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Ralph Nader urges regulators to recall Tesla’s ‘manslaughtering’ FSD vehicles

superchroma 4y ago
Seems like an overreaction. There's nothing wrong with the cars, it seems the key issue is that the FSD feature needs to be renamed and people need to not be trusting it to handle braking on their behalf. Or disable it entirely over the air until it is fixed to an acceptable standard. I guess the Chevrolet Corvair is not so distant in human memory that the guy who made news dunking on it can still make a headline.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  See, I thought it was the pinto catching on fire when it got rear ended. Haven’t heard of Nader in a long, long time time though. Maybe they’re dragging him out to split the vote again? Gotta start early for the presidential elections these days.
  - letitbeirie 4y ago
    It was the pinto that caught fire when rear-ended but the corvair had plenty of problems its own. Stability through corners, for starters.
- kart23 4y ago
  autopilot has been rear ending motorcycles, and has a history of not detecting them properly. also, a rename at this point will not change behavior, owners have already become accustomed to paying lax attention.
  - superchroma 4y ago
    Sure, let the regulator decide. Either way seems like an OTA update would address it.
neither_color 4y ago
to date, FSD remains a “Level 2” advanced driver-assistance system, meaning the driver must stay fully engaged in the operation of the vehicle while it’s in motion. The car is continuously reminding you to keep your hands on the wheel with a prompt. You cannot ignore it without deliberately fooling the mechanism somehow. Ultimately it is your responsibility to hit the brakes and steer or stop the car. FSD is not a license to sit back and read a book. Without more information I find it hard to blame anyone but the driver. Are there cases of the car having a mind of its own and overriding the driver's command?
- sidibe 4y ago
  Regardless of whether it's impacting safety or not (I'd be surprised it's not based on the videos of frequent exciting interventions), I can't believe they haven't gotten anything for deceptive marketing about this feature. Tesla.com/autopilot has a video now for many many years that tries to paint the picture you could sit back and read a book (if not for those pesky regulators). Meanwhile people are paying over $10k for it while the fine print (or overt warnings) make it pretty clear it's currently useless
- whateveracct 4y ago
  First time I was in a Tesla was about a month ago. We were driving on the expressway and suddenly the Tesla jerked right and then left and beeped. As if it were dodging something. It was pretty horrifying. The driver was no longer in control. There was maybe some roadkill on the side of the road? Nothing to actually dodge - definitely a false positive. My dad (a first-time Tesla driver) promptly turned off the assistance and we all had a better time.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- sneak 4y ago
  > FSD is not a license to sit back and read a book. Given then that the F stands for "full", this seems like a simple case of fraud to me.
- 4y ago
mikestew 4y ago
Ralph might not be wrong, but this isn’t the “Unsafe at Any Speed”[0] moment he might think it is. This is just one manufacturer who is using deceptive marketing for one (arguably two) feature(s). So dialing back the hyperbole might be in order. Yes, Tesla needs a smack. But it is not like Tesla is refusing to put seat belts in cars (as in the book). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed
- olliej 4y ago
  Seems like a very "I haven't got any press recently" call: it's something where hyperbole can be used, it involves a popular & high profile target, has significant public cost, etc It's not like they're deathtraps (it seems like mechanically/physically they are safe cars), and Tesla has repeatedly shown that they can disable and remove vehicle behaviour without a car going into a dealer/mechanic. So if it _is_ considered too unsafe a recall isn't needed.
  - tragictrash 4y ago
    A recall is a bureaucratic process, not the physical travel of cars to a repair shop. In this case, a recall is very much needed, and would be issued OTA to all the Teslas. It would 100% be a recall, and none of the cars would go to a dealership.
jmartin2683 4y ago
[flagged]
jmpman 4y ago
Until X Æ A-12 is crossing the road in front a Tesla, FSD should be banned from the roads. These self driving car execs are willing to risk my family’s lives, because it costs them nothing. That’s not a sufficient bar.
- zugi 4y ago
  Teslas are safer per mile driven than other cars. NHTSA gives them 5-star safety ratings. Banning this technology by being suckered in by a coordinated smear campaign will result in more deaths if successful. The lives you end may be your families' or mine.
sabareesh 4y ago
Great example of fake news https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/tesla-self-driving-smear-campaign-releases-test-fails-fsd-never-engaged/ https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/tesla-self-driving-smear-camp...
- wtallis 4y ago
  If it's possible to "fail to realize" that FSD has failed to activate when you pressed the button for it, then that's probably worth a recall on its own. Additionally, any automatic emergency braking functionality that a car has needs to be enabled by default, not something the driver must manually activate along with other features that are less broadly usable.
