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NTSB ‘unhappy’ with Tesla release of investigative information in fatal crash

90 points by fancyfacebook 8y ago

aurizon 8y ago
I respect the NTSB, but I do not like institutional secrecy aspects to try to muzzle Tesla - facts like this can help people from placing excessive reliability on self driving abilities of Tesla's autopilot - as long as personal privacy is respected. After all, calling it an autopilot is intrinsically wrong - as Tesla repeatedly asserts.
- masklinn 8y ago
  Is it institutional secrecy or is it disapproval of unilateral disclosure of only a sub-set of elements of an ongoing inquest?
  - classicsnoot 8y ago
    What is the distinction between the two that changes the justification? I see those things as part of each other, as in institutional secrecy is bred from ongoing inquests in perpetuity.
    - wpietri 8y ago
      The NTSB has a 50+ year history of producing detailed reports on accidents: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/AccidentReports.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/Ac... The notion that they'd suddenly turn secretive now seems absurd to me. Given their expertise and excellent track record, I think it's reasonable to trust them when they say they want to completed the investigation and publish a proper report, just like they do with other accidents.
      - classicsnoot 8y ago
        Just to clarify, "secrecy" is not a word to which I attach negative sentiment.
    - masklinn 8y ago
      > What is the distinction between the two that changes the justification? That one is a form of bias whereas the other is the opposite of bias: you don't want elements of an ongoing inquest to be released independently because they don't provide a complete picture of the investigative results, and thus provide a biased outlook on the event. > I see those things as part of each other, as in institutional secrecy is bred from ongoing inquests in perpetuity. NTSB inquests have never been "ongoing in perpetuity". They provide thorough and extensive public reports. Their entire purpose is to minimise future risk and they're very good at that. The point of discretion until all the facts are in (what you insultingly call "institutional secrecy") is that until as much as possible is known, there may be a major piece missing from the data which changes everything.
  - aurizon 8y ago
    What has Tesla concealed - as you intimate? What does the NTSB know they are not telling? One hopes their report at the end will tell all.
    - tedunangst 8y ago
      I think the idea is we don't know what they're not telling us because they haven't told us what they're not telling us.
      - masklinn 8y ago
        And even they might not know that they're "not telling us", because the investigation is ongoing and who knows what'll be uncovered?
hirundo 8y ago
Funny, the article says several times that the NTSB is unhappy with Tesla's release of information, but it never says why. It's not clear how it can interfere with the investigation. Maybe they just want to control the narrative? But that is no part of their function. Sorry if you're unhappy about Tesla's disclosures guys, but why, and why should we care?
- icegreentea2 8y ago
  If the NTSB was truly focused on providing investigations that minimize future risk (this is separate from blame, responsibility or punishment), then it's pretty clear that it should ideally be able to work in as neutral of an environment as possible. Tesla is also clearly trying to control the narrative, and I think NTSB's usual MO is that there simply be as little narrative as possible until something as close to ground truth be determined and released. NTSB understands that releasing reports into a pre-charged environment leads to increased risk of backlask against NTSB, thus reducing its capacity to minimize future risk.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    Yeah, I have huge respect for the NTSB. I think they're a big reason air travel is so safe. You'd never see an airline energetically trying to assign blame like this, and I'm disappointed that Tesla's PR operation is spinning vigorously before the investigation is over.
    - Animats 8y ago
      Right. Aviation and the NTSB understand each other. Commercial aviation accidents seldom have a single cause, because decades of hard work have eliminated all the single causes of failure. It usually takes a whole chain of failures to bring down an airliner, and it takes long, complicated investigations to figure out exactly what happened. Crash investigations tend to have conclusions like "A happened, and that would have been survivable except that B also happened, and the pilots were distracted dealing with A while B was the more serious problem." There's a whole field of "cockpit resource management" which deals with such issues. The NTSB's job is not to assign blame. It's to understand exactly what happened and figure out how to keep it from happening again. This crash is somewhat similar to the four other Tesla crashes where a stationary obstacle was partially obstructing the left edge of a lane. We know that Teslas will plow into such obstructions. Here's the area of 101 leading up to the crash.[1] Note the width of the space between the lines marking the gore area, the pointy section as the exit lane tapers off. It becomes a full lane wide, and widens very slowly. It's possible that the lane following system locked into the gore area as a lane, and followed it right into the barrier. CALTRANS standards call for a sign in the gore area.[2] But drivers keep hitting them. Replacing them is dangerous work, because there's live traffic and not enough room for a block vehicle. Especially here, because this is a left exit designed for high speed. So one of the options is to put the sign overhead, well ahead of the split. That's what CALTRANS did here. Tesla's system, of course, does not understand such a sign. Federal standards recommend striping in the gore area.[3] But CALTRANS does not usually do that. Probably because standard truck-mounted lane striping sprayers can't do it without shutting down the freeway. I look forward to seeing NTSB's take on all this. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4107387,-122.0752862,3a,75y,134.64h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sOBNnX0hnvJilwiLphACbMw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4107387,-122.0752862,3a,75y,... [2] http://www.dot.ca.gov/trafficops/tcd/exit-gore.html http://www.dot.ca.gov/trafficops/tcd/exit-gore.html [3] http://www.fdot.gov/roadway/ds/06/idx/17345.pdf http://www.fdot.gov/roadway/ds/06/idx/17345.pdf
