back to article Oddly enough, when a Tesla accelerates at a barrier, someone dies: Autopilot report lands

A Tesla with Autopilot engaged accelerated toward a barrier in the final seconds before a deadly crash, an official report into the crash has revealed. Apple engineer Walter Huang was driving his Model X P100D on a Silicon Valley freeway on the morning of March 23 when the car, under computer control, moved into the triangular …

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      1. Paul Cooper

        Re: After the last childish outburst...

        " No, I'm not talking about me - I'm talking about doctors"

        I'm sorry, but you are WRONG! I know several doctors and nurses who work with terminally ill children - perhaps the hardest job in the medical world. Each and every one of them cares enormously when a child dies; so much so that some have breakdowns and have to leave that job. And that's when they know that the child is likely to die, have probably spent much time preparing parents and relatives for the death, and have worked hard to ensure that the child's passing is as peaceful as possible. Doctors and nurses do NOT become "immune" to the death of patients, unless they are totally unfitted to be in their profession - or possibly, even be members of the human race.

    1. Goldmember

      Re: After the last childish outburst...

      "the fact that somebody has died needlessly due (IMHO) to the ongoing over-promise and under-delivery of autonomous vehicles"

      This is not the case. Teslas are NOT autonomous vehicles. They don't claim to be such, either. The problem here is that it seems people treat them as though they are. Like the bell end in the UK a few weeks ago who was filmed climbing into the passenger seat of his car with the autopilot engaged. Or the other guy to be killed a couple of years ago, who was too busy taking selfies and watching DVDs whilst driving in Autopilot mode to notice a bloody great truck ahead of him.

      Tesla has to change its attitude with regard to the "Autopilot" software; it should be renamed, and the point stressed that it's purely for aiding driving. They really should market this differently, as you can't eradicate the inherent stupidity of humans.

      But for fuck's sake... if you're driving a car, YOU have a responsibility to give your full, undivided attention to the task at hand. It's a huge responsibility. A simple mistake made in a split second can permanently alter or even end lives. Ultimate culpability has to lie with the driver, unless the car is fully autonomous. Which these ones are not.

      Yes, the tech drove the car into a part of the road it should not have driven in. The driving aid failed in its task. But based on the information provided so far, it seems that the driver had transferred too much of his responsibility to the tech. Had he been paying attention he could have seen the trouble ahead and applied the brake, and things would have worked out very differently.

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: After the last childish outburst...

        "The problem here is that it seems people treat them as though they are. Like the bell end in the UK a few weeks ago who was filmed climbing into the passenger seat of his car with the autopilot engaged. "

        Climbing into the back or passenger seat has been a "thing" for quite a while - but it wouldn't be hard to prevent either. The cars have weight switches in the seats and can tell when someone's pulling this shit but it takes someone to program the things to recognise "naughty driver" activities.

      2. Charles 9

        Re: After the last childish outburst...

        To Joe Stupid, autopilot = autonomous vehicle, and they're too dumb to know otherwise, so if you can't fix Stupid, you'll have to fix the perception.

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When I took some refresher lessons and by accident reached for the wrong stalk on the wheel, the one that had the cruise control on the now modern car (hence refresher lessons) my driving instructor would go spare, what reaction would this autopilot elicit from her I'm scared to imagine..

    1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

      You cant rely on the stalks to be consistent from one car to the next. I think your instructors in the wrong job!

  2. mikeyg
    Meh

    My understanding of the Tesla Auto pilot is that it's simply a combination of:

    1- Adaptive Cruise Control

    2- Collision Avoidance Control

    3- Lane Following Control

    4- Lane Change Control

    When all are turned on at the same time it becomes Autopilot. Can anyone say if I am right or not?

    It would be fun to have a Tesla to rip apart and play with, but they are still a bit expensive for that!

    1. Oengus

      1- Adaptive Cruise Control

      2- Collision Avoidance Control

      3- Lane Following Control

      4- Lane Change Control

      FTFY

      1. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        @Oengus

        You're being generous with #4, unless we accept that the average of two lanes is a reasonable option.

