perform as expected resulting in personal injury or death. We also may face similar claims related to any misuse or failures of new technologies that we are pioneering, including autopilot in our vehicles and our Tesla Energy products. A successful product liability claim against us with respect to any aspect of our products could require us to pay a substantial monetary award. Our risks in this area are particularly pronounced given the limited number of vehicles and energy storage products delivered to date and limited field experience of our products. Moreover, a product liability claim could generate substantial negative publicity about our products and business and would have material adverse effect on our brand, business, prospects and operating results. We self-insure against the risk of product liability claims, meaning that any product liability claims will have to be paid from company funds, not by insurance.
Oil-leaking, stinky-gasoline-burning, noise-polluting, maintenance-heavy, 20th-century tech vehicles. You may keep them. 14 more years for MB EVs. Easy choice for me.
Easy choice for you, take your EV love and go to a forum where people actually care. True car enthusiasts will never stop loving combustion engines and some of us like electric cars as an idea... doesn't mean they are the greatest.
MTrauman, while there is a fault with Tesla's system to a point... You have to bet that most of the radar and sensors of the Tesla are probably Mercedes sourced... it's almost, if not completely, the same system from the 222... except it has more capabilities unlocked.
Just did a Google search on 2017 cars, just found it interesting to see the names of the comanies writing about each. Ford, mercedes, etc - car magazines. Tesla, computer magazine.