Texas Tesla Tragedy

[Mirak]

Fixed that for you.

My use of the word “autonomous” is just shorthand. If you want to change it to ADAS that’s fine - my points stand. Whatever you call it, Tesla is providing something closer to autonomous functionality in many ways than what Ford offers or will likely ever offer on the MME. Whether that’s safe is very debatable.

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[Mirak]

People are dead and we have argued over self-driving or not. Your minds may be pure but some hearts are not. I pray things get labeled and corrected before this happens again.

We’re not at the funeral. This is a message board. There doesn’t need to be a moment of silence here. There’s nothing wrong with having a discussion about Tesla and Ford’s offerings.

 

[Mirak]

@Mirak , Not just Ford fanatics or the forum members here. Consumer Reports placed Tesla's AutoPilot a distant second to GM's cruise. Ford's BlueCruise wasn't in the market to test at that time. CoPilot 360 came in little behind at 3rd place.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/28/gms-super-cruise-tops-teslas-autopilot-in-consumer-reports-testing.html#:~:text=General Motors' Super Cruise system,points in Consumer Reports' testing.

I haven’t read the CR article, but were they reviewing Tesla’s Autopilot or the Full Self Driving? Those are very different things. The somewhat misnamed Autopilot is basically just Tesla’s version of CP360.

 

[trutolife27]

Come on man. We’re not at the funeral. This is a message board. There doesn’t need to be a moment of silence here. There’s nothing wrong with having a discussion about Tesla and Ford’s offerings.

Did I ask for that? I made my statement and not to a person. But I guess since you like to quote me then here we go.
Someone lost someone, so yeah there should be. But not from you. Don't worry, carry on with your same old blah talk, Your blah must be that bad that so many people," I guess I could take a screenshot" messaging me wishing you would leave or they have put you on ignore. I stopped counting at 72.

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

This what I said back on page one. We may all be arguing over something that didn’t even happen. The driver very well may have been in the driver’s seat showing off how fast his EV can go. In full control. He hits a tree. Seat back breaks. Airbags go off. He’s punched into the back seat. The body then burns for 3 hours. Muscles contract. Seat frames melt. We’ve got a charred skeleton “sitting” where the back seat used to be. Local Fire Department, who are just bright enough to use 32000 gallons of water to try and put out a chemical fire, concludes that nobody was driving. Then a bunch of internet cowboys take them at their word and start arguing online. ?

I’d say let’s wait for the smart folks at the NTSB to determine just what did happen, but it looks like the evidence is probably all burned up. So I’ll leave it to you folks to argue some more based on the supposition of a poorly trained firefighter and an internet media sensationalist.

or we could trust trained investigators that have already looked at it - "poorly trained" indeed.

Pct. 4: Two killed in fiery Tesla crash near The Woodlands | khou.com

​

“They are 100 percent certain that no one was in the driver seat driving that vehicle at the time of impact. They are positive," Herman said. "And again, the height from the back seat to the front seat, that would be almost impossible, but again our investigators are trained. They handle collisions. Several of our folks are reconstructionists, but they feel very confident just with the positioning of the bodies after the impact that there was no one driving that vehicle.”​

while it's possible the body flew over the front seat and the console into the back, quantum physics tells us it's also possible a baby black hole spontaneously appeared next to the car to cause enough gravity to send it into a tree. I wouldn't count on that.

someone not being in the driver's seat seems a lot more likely than a Rube Goldberg machine.

 

[littlD]

For instance when the driver changes lanes on the highway, Autopilot disengages completely

For Basic autopilot yes, for those of us with Enhanced Autopilot (2018-2019) and FSD (2019+-) we have Auto Lane Change which is my favorite feature and leaves Autopilot engaged.

I can provide more details on why this has been a safety game changer for me if interested.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

or we could trust trained investigators that have already looked at it

My apologies. I had not seen the updated story where it quoted investigators and reconstructionists. In my local area the “media” will find the most rookie volunteer they can because they know his quote can easily be twisted.

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

My apologies. I had not seen the updated story where it quoted investigators and reconstructionists. In my local area the “media” will find the most rookie volunteer they can because they know his quote can easily be twisted.

Fair. It's also fair that the NTSB is still investigating, to your point. I just don't see it leading to a different outcome ?

 

[The Electric Duo]

There are some many unknowns and contradictory facts...

Was it on AutoPilot? Some say no it wouldn't be possible with an unmarked road but I've seen a demo that shows it is possible.

Was the crash at a high rate of speed? Some say no because it was on a cul de sac. But that cul de sac is .3 miles and a Tesla (or other EV) could be at 100mph in .25 miles (in perfect conditions).

Will AutoPilot work without a drive? No, of course not, unless you see the videos of people doing just that.

Elon just tweeted that the "data logs recovered so far" show that AP wasn't on. Could he be more specific? At the time of impact or not on at all on that cul de sac? And how did they get the data logs already? Were they uploaded to the cloud already? Did they recover it from that burnt out vehicle?

They did check and this car did not have the FSD package. Which reminds me of an somewhat related contradiction. Some Teslas have cabin cameras so they could monitor the driver, but they say they don't use it. But some people were kicked out of the FSD Beta for not actively monitoring FSD. How did they know that? Were they using the cameras then? Why aren't they using the cameras if they know people are using weights on the steering wheel to trick the AP sensors?

These questions seem to be too much to be answered here or on twitter. Maybe an investigation is needed? And that's what they have started.

 

[jhalkias]

 

[jhalkias]

My use of the word “autonomous” is just shorthand. If you want to change it to ADAS that’s fine - my points stand. Whatever you call it, Tesla is providing something closer to autonomous functionality in many ways than what Ford offers or will likely ever offer on the MME. Whether that’s safe is very debatable.

And I suppose FSD is just shorthand too.

 

[Mirak]

And I suppose FSD is just shorthand too.

No, that’s what Tesla calls it. Weird criticism, bub. I’m not defending Tesla, I’m just trying to be objective.

 

[timbop]

A car whose main selling point is autonymous driving (just ask the "now you know guys" what's important) crashes with no one in the drivers seat.

Yeah, people stupidly playing with that feature is the natural initial conclusion.

It may turn out it was just people acting stupidly. It may turn out they were trying to find ways to circumvent the safety features to get the ADAS systems to engage like so many other have done on youtube.

The operative point that lying about the car being able to drive itself is going to get people killed is still valid.

 

[deadduck]

Tesla tests the way I write code, "yep looks like that should work..."
It's kind of worse than that as I understand it. The camera's that Tesla uses in the car, to determine fault in crashes, for instance in this case, aren't accessible to the owner of the car. I would imagine you could subpoena them but there's a lot going on in a Tesla that can come and go on Elon's whim, for instance, FSD in a used car.

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