        1. Oengus

          Reading the article I think that the Tesla realised that it was not in the correct lane and was moving itself to get it into the correct lane... It just had a hard interrupt in the process.

    2. JohnG

      Correct. Automatic Energency Braking is an option which by default, is enabled at all times.

      There are two levels of Autopilot: Traffic Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer. Automated Lane Changing is an option, which is disabled by default. All of the Autopilot features are in Beta and every time they enable Autosteer, drivers get a warning of this, telling them that they shoud keep their hands on the wheel at all times

  3. Fazal Majid

    Lack of LIDAR

    Tesla cheaped out by not including a LIDAR, unsurprisingly as those are still extremely expensive, but no self-driving car or ADAS 3+ should be allowed without it.

    As for Musk, he richly deserves all the opprobrium headed his way for his despicable attempts to pin blame on the victim.

    1. Lars Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Lack of LIDAR

      "despicable attempts to pin blame on the victim".

      This is really the standard procedure in industry. If you have followed "aircraft investigation" it always starts with the manufacture, be it plane or engine, blaming everybody else first. I am not sure there is even any choice in reality to this. (How would that work)

      I remember a helicopter crash involving a Sikorsky. I took more than five years and a hell of a lot of money to prove it was the fault of a Sikorsky hardware part. Might have been less expensive to just let it go, but then again there are insurance and all the lawyers and what not.

      There is a "sobering" sentence in one of the links provided - “Traffic-Aware Cruise Control cannot detect all objects and may not brake/decelerate for stationary vehicles, especially in situations when you are driving over 50 mph (80 km/h) and a vehicle you are following moves out of your driving path and a stationary vehicle or object is in front of you instead.”

      So indeed people expect too much from an autopilot, any brand.

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Lack of LIDAR

      "Tesla cheaped out by not including a LIDAR"

      Which is funny, because my 15yo Nissan has one in its ACC.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not an "autopilot"

    It's about time they banned these driver "aids". If you don't want to drive, take a bus/train, if you want to drive a car then drive the fscking thing properly. Hands on the wheel, 100% of your attention on the road.

    1. Dazed and Confused

      Re: Not an "autopilot"

      > It's about time they banned these driver "aids".

      It's no good the manufacturer saying but we told you to look where you're going too, so don't blame us. The average car driver is not like an airline pilot plus co-pilot pair. If they don't have to concentrate they won't concentrate. Even if they are nominally looking where they are going their minds will wonder. So when a problem happens they aren't immediately ready to handle it.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not an "autopilot"

      OK, so what if there's no mass transit in your area, you're still expected to work on time despite something like uncontrolled epilepsy, you live alone, and you can't afford to move?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not an "autopilot"

        <i.OK, so what if there's no mass transit in your area, you're still expected to work on time despite something like uncontrolled epilepsy, you live alone, and you can't afford to move?</i>

        Uber, bicycle, car-pooling, charity bus? Whatever the solution it certainly isn't "drive a car", autopilot or not.

        1. PM from Hell

          Re: Not an "autopilot"

          I'm surprised by the fact you got any up-votes and can only assume these were from people who live in a metropolitan area who only work at a single site. I'm a Contractor who works all over the country. At the moment I'm fortunate in working close to home. I live in a rural location only 17 miles from my office but could not use public transport to get to work and actually work a full day. Taking the earliest bus in the day out and the last bus home I would arrive at work after 9 am and have to leave by 4:30. The commute would take about 3 hours a day, and yes I am serious. There used to be far more frequent buses but those days are long gone, unfortunately I have also committed the 'crime' of living in one county and working in the next. This means that the bus from my village actually takes me in the wrong direction so I need to travel 30 minute to the next town, wait 15 - 20 minutes for the bus in the right direction then off we go again for another 45 minutes (don't forget the first 30 minutes were in the wrong direction). Driving gets me to work in under 30 minutes and costs a fraction of the bus price. This is true for a large proportion of the people who live in my village. Even people living closer to town need to use cars, parents who need to drop children off at childcare or school cannot use public transport.