alphabettsy 8y ago
It’s early, but it seems likely there was an issue with Autopilot that contributed to this crash. To make matters worse, the owner apparently complained about errant behavior on that section of road. Why did he continue to use it without paying attention and why didn’t Telsa act much earlier? It seems the local government or highway agency also neglected their duty to maintain the highway safety barrier, a shockingly regular occurrence where I live as well. I’ve wondered how often someone is injured because they failed to repair a barrier for several months. It appears all the pieces fell into place at the right time and this man unfortunately lost his life.
- creato 8y ago
  > It seems the local government or highway agency also neglected their duty to maintain the highway safety barrier, a shockingly regular occurrence where I live as well. I’ve wondered how often someone is injured because they failed to repair a barrier for several months. While the crash attenuators should exist and the various responsible authorities should maintain them appropriately, I find it frustrating that this is brought up in this conversation as if it's a significant factor. It might have saved this man's life, but this crash was sure to be incredibly violent with or without the barrier. The existence of a crash attenuator could not and should not affect anyone's decision making that led to the car impacting the barrier. Not the driver, not Tesla, not autopilot. I hope the NTSB comments on this and it leads to Caltrans doing a better job of replacing these quickly (if they haven't already committed to this in the aftermath of this incident), but I also hope that it has zero bearing on the rest of the report.
  - alphabettsy 8y ago
    I understand what you’re saying completely. The point of highway safety equipment is usually as a last resort to minimize injury as much as possible, this is after markings, signage, drivers and vehicles have failed to prevent a crash. Obviously the crash should’ve been avoided, but poorly maintained or designed infrastructure should not be left out of the conversation.
    - 8y ago
jijojv 8y ago
> “The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive" This is completely irrelevant to the crash. Anyone who uses autopilot knows that throughout the drive even if you have two hands but don't apply enough pressure on the wheel, you will get a warning and you have to jiggle the wheel for it to recognize you're there.
- wpietri 8y ago
  Related, I wondered about this bit: "Tesla said Huang had not followed guidelines intended to ensure drivers are paying attention while the vehicle is in Autopilot mode." Even if the sensors were correct, I have deep questions about the human ability to follow instructions requiring them to be robot-like. I would love to see some studies measuring the extent to which people can really follow Tesla's guidelines to the letter for the 300-500 hours/year that somebody with this commute would be doing. I'm sure I'm an outlier, but I would personally never use a system like Tesla's Autopilot. I already think highway driving is slightly too boring to hold my attention, so on long drives I always supplement with podcasts and audiobooks. Until I can lie down and take a nap, I'm sticking with manual driving.
  - denzil_correa 8y ago
    I have just seen one study (not exhaustive) that goes into some details about Tesla autopilot [0] >Participants emphasized being alert at all times, paying attention to the road environment and keeping hands on the wheel while in autonomous driving mode. ... > Drivers seem to enjoy these technologies, and are aware of the limitations of Autopilot and Summon. In the comments, we observed that drivers were highly motivated to use these technologies safely and have not seen indications of the concerns raised in the past such as engaging with secondary tasks while using Autopilot. [0] https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3005465 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3005465
    - morsch 8y ago
      It wasn't obvious to me from those quotes: this study is an analysis of an online survey the authors posted in Tesla forums and I suppose on Twitter. It's not based on anything like neutral observation of real behavior. "We conducted an online survey with 162 Tesla Owners. The survey was distributed through online forums and social media during April-May 2016. The survey asked questions about drivers’ attitudes towards and experiences with two functionalities built into Tesla Model S cars: Autopilot and Summon. Questions covered frequency of use, satisfaction, ease of learning and knowledge related to Autopilot and Summon. Additionally, we asked participants to report unusual or unexpected behaviors they experienced while using these systems and what they consider a key aspect of safety. The average time to complete the survey was 9.6 minutes."
bordercases 8y ago
Does autopilot lead to overconfident drivers?
- digi_owl 8y ago
  Supposedly any driver aid can make drivers more careless...
- cmsonger 8y ago
