Bet they are lying and just pressed the wrong pedal by themselves. Bet they were on their phone, the cruise control beeped and then they panicked and floored it. Insurance companies probably have to deal with a ton of Tesla owners who are blaming the Autopilot for a mistake the driver made, even when the cruise control wasn’t used.
Seems like a pretty risky lie as the car should have logs saying exactly what happened (at least to the level of detail of cruise control + accelerator vs self-driving).
Until Tesla scrubs that from their log again like they were already caught doing once
Curious: what was the outcome of them being caught doing that?
The jury didn’t like it, but it didn’t really prove anything that wasn’t already known. I’m not really sure why they did what they did in the end? It wasn’t disputed that AP was on, and that the guy overrode the saftey systems. The jury found them partially at fault because they allowed the system to operate there and because they claim it didn’t work as advertised, and it was a huge jury verdict damages they have to pay.
I have a feeling it’s going to get a reduced damages though as it goes through appeals. The dude was looking down for a phone he fumbled with his foot on the accelerator which overrides the safety systems, to the point the car warns you on screen that it will not brake while your foot is on the accelerator. And guess what… the car did not brake! Surprise!
Thanks! I would have had to go looking to remember the details
Oh, that might have been plain old incompetence rather than deliberate evidence tampering if both sides agreed to the bits that incriminate their own side. Unless there was something more going on that the logs would have shown, like “damage detected while self-driving enabled, dispatching Tesla cleanup crew to take care of the witnesses”.
It was definitely deliberate. Something happened for some reason.
Maybe they were worried about something bad being in there before they knew the facts were agreed upon, and then they had already dug their own grave?
I feel like your insurance should automatically be higher for being stupid enough to purchase one.
It is. Tesla insurance is expensive.
I still think it nuts that the main insurance companies will even insure these things. Especially the stupid truck.
probably sleeping, or in the passenger seat.
Teslas be like
(elon doesn’t believe in lidar)
Elon knows it’s too expensive to incorporate lidar data into his product line.
I’m not a fan of Elon or Tesla, just for the record. So I hate to actually be the one defending them. But I’m guessing on the same exact day about 12 people drove through their garage doors, NOT in Teslas.
Yeah, but there are more than 100x other cars on the road. And this one is automated. And this was a stupid mistake if true.
The reporting states the driving mode in question was Tesla’s “autopilot system,” instead of the proper Autopilot, which is Tesla’s less advanced driving system. Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is Tesla’s more capable feature, although its name is a misnomer, since it’s not capable of fully driving itself and requires constant supervision.
I feel like this section needs a rewrite. What is the distinction they’re drawing between “Tesla’s ‘autopilot system’” and “Autopilot”?
It’s hard to describe these modes because Tesla purposefully blurs and obfuscates what they actually can/cannot do (like giving them names that are basically synonyms.) Typical confuseopoly strategy.
Are you saying that there are three modes, one called “autopilot system,” one called “Autopilot,” and one called “Full Self-Driving”? Because otherwise this phrasing:
the driving mode in question was Tesla’s “autopilot system,” instead of the proper Autopilot
is confusing in a way that’s independent of the way that Tesla’s names are confusing.
My understanding was that there are two modes, one misleadingly called “autopilot” which is basically adaptive cruise control plus lane keeping, and one even more misleadingly called “full self driving,” which integrates with the GPS and will also do lane changes and exits. Both will happily plow you into a semi at speed, which makes the names REALLY dumb. But the distinction the article is making, between the “autopilot system” and capital-A “Autopilot,” seems like it needs more explanation, and I don’t think that’s a Tesla distinction.
“Autopilot” is the category that depending on which car you bought and which DLC skins you paid for might contain “Autopilot” cruise control or “Full Self Driving” or “Autosteer” or “Cruise Control” or other shit that do different things and change names whenever the car updates.
