Tesla to remote patch 2M vehicles after damning Autopilot safety probe The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) investigation into safety risks associated with Tesla's Autopilot have concluded with a recall of more than two million vehicles, with the agency determining Autopilot's safety controls are "insufficient to prevent misuse." Some 2012-2023 Tesla Model S vehicles …
I think over-dramatizing the problem is not possible.
The so-called "autopilot", which is anything but, can actually kill people.
How about "demonstrably lethal programming flaws combined with intentional false advertising and deliberately confusing nomenclature"?
Enter the fanbois Python-esque "But it only kills a FEW people ... people kill more!"
I think the problem with the name is that the general population mis-understand what an autopilot is.
The autopilot on an aircraft takes over some of the more mundane tasks that are hard to co-ordinate under high workload or long duration phases of flight* - it does not "fly" the aircraft, and will cancel at zero notice if a fault is detected. The real difference is that it doesn't normally matter if it takes the pilot a second or two to respond when the autopilot says "over to you mate", where as any delay with a driver resuming control in a car can lead to a major accident.
* aircraft may also have a flight management system (FMS), which is more like the "Full self drive" as it is capable of navigation, climbing, descending, etc. However, it will also cancel with zero notice if a fault is detected.
"Hasn't Musk already objected that it interferes withhis free speech rights to call it Autopilot irrespective of whether it does what it says on the tin?"
The bigger issue is that Tesla has filed affidavits with the State of California and possibly elsewhere that characterizes Autopilot as no more than Level 2 drivers assistance. Yet, they (mainly Elon) will talk about how wonderful it is during interviews and earnings calls and how it drives Elon all over Austin, TX with zero interactions (FSD, I assume).
They could rename Autopilot to "MondoDrive" or even "GigaDrive" and it wouldn't lead people on about what is can actually do.
The NHTSA date back to 1970 and their powers were drafted to match the technology of the time. At the time cars did not have software and the idea that faults could one day be fixed by broadcasting a software patch by radio and have it installed automatically did not occur to anyone. In theory congress could pass a law granting the NHTSA an additional power to require a software update. For the time being congress are too busy supporting Russia in Ukraine. It is simpler just to have the NHTSA use their existing power to get things fixed and not worry that the name of the power does not describe how the fix is done.
The NHTSA "news" is biased against Tesla, which is the most popular EV in the world, safest car in the US (crash tests proved), has fewer accdients/fatalities (proved), fewer fires than ICE vehicles. BUT won't use Lidar. Which NHTSA board member is a major investor in Lidar? True, FSD is misnamed but still safer than manual car control. Musk hate is relentless from the mediocre (and dividend hungry), as expected.
LIDAR is a technology, it’s not a company. Many manufacturers produce LIDAR systems, most of those are broad-range auto parts manufacturers like Bosch, Aptiv, etc. LIDAR is desirable because of what the R stands for. It is entirely valid to bring up a readily-available technology that would have avoided a large number of Tesla’s autonomous driving incidents given that so many of them had a failure to detect distance to hazard as a contributing factor.
On your other whine, yes, Tesla’s fire rate is lower than ICEs - so is any EV. The grown-ups compare EVs to EVs, and there, the picture is less rosy. Tesla’s choice of battery chemistry comes with longer range and a higher inherent fire risk. That is a fact. They may take steps to mitigate that risk, but the baseline risk is higher. (this is true for the NCA batteries used in most Teslas, not LFP batteries fitted to lower-range models; LFP is the least combustible of Li-Ion chemistries)
But really, with a population of only 2 million vehicles, they found 350 accidents significant enough to be included in the investigation (i.e., damage to vehicle or harm to occupant) where “Autopilot” was a factor. That’s actually a pretty high number for anything with safety-of-life implications. Especially on a vehicle fleet of relatively new cars, that spends most of its time on suburban multi-lane divided highways.
But whatever... who am I to spoil someone’s dream: you keep on sucking Elon’s coteat - I’m sure he’ll tweet you a discount code for a Tesla!