  Background: My wife drives a Tesla Model S with AP. Inattentive drivers more than overconfident drivers. You look down and stare at your phone for 10 seconds in a normal car and you are punished pretty quickly and learn not to do it. You look down and start at your phone for 10 seconds in a Tesla with AP and "nothing bad happens" ... almost all of the time. And that's the problem with this version of AP. Yes, Tesla says keep your eyes on the road. Yes, Tesla says keep your hands on the wheel. But it's pretty easy to get lax and start to slide. For the record, I think her use is the one valid use. She has RSI issues with her hands and arms and she does a good bit of expressway driving. She absolutely keeps her eyes on the road and hands near the wheel when using it. But I bet she's in the minority of regular Tesla AP users.
  - bicubic 8y ago
    The problem with Tesla’s ‘autopilot’ is that it’s anything but. Asking drivers to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel while not steering guarantees that their attention will wander, because their brain isn’t getting enough stimulus to keep focused on the task. I don’t know why it’s not clear to most people by now. The current Tesla ‘autopilot’ is simply more dangerous than manual driving because it harms human reaction time during emergencies. Tesla is using legalese to blame people for this fully predictable effect when crashes do happen, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time before they’re forced to rebrand Autopilot as a lane assist technology which is all it is. Its only use as a safety system is to maintain control of the car is the driver becomes incapacitated, and safely bring it to a complete stop.
    - annerajb 8y ago
United857 8y ago
Given the fact that the autopilot warnings were ignored, could this possibly be a case of sudden driver incapacitation? Eg falling asleep at the wheel, a heart attack, etc?
- fenwick67 8y ago
  The autopilot warnings happened earlier in the drive and aren't even relevant to the crash, they're Tesla's smokescreen. (EDIT: This is why the NTSB is mad, Tesla is selectively releasing information like this, so they look good before the NTSB reaches any conclusion)
IBM 8y ago
I learned everything I needed to know about Tesla's culture and Elon Musk specifically after their response a few years ago to the NYT's review criticizing the Model S's cold weather performance. All their subsequent responses to criticism haven't changed my impression at all. 'Lying with statistics' is a go-to Tesla PR move.
- JshWright 8y ago
  Even more deviously, it's "lying with true statistics".
  - buvanshak 8y ago
    In ancient time, it was by "the word of god" from prophets by which you controlled the masses. Now it is statistics.
lafar6502 8y ago
Both Uber and Tesla try to discredit the victim before any official investigation ends, and in both cases it’s quite clear they will try to cover their asses first. And they have all the data. How can we be sure they don’t selectively hide something or don’t tamper with the records before giving them to investigators?
- TillE 8y ago
  Uber has said essentially nothing about their crash, it's the cops who rushed out and got nearly everything wrong. Uber clearly had a serious technical failure, but there's been no PR spin from them.
  - xvf22 8y ago
    No you're right, the police happily pointed out that the woman was homeless and seemed to blame the victim. Why would they do that? It's reasonable to assume it's to keep Uber happy.
    - protomyth 8y ago
      I'm not terribly sure its Uber. It actually looks like something to do with keeping the Governor happy. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/28/uber-arizona-secret-self-driving-program-governor-doug-ducey https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/28/uber-ariz...
    - Natsu 8y ago
      > No you're right, the police happily pointed out that the woman was homeless and seemed to blame the victim. Why would they do that? Because A.R.S says that pedestrians have a duty to yield outside of crosswalks and they normally make the police's accident report available shortly after any accident. I know because I was over there not very long ago trying to get one for someone else. It's just off of Mill Ave., not very far south of where this accident happened.
      - jacquesm 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
Tesla is the company you pay $100,000 to kill you and then make you look bad in public.
- jey 8y ago
  They're not doing a very good job of delivering on that then. They don't seem to have anywhere near a high enough fatality rate.
- hndamien 8y ago
  Autopilot is only $10,000, but you are still supposed to be attentive.
jaimex2 8y ago
Given the media circus that started what choice did Tesla have? If this was really an problem why didn't they make Tesla do a NDA?
neurotech1 8y ago
The issue is that this investigation is important to Tesla but not considered 'Major' in NTSB definition. In a major investigations, such as airline crashes, the NTSB are the lead agency who give press multiple press conferences and release preliminary information to the media. It is considered very bad form for any designated parties[0] participating to talk to the media other than with NTSB approval. Non-essential organizations like union representatives have been booted from investigations for talking to the media. [0] https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/process/Pages/default.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/process/Pages/default.as... (scroll down to "The Party System")
jijojv 8y ago
From Feb'18 https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2018/insurance-company-sues-tesla-model-x-crash.shtml https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2018/insurance-company-su... The insurance company says that despite its suggestive name and marketing campaign, "Tesla produced a semi-autonomous vehicle that misleadingly appeared to be fully autonomous." In addition, the lawsuit claims Tesla advertised the package as providing a way to “automatically steer down the highway, change lanes, and adjust speed in response to traffic," all without requiring the driver to touch the steering wheel.