Autopilot*
*not actually autopilot
so fukn misleading. elon should be sued for billions
these fukn technocrats are all shitbags, and deserve to be taxed to hell
This is crazy, I was in a parking lot yesterday and saw someone have their Tesla driver right up to them to pick them up in the parking lot with no driver inside. Kind of pissed me off I was so near in the same parking lot that was operating on its own, with my wife and nieces. I know Elon Musk wouldn’t give one fuck about me if his dumbass machine ran me or mine right over
After almost getting hit twice by a driven Tesla while walking in a lot, the guy parked it in a handicap spot with no placard and speed walked into the store. Upon exit from a different door, the driver had it drive itself to him. I’m miffed i missed my chance to fuck with it because I didn’t know what was going on. I was waiting, debating calling police for the placard issue (given there were multiple open spaces nearby). I decided to not get involved and drove in front of the tesla to exit. Weird, I noted, seeing the drl bar and left blinker on. Turns out, it was waiting it’s turn to leave autonomously.
Fuck that guy. DoorDash vibe. 150ft walk.
Feel free to fuck with that car, there really isn’t a penalty for say moonwalking in front of one, if it does hit you, great you’re a millionaire. Or if you don’t feel like doing it just point it out to my dumbass.
You don’t become a millionaire just for being hit, you’d have to be injured enough to get that, and this is at low speeds in a parking lot. But yes, you can fuck with it to fuck with them, like blocking it etc.
That’s bad that the car’s software confused a closed garage door for a kid.
Did the road runner paint a tunnel on it again?
This is a murder idea right here.
A YouTuber already proved that Teslas autopilot would drive straight through a portrait of a road. Since it only uses cameras without other tech like lidar
So would plenty of human drivers.
Human drivers can pull in environmental and other cues though, like “why is there daylight on the road inside a building?”
Ai can use that info too. And it doesn’t get distracted, or drink beer. Self driving cars have the potential to be much safer than humans. We don’t seem to be there yet, but we will be eventually if we don’t block progress.
You’re talking about a few different things, here.
- AI could potentially use that info, yes. Teslas don’t use AI to drive
- Self driving cars do have the potential to be significantly safer, this is true. Telsa’s cars, through a series of missteps, are not anywhere near that potential, and in fact are hazards on the road. This is bad for developing true self-driving cars!
- The only obstacle to progress being discussed is covered by a picture of a road…
Pretty sure Teslas now do use AI to drive.
When the CEO keeps saying they’ll have full auto pilot in the next few years for over a decade, then complains that the problem is the government stopping then from rolling it out, you start to question if it should ever be rolled out. At least maybe not by a for profit entity who puts profits before safety.
Sure because humans don’t have radar and lidar. Something Tesla chose not to put on their vehicle.
Yes it is a questionable decision. But I think it wasn’t just being cheap. I think it’s because of liability for errors; when it comes to placing fault on a car in the legal system, a judge / jury is only going to look at video captures. They won’t understand the lidar data. So if the car makes a bad decision based on lidar when there’s a conflict with visual queues, it will be deemed that it made a mistake. So there’s not really any point to trying to work with the lidar data.
You couldn’t pay me to drive a Tesla, and that’s doubly true for Tesla on “autopilot”.
“autopilot” shouldn’t even be used on a narrow residential street like that.
Putting the company aside for a second, genuinely why? Low speed residential, especially narrow or precision driving should be bread and butter tier 2 autonomous driving, right under tier 1 = highway, and quite a lot over the complexities of mixed use areas at higher speed. Unless you specifically meant their Tesla autopilot and not the concept as a whole with it in quotes.
Autonomous vehicles have been known to run over and through quite a few things. In an area where a bunch of kids are likely to be playing is a bad place for such a technology IMO.
But so do people so we have to consider the statistics. I just think if this goes anywhere, low speed precision should be it’s bread and butter scenario.
I saw my first Tesla this week with the “I bought this before Elon went nuts” bumper sticker. I don’t give a fuck when you bought that garbage, its a fucking dangerous piece of shit and shouldn’t be on the roads with real cars. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for EVs taking over the market, just as long as they aren’t teslas.
You don’t have to use the self driving features of a Tesla. As long as we’re not talking about Cybertrucks, they’re still a regular car with mechanically connected steering and brakes.
The back seats not having manual releases and other baffling design decisions might be dangerous for the people inside, but I don’t really have a problem being on the road next to them.
You bought this tesla in 1993? Neat
Are people stupid enough to actually trust Tesla’s autopilot, or do they do it on purpose to then sue Tesla?