          And as an aside to the luddites who feel the use of cruise control is insane I do use it to control my speed when traffic is light as I see a benefit in fuel efficiency. This does not mean I give up control or responsibility for driving.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not an "autopilot"

        You seriously think someone with "uncontrolled epilepsy" should be allowed to let an unsafe car "drive" for them, risking the lives of other people? Sorry, the rights of the disabled end where they put my life at risk!

        There's not a good solution for your hypothetical example, but it will come eventually when true autonomous cars are available. Unfortunately Tesla's shitty driver killer products risk setting that back by years.

      3. Adam 1

        Re: Not an "autopilot"

        Let me follow your logic. The person of your concern has a medical condition that prevents them from driving. They have enough money to live on their own rather than share, but not enough money to move somewhere closer to their employment and their employment is such that they cannot easily find a job that is more conveniently located. And the way you suggest that they may make this work is to buy a US$75,000 car which has a feature that can drive by itself up until the moment it can't.

        Yeah, no. Self driving cars will be an amazing source of freedom to many people with medical conditions, elderly, disabled, even people under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. This certainly should not be understated as a benefit, but the problem is where certain people who should know better imply the technology is more advanced than it is, then run for the hills when it isn't.

        I want to see manufacturers put their money where their mouth is before they are allowed to imply the car has an autopilot or similar technology. If they paid you out a million dollars if your car was at fault in an accident whilst self driving, and 10 million if that accident resulted in a permanent injury for anyone involved, and 100 million to the family of anyone killed, you might find that companies such as this are a lot more restrained when making these claims.

        What worries me here isn't the failure of some sensor, but that we see a company not acknowledging that the design of their system (even down to its name) incorrectly encourages people to trust it beyond its capabilities. That is a design flaw. It needs to be rectified. Maybe it needs to pull itself over and stop if the driver isn't paying attention. When a plane crashes, Boeing or Airbus don't sit back and say well pilot/ground crew screwed up here, case closed. No, they figure out why their safety processes and systems didn't fire or were ignored, and implement changes in both instructions, design and training programs to make it less likely. I'm seeing none of that here. It's entirely about saving their reputation. Until that culture changes, I don't want these things on my roads.

      4. tim292stro

        Re: Not an "autopilot"

        "...OK, so what if there's no mass transit in your area, you're still expected to work on time despite something like uncontrolled epilepsy, you live alone, and you can't afford to move?..."

        Then statistically that person is a heck of an outlier (specifically a poor, solitary, epileptic, living outside a major metropolitan area - I'd estimate less than 0.01% of the total global population), and obviously not the target audience for this type of product. Tough life.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Not an "autopilot"

          OK, so you wanna kill people. How Spartan of you...

    3. rg287

      Re: Not an "autopilot"

      It's about time they banned these driver "aids".

      Which ones? All of them?

      Does that include ABS? Traction Control?

      What about <30mph emergency-braking that can prevent fender-benders in crawling or start-stop traffic?

      They're not pretending to drive the car for you, but objectively improves safety.

      1. Domquark

        Re: Not an "autopilot"

        "They're not pretending to drive the car for you, but objectively improves safety."

        But that's the issue - they ARE "pretending" to drive the car for you. Take the example (here in the UK) where a driver was taken to court because he engaged "AutoPilot" on a motorway (freeway for you chaps across the pond) and climbed into the passenger seat to read a book! That (very stupid) man felt comfortable enough to actually do that - where do you think he got that sense of security from? If you are driving a "manual" car (even with ABS/traction/cruise control etc), you need to do something continually - at the very least steer. If you didn't, you would drive straight off the first bend in the road!