90 points by fancyfacebook 8y ago

I respect the NTSB, but I do not like institutional secrecy aspects to try to muzzle Tesla - facts like this can help people from placing excessive reliability on self driving abilities of Tesla's autopilot - as long as personal privacy is respected. After all, calling it an autopilot is intrinsically wrong - as Tesla repeatedly asserts.

masklinn 8y ago
Is it institutional secrecy or is it disapproval of unilateral disclosure of only a sub-set of elements of an ongoing inquest?
- classicsnoot 8y ago
  What is the distinction between the two that changes the justification? I see those things as part of each other, as in institutional secrecy is bred from ongoing inquests in perpetuity.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    The NTSB has a 50+ year history of producing detailed reports on accidents: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/AccidentReports.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/Ac... The notion that they'd suddenly turn secretive now seems absurd to me. Given their expertise and excellent track record, I think it's reasonable to trust them when they say they want to completed the investigation and publish a proper report, just like they do with other accidents.
    - classicsnoot 8y ago
      Just to clarify, "secrecy" is not a word to which I attach negative sentiment.
  - masklinn 8y ago
    > What is the distinction between the two that changes the justification? That one is a form of bias whereas the other is the opposite of bias: you don't want elements of an ongoing inquest to be released independently because they don't provide a complete picture of the investigative results, and thus provide a biased outlook on the event. > I see those things as part of each other, as in institutional secrecy is bred from ongoing inquests in perpetuity. NTSB inquests have never been "ongoing in perpetuity". They provide thorough and extensive public reports. Their entire purpose is to minimise future risk and they're very good at that. The point of discretion until all the facts are in (what you insultingly call "institutional secrecy") is that until as much as possible is known, there may be a major piece missing from the data which changes everything.
- aurizon 8y ago
  What has Tesla concealed - as you intimate? What does the NTSB know they are not telling? One hopes their report at the end will tell all.
  - tedunangst 8y ago
    I think the idea is we don't know what they're not telling us because they haven't told us what they're not telling us.
    - masklinn 8y ago
      And even they might not know that they're "not telling us", because the investigation is ongoing and who knows what'll be uncovered?