  - sabareesh 4y ago
    It is a smear campaign, it is more like they dont care if it was enabled or not
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  Nader has nothing to do with the Dawn Project. There are a lot more people who recognize Tesla's FSD Beta is dangerous than just O'Dowd.
4oo4 4y ago
It's complete willful ignorance to mock or dismiss this. It may not be a 'dangerous at any speed' scenario, but that's only a difference of scale because there aren't a lot of Teslas on the road and because FSD is an add-on. If Tesla were allowed to keep releasing such an untested product with such a poor safety track record without repercussions, it could set the tone for other auto manufacturers to do the same. Luckily other auto manufacturers aren't being as reckless. FSD is dangerously immature software that is not anywhere close to road ready, and yet we are supposed to trust it not to kill or injure people. Some examples: - Teslas can't distinguish yellow stoplights from the moon. https://twitter.com/JordanTeslaTech/status/1418413307862585344 https://twitter.com/JordanTeslaTech/status/14184133078625853... - Numerous examples of near-misses where it decides to veer into pedestrians - They are demonstrably much more dangerous than other cars: https://www.tesladeaths.com/resources.html https://www.tesladeaths.com/resources.html Aside from the software, they also aren't safe on a mechanical level either, since for instance, they don't have good mechanical safety mechanisms as a fallback for when the electronics fail, and people are trapped in burning cars. https://www.autoblog.com/2019/02/25/fatal-tesla-model-s-crash-fire/ https://www.autoblog.com/2019/02/25/fatal-tesla-model-s-cras... In my state FSD/Autopilot luckily isn't street legal, but if it was and I saw another Tesla on the road, rather than take my chances I'd pull over if I wasn't able to keep sufficient distance from them. And I certainly wouldn't want to take my chances near them as a pedestrian. I will give Tesla credit for popularizing EVs and innovating auto design, but that doesn't make up for such poor execution in manufacturing, safety design, and alpha-quality software being trusted to make decisions that can kill people when.
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  I agree. FSD in this moment is Alpha version and will be for years to come. Musk should get the software back from the streets and refund everyone who bought into this FSD scam.
  - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
    Musk should get a prison cell for the people he has killed by recklessly putting this vaporware on the streets.
pedalpete 4y ago
Tesla publishes details about accidents per million miles driven and compares that with Autopilot active and without. https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport In the 4th quarter, we recorded one crash for every 4.31 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology (Autosteer and active safety features). For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology (no Autosteer and active safety features), we recorded one crash for every 1.59 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 484,000 miles. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they split out numbers for FSD, which is important to understand in this context. Assuming FSD is currently as good as a human driver (Tesla suggests it is better), how much better does FSD have to be than a person to be accepted as a safer way to drive?
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  > Assuming FSD is currently as good as a human driver That's a massive assumption made without evidence. > Tesla publishes details about accidents per million miles driven and compares that with Autopilot active and without. The problems with Tesla's autopilot (different from FSD) statistics have been pointed out before: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/06/teslas-using-autopilot-crashed-273-times-in-less-than-a-year/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/06/teslas-using-autopilot-...
  - pedalpete 4y ago
    I wasn't aware of the problems with Tesla's statistics before. I find it of an accusation that you say I've a "massive assumption made without evidence". The "evidence" I have is the data from Tesla itself, which states that FSD is better than a person, so I reduced that to say "as good". The "problems with Tesla's data" as pointed out in the ars technica article doesn't make a comparison to an average driver, or give details on the number of miles driven per accident, etc etc So, how are we to know where a regular human driver falls on the spectrum.
    - lern_too_spel 4y ago
aiisjustanif 4y ago
Follow up post saying FSD was never enabled [0] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417286

Seems like an overreaction. There's nothing wrong with the cars, it seems the key issue is that the FSD feature needs to be renamed and people need to not be trusting it to handle braking on their behalf. Or disable it entirely over the air until it is fixed to an acceptable standard. I guess the Chevrolet Corvair is not so distant in human memory that the guy who made news dunking on it can still make a headline.