        And the safety systems are questionable too. I know someone who has a car with "auto braking" for avoiding low speed crashes and cruise control which keeps speed/distance to the car in front automatically. It works well, until the sensor at the front of the car gets the slightest bit of dirt on it. 5 or 6 squashed mosquitoes and the whole system fails!

        The future looks like a place where drivers won't know how to drive or control the vehicle, but will have the responsibility to do so when things go wrong.

        1. rg287

          Re: Not an "autopilot"

          If you are driving a "manual" car (even with ABS/traction/cruise control etc), you need to do something continually - at the very least steer. If you didn't, you would drive straight off the first bend in the road!

          Stupid is as Stupid does.

          There is a long list of apocryphal stories about RV drivers climbing into the back to make a coffee. Occasionally they're not urban myths, even when the cruise control is not branded "AutoPilot".

          Nature just creates a smarter idiot.

          1. Chris 239

            Re: Not an "autopilot"

            Holy carp! I followed your link, the woman that turned on the cruise control and got up to make tea lives in a place called CRETINgham !! you couldn't make that up!

    4. tiggity Silver badge

      Re: Not an "autopilot"

      I had a car with cruise control but, after trying it a few times, I did not use it afterwards.

      It was too easy to lose concentration when the CC was doing the work - not a good idea on a 70 MPH motorway.

      Obviously people are different, I'm sure some drivers may be able to stay fully focused with CC doing the work - I can't pull that trick off so avoid CC use.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not an "autopilot"

        At least you are thinking while driving.

      2. Gordon861

        Re: Not an "autopilot"

        My only use of 'cruise control' in my car is for average speed camera areas, set the speed from the satnav gps and take my foot off the throttle. Otherwise it's too easy to drift up to breaking what is often a overly low limit.

      3. JohnG

        Re: Not an "autopilot"

        "It was too easy to lose concentration when the CC was doing the work - not a good idea on a 70 MPH motorway."

        True - and this effect can be increased with Atutosteer. The best approach is to consider yourself like the captain of a ship and that Autopilot is a really inexperienced and stupid trainee at the helm, requiring supervision at all times.

      4. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Not an "autopilot"

        "It was too easy to lose concentration when the CC was doing the work - not a good idea on a 70 MPH motorway."

        There's plenty going on around you. ACC is great inasmuch as you don't have to worry about having to regulate your speed, but that simply gives you more time to look out for other drivers hellbent on killing everyone around them.

        Then again if you're losing concentration with CC on, you ARE one of those drivers. Don't touch the radio.

        1. Charles 9

          Re: Not an "autopilot"

          Two problems dovetailing here. One, quite simply, You Can't Fix Stupid. The other is the cruelty factor: being too dumb to live isn't considered by moral standards to be worthy of capital punishment (meaning if someone demonstrates themselves to be too dumb to drive yet too poor to have it done for them, we can't just tell them, "Then YOU LOSE. Game Over. Better Luck Next Life."). The dilemma make me keep thinking to those countries with high suicide rates, wondering if their societies actually have socially-endorsed relief valves for "dead-enders".

    5. JimC

      Re: drive the fscking thing properly. Hands on the wheel, 100% of your attention on the road.

      That would be nice if the meatsacks actually did. Unfortunately, as is clearly demonstrated every time there's poor visibility, the average driver is not safe on the road either.

      The sad reality is that an automated car will not be "safe" at the current level of technology. But a manual car is not safe either. The simple fact that the crash attenuator had already been destroyed by a human driver demonstrates that.

      Its not a choice between an imperfect technology that kills 50 people a year and no deaths, that's easy. Its a choice between the imperfect technology and 200 deaths a year caused by human drivers. The other question that could be asked - and will be in some readers life time I predict - is how many people, many of them entirely innocent 3rd parties, must die because we permit manually controlled cars?

    6. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Not an "autopilot"

      > It's about time they banned these driver "aids".

      The USA's NTSB has assessed the aids as reducing the crash rate in Teslas by at least 40% over non-assisted vehicles.