hirundo 8y ago

Funny, the article says several times that the NTSB is unhappy with Tesla's release of information, but it never says why. It's not clear how it can interfere with the investigation. Maybe they just want to control the narrative? But that is no part of their function. Sorry if you're unhappy about Tesla's disclosures guys, but why, and why should we care?

icegreentea2 8y ago
If the NTSB was truly focused on providing investigations that minimize future risk (this is separate from blame, responsibility or punishment), then it's pretty clear that it should ideally be able to work in as neutral of an environment as possible. Tesla is also clearly trying to control the narrative, and I think NTSB's usual MO is that there simply be as little narrative as possible until something as close to ground truth be determined and released. NTSB understands that releasing reports into a pre-charged environment leads to increased risk of backlask against NTSB, thus reducing its capacity to minimize future risk.
- wpietri 8y ago
  Yeah, I have huge respect for the NTSB. I think they're a big reason air travel is so safe. You'd never see an airline energetically trying to assign blame like this, and I'm disappointed that Tesla's PR operation is spinning vigorously before the investigation is over.
  - Animats 8y ago
    Right. Aviation and the NTSB understand each other. Commercial aviation accidents seldom have a single cause, because decades of hard work have eliminated all the single causes of failure. It usually takes a whole chain of failures to bring down an airliner, and it takes long, complicated investigations to figure out exactly what happened. Crash investigations tend to have conclusions like "A happened, and that would have been survivable except that B also happened, and the pilots were distracted dealing with A while B was the more serious problem." There's a whole field of "cockpit resource management" which deals with such issues. The NTSB's job is not to assign blame. It's to understand exactly what happened and figure out how to keep it from happening again. This crash is somewhat similar to the four other Tesla crashes where a stationary obstacle was partially obstructing the left edge of a lane. We know that Teslas will plow into such obstructions. Here's the area of 101 leading up to the crash.[1] Note the width of the space between the lines marking the gore area, the pointy section as the exit lane tapers off. It becomes a full lane wide, and widens very slowly. It's possible that the lane following system locked into the gore area as a lane, and followed it right into the barrier. CALTRANS standards call for a sign in the gore area.[2] But drivers keep hitting them. Replacing them is dangerous work, because there's live traffic and not enough room for a block vehicle. Especially here, because this is a left exit designed for high speed. So one of the options is to put the sign overhead, well ahead of the split. That's what CALTRANS did here. Tesla's system, of course, does not understand such a sign. Federal standards recommend striping in the gore area.[3] But CALTRANS does not usually do that. Probably because standard truck-mounted lane striping sprayers can't do it without shutting down the freeway. I look forward to seeing NTSB's take on all this. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4107387,-122.0752862,3a,75y,134.64h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sOBNnX0hnvJilwiLphACbMw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4107387,-122.0752862,3a,75y,... [2] http://www.dot.ca.gov/trafficops/tcd/exit-gore.html http://www.dot.ca.gov/trafficops/tcd/exit-gore.html [3] http://www.fdot.gov/roadway/ds/06/idx/17345.pdf http://www.fdot.gov/roadway/ds/06/idx/17345.pdf

alphabettsy 8y ago

It’s early, but it seems likely there was an issue with Autopilot that contributed to this crash. To make matters worse, the owner apparently complained about errant behavior on that section of road. Why did he continue to use it without paying attention and why didn’t Telsa act much earlier? It seems the local government or highway agency also neglected their duty to maintain the highway safety barrier, a shockingly regular occurrence where I live as well. I’ve wondered how often someone is injured because they failed to repair a barrier for several months. It appears all the pieces fell into place at the right time and this man unfortunately lost his life.