While the EV fire rate is lower many ICE fire are easily contained and dealt with and the car may be economically repairable. With an EV fire all you can do is stock up on marshmallows (and very long sticks) and wait for it to burn itself out.
So while there are more ICE fires it would be interesting to know what proportion of them result in a write off to make a more meaningful comparison.
Not at all, I've seen ICE fires that were easy to extinguish and once a few damaged parts were replaced and perhaps a respray of the bonnet the was as good as it was before the fire. I'm sue we've all seen cars with strange rust patterns on the bonnet, they are generally the result of an minor engine fire.
Equally a cabin fire (dropped ciggy on the upholstery) in either sort of car will probably not be a write off - there are fires and fires and they are all different.
".... BUT won't use Lidar"
One of the major causes of Tesla accidents isn't just that Tesla doesn't use Lidar, it's that it doesn't use cameras to monitor for driver attention, and if a driver takes their hands off the wheel only rings alarms after 30 seconds. With other L2 autonomous cars the driver has to keep their hands on the wheel and/or be demonstrably attentive in order for the car to 'self-drive'.
Sounding an alarm and/or safely parking if the driver has their hands off the wheel is something very basic that Tesla could do over-the-air, but have they? No idea bit I think they're just messing around the edges.
"One of the major causes of Tesla accidents isn't just that Tesla doesn't use Lidar, it's that it doesn't use cameras to monitor for driver attention, "
Do you really want a car that's watching and recording you while you drive? It's already come to light that Tesla cars send video back to the mothership. If there is any sort of incident, you are also ratting yourself out if the video shows something you'd have rather wasn't brought up.
"Do you really want a car that's watching and recording you while you drive?"
Absolutely not for the 'recording' part. The point is just to monitor if the driver is attentive and if not to give a warning signal. Data should be self-contained within the car and held in a small buffer that's constantly being overwritten by new data. Of course I would certainly not trust *Tesla* to implement it properly that way!
Nonsense and gibberish. If NHTSA was "against" Tesla they would have assessed a massive fine, required people to physically bring their Teslas in to make sure the software was appplied, and possibly require autodrive to be removed entirely until it's not buggy as hell.
Given NHTSA's potential enforcement powers and Musk's cavalier approach to regulations, NHTSA's actually shown restraint.
The word "recall" is used to denote an issue that the automaker must address as soon as reasonably possible as opposed to an update they push out themselves to correct something. If the industry wants to come up with a new word, it would make no difference. In aerospace there are degrees of mandates all with their own name. The lowest might require an update or inspection the next time the aircraft goes through annual maintenance or repair. Another can specify a repair within XX days and the most severe could ground the aircraft type until repairs are made/checks done. Mentor Pilot may have done a segment on this or just explained it over a combination of videos. When I was working on rockets, it was the last all the time if the FAA was concerned about something, but a bit different as our craft were 'experimental' and didn't carry a Type Certificate.
In the UK, when illegal stuff starts getting beyond the usual suspects and into the mainstream, they drag the first one they catch into court and make an example of them. Massive fines, decades in prison, shamed in the national media. It generally works. All the others who were gleefully at it, then take notice, and realise what they thought was just a laugh, actually comes with a hefty prison sentence.
Obviously, USA isn't the UK, so perhaps to get American's attention they might want to bring back televised crucifixion.
I found this quote ages ago (cannot source it) and I think that this is the right time to republish it :
"Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you'll sound like a maniac. It's an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out."
Brown, we can all agree, is color. Sticky, I think, corresponds to opinion. It's certainly not material or origin, and purpose even less.
So sticky brown smear it should be, I think.
The former British Empire covers a lot of the globe, including, I believe, the country in which you reside. I don't know whether you were intentionally including yourself (ironically) in that statement, but jerkiness-of-knee is by no means a uniquely English phenomenon, but really part of the herd-mentality nature of humans.