      Most people regard driving as a chore and the same people letting themselves be killed by adaptove cruise controls are even more likely to be killing themselves or those around them if they were 100% in manual control.

      Back in the 1980s the most common causes of fatal crashes was "Driver spent so much time fiddling with the radio and not looking at the road that vehicle crossed centreline into oncoming traffic/left road and hit a tree". Even a radio isn't necessary. For one crash I'm aware of (car drove under an 18-wheeler on a dead straight road) the driver's hand was still gripping the pack of sandwiches in the bag on the passenger seat when they cut her body out of the vehicle.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: Not an "autopilot"

        "Even a radio isn't necessary."

        Ever considered that monotony is a key element of highway hypnosis?

    7. robin thakur 1

      Re: Not an "autopilot"

      I find them useful within their limits. The problem, as I understand it, is that:

      -The driver has to be of sufficient intelligence and aptitude to read up on them and use them appropriately and build up a feel for how the systems behave in different situations or when they fail. Nobody checks whether this is the case or not

      -They differ by manufacturer and there are no standards enforced by the industry. e.g. Park Assist is different on every car

      -You are dependent on the manufacturer explaining adequately how they function, the limitations and not just being a marketing bullet point

      -They might change over time with software updates

      -Have they been tested to destruction in all world markets the car is on sale in and do the characteristics vary by market, are these results publicly available?

      By way of an example, if my Audi was in adaptive Cruise mode with lane keeping assist on, it might seem like it's operating autonomously but if it can't detect the lane markings for a few seconds (for several different reasons), it doesn't sound an audible alarm it just changes the lane marking on the cockpit/HUD from green to gray and you suddenly notice it drifting a little.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Tesla was running Windows 10, and got a forced uodate. Probably for a 20 year old fax driver that has to be shipped because Windows stops working without it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I think there's better chances it runs some flavour of Linux. Maybe it panicked because the driver tried to play a DRM protected song...

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        If Linux, then systemd, obvs.

    2. JohnG

      Actually, Teslas run Linux.

  6. katrinab Silver badge

    5 seconds is not enough

    Studies have shown that you need 26 seconds to take over from autopilot, to figure out what the car is doing, what everyone else is doing, what you need to do to correct the situation, and tgen actually do it.

    1. JustWondering

      Re: 5 seconds is not enough

      26 seconds? You are already behind the wheel, supposedly with your hands on it. How long does it take these people to react to an emergency otherwise?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @JustWondering - Re: 5 seconds is not enough

        Then why would I activate the Tesla Autopilot ? I'm already driving the damn thing.

        When was the last time you saw airline pilots faking flying the plane with their hands on the commands while AP is on ? Aviation has had a non negligible number of cases when AP disengaged and pilots were never able to regain situational awareness in time.

        1. arthoss

          Re: @JustWondering - 5 seconds is not enough

          from own experience with adaptive cruise control: having it enabled, you can press the brake pedal faster, as your foot is not on the acceleration, you are safer if you turn your head and another car veers into your path at the same time, you save more energy, slowing down cars at the end of a jam are detected and in a jam you don't have to constantly accelerate and decelerate.

          1. YetAnotherLocksmith Silver badge

            Re: @JustWondering - 5 seconds is not enough

            In a limited format, that's great. If you are driving at 5mph traffic in a car that does 0 to 60 in 3 seconds, and it takes you even 1 second to react, how many other cars can your car hit before you press the brake pedal?

            1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. JustWondering

          Re: @JustWondering - 5 seconds is not enough

          Because it isn't really autopilot? Doesn't an alarm go off if you don't hold the wheel? It's not like you can jump in the back for a quickie while the car drives

        3. JohnG

          Re: @JustWondering - 5 seconds is not enough

          "When was the last time you saw airline pilots faking flying the plane with their hands on the commands while AP is on ?"

          Pilots trying an autopilot system that is in beta might do somehing along those lines. The Tesla Autopilot systems are in beta.

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