creato 8y ago
> It seems the local government or highway agency also neglected their duty to maintain the highway safety barrier, a shockingly regular occurrence where I live as well. I’ve wondered how often someone is injured because they failed to repair a barrier for several months. While the crash attenuators should exist and the various responsible authorities should maintain them appropriately, I find it frustrating that this is brought up in this conversation as if it's a significant factor. It might have saved this man's life, but this crash was sure to be incredibly violent with or without the barrier. The existence of a crash attenuator could not and should not affect anyone's decision making that led to the car impacting the barrier. Not the driver, not Tesla, not autopilot. I hope the NTSB comments on this and it leads to Caltrans doing a better job of replacing these quickly (if they haven't already committed to this in the aftermath of this incident), but I also hope that it has zero bearing on the rest of the report.
- alphabettsy 8y ago
  I understand what you’re saying completely. The point of highway safety equipment is usually as a last resort to minimize injury as much as possible, this is after markings, signage, drivers and vehicles have failed to prevent a crash. Obviously the crash should’ve been avoided, but poorly maintained or designed infrastructure should not be left out of the conversation.
  - 8y ago

jijojv 8y ago

> “The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive" This is completely irrelevant to the crash. Anyone who uses autopilot knows that throughout the drive even if you have two hands but don't apply enough pressure on the wheel, you will get a warning and you have to jiggle the wheel for it to recognize you're there.

wpietri 8y ago
Related, I wondered about this bit: "Tesla said Huang had not followed guidelines intended to ensure drivers are paying attention while the vehicle is in Autopilot mode." Even if the sensors were correct, I have deep questions about the human ability to follow instructions requiring them to be robot-like. I would love to see some studies measuring the extent to which people can really follow Tesla's guidelines to the letter for the 300-500 hours/year that somebody with this commute would be doing. I'm sure I'm an outlier, but I would personally never use a system like Tesla's Autopilot. I already think highway driving is slightly too boring to hold my attention, so on long drives I always supplement with podcasts and audiobooks. Until I can lie down and take a nap, I'm sticking with manual driving.
- denzil_correa 8y ago
  I have just seen one study (not exhaustive) that goes into some details about Tesla autopilot [0] >Participants emphasized being alert at all times, paying attention to the road environment and keeping hands on the wheel while in autonomous driving mode. ... > Drivers seem to enjoy these technologies, and are aware of the limitations of Autopilot and Summon. In the comments, we observed that drivers were highly motivated to use these technologies safely and have not seen indications of the concerns raised in the past such as engaging with secondary tasks while using Autopilot. [0] https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3005465 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3005465
  - morsch 8y ago
    It wasn't obvious to me from those quotes: this study is an analysis of an online survey the authors posted in Tesla forums and I suppose on Twitter. It's not based on anything like neutral observation of real behavior. "We conducted an online survey with 162 Tesla Owners. The survey was distributed through online forums and social media during April-May 2016. The survey asked questions about drivers’ attitudes towards and experiences with two functionalities built into Tesla Model S cars: Autopilot and Summon. Questions covered frequency of use, satisfaction, ease of learning and knowledge related to Autopilot and Summon. Additionally, we asked participants to report unusual or unexpected behaviors they experienced while using these systems and what they consider a key aspect of safety. The average time to complete the survey was 9.6 minutes."

bordercases 8y ago

Does autopilot lead to overconfident drivers?

digi_owl 8y ago
Supposedly any driver aid can make drivers more careless...
cmsonger 8y ago
Background: My wife drives a Tesla Model S with AP. Inattentive drivers more than overconfident drivers. You look down and stare at your phone for 10 seconds in a normal car and you are punished pretty quickly and learn not to do it. You look down and start at your phone for 10 seconds in a Tesla with AP and "nothing bad happens" ... almost all of the time. And that's the problem with this version of AP. Yes, Tesla says keep your eyes on the road. Yes, Tesla says keep your hands on the wheel. But it's pretty easy to get lax and start to slide. For the record, I think her use is the one valid use. She has RSI issues with her hands and arms and she does a good bit of expressway driving. She absolutely keeps her eyes on the road and hands near the wheel when using it. But I bet she's in the minority of regular Tesla AP users.
- bicubic 8y ago
  The problem with Tesla’s ‘autopilot’ is that it’s anything but. Asking drivers to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel while not steering guarantees that their attention will wander, because their brain isn’t getting enough stimulus to keep focused on the task. I don’t know why it’s not clear to most people by now. The current Tesla ‘autopilot’ is simply more dangerous than manual driving because it harms human reaction time during emergencies. Tesla is using legalese to blame people for this fully predictable effect when crashes do happen, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time before they’re forced to rebrand Autopilot as a lane assist technology which is all it is. Its only use as a safety system is to maintain control of the car is the driver becomes incapacitated, and safely bring it to a complete stop.
  - annerajb 8y ago