UncleEntity 4y ago
See, I thought it was the pinto catching on fire when it got rear ended. Haven’t heard of Nader in a long, long time time though. Maybe they’re dragging him out to split the vote again? Gotta start early for the presidential elections these days.
- letitbeirie 4y ago
  It was the pinto that caught fire when rear-ended but the corvair had plenty of problems its own. Stability through corners, for starters.
kart23 4y ago
autopilot has been rear ending motorcycles, and has a history of not detecting them properly. also, a rename at this point will not change behavior, owners have already become accustomed to paying lax attention.
- superchroma 4y ago
  Sure, let the regulator decide. Either way seems like an OTA update would address it.

neither_color 4y ago

to date, FSD remains a “Level 2” advanced driver-assistance system, meaning the driver must stay fully engaged in the operation of the vehicle while it’s in motion. The car is continuously reminding you to keep your hands on the wheel with a prompt. You cannot ignore it without deliberately fooling the mechanism somehow. Ultimately it is your responsibility to hit the brakes and steer or stop the car. FSD is not a license to sit back and read a book. Without more information I find it hard to blame anyone but the driver. Are there cases of the car having a mind of its own and overriding the driver's command?

sidibe 4y ago
Regardless of whether it's impacting safety or not (I'd be surprised it's not based on the videos of frequent exciting interventions), I can't believe they haven't gotten anything for deceptive marketing about this feature. Tesla.com/autopilot has a video now for many many years that tries to paint the picture you could sit back and read a book (if not for those pesky regulators). Meanwhile people are paying over $10k for it while the fine print (or overt warnings) make it pretty clear it's currently useless
whateveracct 4y ago
First time I was in a Tesla was about a month ago. We were driving on the expressway and suddenly the Tesla jerked right and then left and beeped. As if it were dodging something. It was pretty horrifying. The driver was no longer in control. There was maybe some roadkill on the side of the road? Nothing to actually dodge - definitely a false positive. My dad (a first-time Tesla driver) promptly turned off the assistance and we all had a better time.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
sneak 4y ago
> FSD is not a license to sit back and read a book. Given then that the F stands for "full", this seems like a simple case of fraud to me.
4y ago

mikestew 4y ago

Ralph might not be wrong, but this isn’t the “Unsafe at Any Speed”[0] moment he might think it is. This is just one manufacturer who is using deceptive marketing for one (arguably two) feature(s). So dialing back the hyperbole might be in order. Yes, Tesla needs a smack. But it is not like Tesla is refusing to put seat belts in cars (as in the book). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed

olliej 4y ago
Seems like a very "I haven't got any press recently" call: it's something where hyperbole can be used, it involves a popular & high profile target, has significant public cost, etc It's not like they're deathtraps (it seems like mechanically/physically they are safe cars), and Tesla has repeatedly shown that they can disable and remove vehicle behaviour without a car going into a dealer/mechanic. So if it _is_ considered too unsafe a recall isn't needed.
- tragictrash 4y ago
  A recall is a bureaucratic process, not the physical travel of cars to a repair shop. In this case, a recall is very much needed, and would be issued OTA to all the Teslas. It would 100% be a recall, and none of the cars would go to a dealership.

jmartin2683 4y ago

[flagged]

jmpman 4y ago

Until X Æ A-12 is crossing the road in front a Tesla, FSD should be banned from the roads. These self driving car execs are willing to risk my family’s lives, because it costs them nothing. That’s not a sufficient bar.

zugi 4y ago
Teslas are safer per mile driven than other cars. NHTSA gives them 5-star safety ratings. Banning this technology by being suckered in by a coordinated smear campaign will result in more deaths if successful. The lives you end may be your families' or mine.