Nevermind, I know the answer…
It works well, until it doesn’t. That first part lulls people into complacency. I rented a Kia last year that had automatic cruise control and lane keep assist and it kept me on the road far past when I should have pulled over and taken a nap from being sleep deprived after a redeye flight. Dangerous? Yes. Skill issue? Maybe. What I took away from the experience is that it is frighteningly easy to get used to a thing “just working” and forget about its limitations when it is convenient. I also learned that I do not want lane keep assist or automatic cruise control in my personal car.
This is basically automation bias you’re describing and it’s what scares the hell out of me with these “FSD” teslas on the road.
Even if you were able to keep constantly alert during the 99% of the time where this works (which I think is close to humanly impossible) why would you want a system that doesn’t offload you at all? The only value of this system is if people ignore the limitations and allow themselves to zone out - the rest of us are at risk when it goes wrong!
I use lane assist and traffic aware cruise to keep my shoulders and (bad) knee physically relaxed on long highway stretches. That said, I would probably choose to tolerate the inevitable day of neck and/or knee pain if it meant no one was using this stuff. Automation bias is scary.
[…] why would you want a system that doesn’t offload you at all? The only value of this system is if people ignore the limitations and allow themselves to zone out […]
I think there are some “absolutes” used here that make these things incorrect.
- “doesn’t offload you at all” means that these systems provide 0 offloading, which is not true — not even for the classic cruise control that only maintains speed.
- “The only value of this system is if people ignore the limitations and allow themselves to zone out” means that there’s no other value it provides. Using the old classic cruise control as an example again, it provides value even without being able to its limitations.
That said, my car is a bit old and just has the classic kind of cruise control. I’ve only used the newer stuff on a few road trips in rental cars, so maybe I just haven’t had enough experience with it to reach the levels of carelessness required to drive into a garage door yet.
Cruise control lets me relax my legs. It’s purely mechanical.
Other automations like lane assist and emergency break system saves my ass if I’m not paying attention. FSD (if used as intended) does exactly the opposite: I have to save it’s ass if/when it overlooks something. I have to be constantly alert without almost ever having a reason to. The human mind is not made for that. I would 100% find it harder to pay attention in that scenario than if I’m also doing the driving and not because Elon is an asshole.
If I could check my email or read a book and have the car say “take over in 10 seconds time” I would get it, but if I’m constantly aware, hands on the ready and eyes on the road I would literally much much mucho much rather not have it at all.
But of course that’s not how it’s being used. Tesla drivers are willing to run the risk on behalf of themselves and anyone they are sharing the road with.
I really like the automatic cruise control on my fairly new Honda Jazz. I’ve found that it has a net positive effect on my attention to the road, because I become less fatigued from the small, brief slowdowns that I might encounter on a motorway. There was actually an instance where I narrowly avoided a crash while using this system because of how quickly I acted when a potentially dangerous situation developed into an active crash; I felt like I was more alert than I would’ve otherwise been after a day of driving
However, I do not like the lane-keeping system, especially combined with the automatic cruise control. I remember testing it when I was on a clear but fairly curved section of the motorway, with my hands completely off the wheel (but hovering over the wheel, ready to take control again if necessary). I was horrified by how effectively it took me round the bend — effectively enough to be dangerous. There is a warning beep if you spend too long without your hands on the wheel at all for a while, but this was just something I did while testing it. I’ve not used it since, because I was confident that, unlike the automatic cruise control used on its own, this would diminish my attention and leave me unable to properly respond to an exceptional circumstances.
I own modern Kia with these systems you described. I use this almost constantly BUT: the first month after getting the car I was terrified, literally scared and 15 minutes drive exhausted me just like 2 hours in my previous car. I was learning to trust the system, had to known all the limitations first. I now know when to take over and really like adaptive cruise control especially in traffic.
I am a software engineer though, there is nothing “smart” in my home (apart from TV obviously) and I can see how people can fall into the trap you described.
Later he was fined by the HOA because the garage door being open since 20 minutes
The sentence structure that people from different non-english-speaking countries use is really interesting.
After working with so many people from India, I would guess this person was originally from there. “Since 20 minutes” is a fairly common way that they say it.
In French you would say “depuis 20 minutes” which literally translates to “since 20 minutes,” and I imagine many other languages would phrase it the same way.
Why is this person called a driver?