United857 8y ago

Given the fact that the autopilot warnings were ignored, could this possibly be a case of sudden driver incapacitation? Eg falling asleep at the wheel, a heart attack, etc?

fenwick67 8y ago
The autopilot warnings happened earlier in the drive and aren't even relevant to the crash, they're Tesla's smokescreen. (EDIT: This is why the NTSB is mad, Tesla is selectively releasing information like this, so they look good before the NTSB reaches any conclusion)

IBM 8y ago

I learned everything I needed to know about Tesla's culture and Elon Musk specifically after their response a few years ago to the NYT's review criticizing the Model S's cold weather performance. All their subsequent responses to criticism haven't changed my impression at all. 'Lying with statistics' is a go-to Tesla PR move.

JshWright 8y ago
Even more deviously, it's "lying with true statistics".
- buvanshak 8y ago
  In ancient time, it was by "the word of god" from prophets by which you controlled the masses. Now it is statistics.

lafar6502 8y ago

Both Uber and Tesla try to discredit the victim before any official investigation ends, and in both cases it’s quite clear they will try to cover their asses first. And they have all the data. How can we be sure they don’t selectively hide something or don’t tamper with the records before giving them to investigators?

TillE 8y ago
Uber has said essentially nothing about their crash, it's the cops who rushed out and got nearly everything wrong. Uber clearly had a serious technical failure, but there's been no PR spin from them.
- xvf22 8y ago
  No you're right, the police happily pointed out that the woman was homeless and seemed to blame the victim. Why would they do that? It's reasonable to assume it's to keep Uber happy.
  - protomyth 8y ago
    I'm not terribly sure its Uber. It actually looks like something to do with keeping the Governor happy. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/28/uber-arizona-secret-self-driving-program-governor-doug-ducey https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/28/uber-ariz...
  - Natsu 8y ago
    > No you're right, the police happily pointed out that the woman was homeless and seemed to blame the victim. Why would they do that? Because A.R.S says that pedestrians have a duty to yield outside of crosswalks and they normally make the police's accident report available shortly after any accident. I know because I was over there not very long ago trying to get one for someone else. It's just off of Mill Ave., not very far south of where this accident happened.
    - jacquesm 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago

Tesla is the company you pay $100,000 to kill you and then make you look bad in public.

jey 8y ago
They're not doing a very good job of delivering on that then. They don't seem to have anywhere near a high enough fatality rate.
hndamien 8y ago
Autopilot is only $10,000, but you are still supposed to be attentive.

jaimex2 8y ago

Given the media circus that started what choice did Tesla have? If this was really an problem why didn't they make Tesla do a NDA?

neurotech1 8y ago

The issue is that this investigation is important to Tesla but not considered 'Major' in NTSB definition. In a major investigations, such as airline crashes, the NTSB are the lead agency who give press multiple press conferences and release preliminary information to the media. It is considered very bad form for any designated parties[0] participating to talk to the media other than with NTSB approval. Non-essential organizations like union representatives have been booted from investigations for talking to the media. [0] https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/process/Pages/default.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/process/Pages/default.as... (scroll down to "The Party System")

jijojv 8y ago

From Feb'18 https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2018/insurance-company-sues-tesla-model-x-crash.shtml https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2018/insurance-company-su... The insurance company says that despite its suggestive name and marketing campaign, "Tesla produced a semi-autonomous vehicle that misleadingly appeared to be fully autonomous." In addition, the lawsuit claims Tesla advertised the package as providing a way to “automatically steer down the highway, change lanes, and adjust speed in response to traffic," all without requiring the driver to touch the steering wheel.