sabareesh 4y ago

Great example of fake news https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/tesla-self-driving-smear-campaign-releases-test-fails-fsd-never-engaged/ https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/tesla-self-driving-smear-camp...

wtallis 4y ago
If it's possible to "fail to realize" that FSD has failed to activate when you pressed the button for it, then that's probably worth a recall on its own. Additionally, any automatic emergency braking functionality that a car has needs to be enabled by default, not something the driver must manually activate along with other features that are less broadly usable.
- sabareesh 4y ago
  It is a smear campaign, it is more like they dont care if it was enabled or not
lern_too_spel 4y ago
Nader has nothing to do with the Dawn Project. There are a lot more people who recognize Tesla's FSD Beta is dangerous than just O'Dowd.

4oo4 4y ago

It's complete willful ignorance to mock or dismiss this. It may not be a 'dangerous at any speed' scenario, but that's only a difference of scale because there aren't a lot of Teslas on the road and because FSD is an add-on. If Tesla were allowed to keep releasing such an untested product with such a poor safety track record without repercussions, it could set the tone for other auto manufacturers to do the same. Luckily other auto manufacturers aren't being as reckless. FSD is dangerously immature software that is not anywhere close to road ready, and yet we are supposed to trust it not to kill or injure people. Some examples: - Teslas can't distinguish yellow stoplights from the moon. https://twitter.com/JordanTeslaTech/status/1418413307862585344 https://twitter.com/JordanTeslaTech/status/14184133078625853... - Numerous examples of near-misses where it decides to veer into pedestrians - They are demonstrably much more dangerous than other cars: https://www.tesladeaths.com/resources.html https://www.tesladeaths.com/resources.html Aside from the software, they also aren't safe on a mechanical level either, since for instance, they don't have good mechanical safety mechanisms as a fallback for when the electronics fail, and people are trapped in burning cars. https://www.autoblog.com/2019/02/25/fatal-tesla-model-s-crash-fire/ https://www.autoblog.com/2019/02/25/fatal-tesla-model-s-cras... In my state FSD/Autopilot luckily isn't street legal, but if it was and I saw another Tesla on the road, rather than take my chances I'd pull over if I wasn't able to keep sufficient distance from them. And I certainly wouldn't want to take my chances near them as a pedestrian. I will give Tesla credit for popularizing EVs and innovating auto design, but that doesn't make up for such poor execution in manufacturing, safety design, and alpha-quality software being trusted to make decisions that can kill people when.

TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
I agree. FSD in this moment is Alpha version and will be for years to come. Musk should get the software back from the streets and refund everyone who bought into this FSD scam.
- TheCoelacanth 4y ago
  Musk should get a prison cell for the people he has killed by recklessly putting this vaporware on the streets.

pedalpete 4y ago

Tesla publishes details about accidents per million miles driven and compares that with Autopilot active and without. https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport In the 4th quarter, we recorded one crash for every 4.31 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology (Autosteer and active safety features). For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology (no Autosteer and active safety features), we recorded one crash for every 1.59 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 484,000 miles. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they split out numbers for FSD, which is important to understand in this context. Assuming FSD is currently as good as a human driver (Tesla suggests it is better), how much better does FSD have to be than a person to be accepted as a safer way to drive?

lern_too_spel 4y ago
> Assuming FSD is currently as good as a human driver That's a massive assumption made without evidence. > Tesla publishes details about accidents per million miles driven and compares that with Autopilot active and without. The problems with Tesla's autopilot (different from FSD) statistics have been pointed out before: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/06/teslas-using-autopilot-crashed-273-times-in-less-than-a-year/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/06/teslas-using-autopilot-...
- pedalpete 4y ago
  I wasn't aware of the problems with Tesla's statistics before. I find it of an accusation that you say I've a "massive assumption made without evidence". The "evidence" I have is the data from Tesla itself, which states that FSD is better than a person, so I reduced that to say "as good". The "problems with Tesla's data" as pointed out in the ars technica article doesn't make a comparison to an average driver, or give details on the number of miles driven per accident, etc etc So, how are we to know where a regular human driver falls on the spectrum.
  - lern_too_spel 4y ago

aiisjustanif 4y ago

Follow up post saying FSD was never enabled [0] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417286