I don't, however, understand how a post about the word-order of adjectives (which is a complex set of rules we subconsciously learn) is a knee-jerk. Have I missed something?
edit - per the British Empire; it once covered 2/3 of the globe, but ceased to do so several decades before I was, or most of the people here were, born. Its relevance is really limited to an archaic reference. Anyone here who talks about it is an anachronism, and usually old and red-of-face.
One thing the police and forensic scientists have to do is list things and the lists include clothing. You have to be careful to get the adjectives right. An "old lady's coat" isn't the same thing as a "lady's old "coat".
Witness statements might not be on the GCSE-English curriculum. Perhaps they should be. English is a more subtle language than it's often given credit for.
Your quote is from Matthew Anderson’s book “The Elements of Eloquence”.
As a native speaker, I find that “a brown sticky smear” is a totally natural construction, and is a more humorous formulation than the canonical “sticky brown smear”. The placement of the word “sticky” after a colour determiner tips you off that it is functioning as a euphemism for the “material” part of the phrase, and that’s what makes it work.
Humour frequently bends or breaks grammatical patterns, and this is one example of that. The greatest humourists in English frequently mess with the strongest rules in English for comedic effect: P. G. Wodehouse did it so naturally that you don’t even notice it; Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett were more obvious about bending the rules, sometimes to near destruction, but no less funny when doing so.
Am I the only one who thinks that just maybe a company whose driver assist software can't identify a bunch of brightly flashing lights as probably something that should not be driven through at speed, should NOT be doing over the air software updates? At least not without regulatory approval of the results of a well monitored test program.
Seems to me that there's a big difference between gratuitously breaking millions of printers (again) and messing with control of vehicles with a mass of two tonnes or more travelling at highway speeds. In the first case, people will eventually tire of having their workflows randomly broken, and they will find another vendor. In the second, the customer likely won't be around to complain. And neither will some of the folks who those lights were intended to protect.
Elon and other auto makers may not like the idea of being tighly regulated. But speaking as potential collateral damage, I think regulating these folks tightly is a just dandy idea.
"Elon and other auto makers may not like the idea of being tighly regulated. But speaking as potential collateral damage, I think regulating these folks tightly is a just dandy idea."
Surprisingly, lots of industries welcome regulation. If Elon creates a bad name for autonomous driving systems, that spills over on all of the others who may have done a much better job. Not saying that have, mind, just using it as an example.
The whole "we'll sue you if you sell your Cybertruck" clause made a comeback, like the Christmas fruitcake that is perpetually regifted. Maybe it has something to do with the Cybertruck not being able to make it up shallow hills without needing to be towed?
https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cybertruck-clause-sue-cybertruck-owners-resale-2023-12?op=1
https://www.newsweek.com/tesla-cybertruck-model-ford-california-hillside-video-1852126
Remember, four wheel drive allows idiots to get deeper into trouble before they ultimately get stuck. They were going to get stuck anyway, it was only a question of when and where.
That said, while the truck should have been able to extricate itself from that position, likewise the driver shouldn't have been driving in the snow that far over his head. Ultimately it was driver error combined with a vehicle that wasn't properly prepared for off-road use.
Seriously, improper tires, no rear lock-up capability, and no tow points? WTF was Tesla thinking, releasing a test vehicle like that? Numpties.
And if he'd spent the last 3-5 years just keeping his mouth shut and head down at Tesla, it probably would have taken a lot longer for most people to figure out 1) his personality is like a raging infected hemorrhoid, and 2) far from being some sort of modern day Eddison, he doesn't know shit about cars, rocket engines, or even how to run a company. Though, considering Eddison stole a lot of his ideas from other people, patented them first, and then sued the actual inventor when they tried to take their rightful credit... maybe a comparison to Eddison isn't so far off.
The comparison to Edison is ironic, because Edison fucked Nikola Tesla over, and now Musk is fucking Tesla over.
If the company's namesake were about today, no doubt he would not be impressed, and if he wasn't a pacifist, would likely be working on a way to put several million volts of high-frequency alternating current though Musk from a distance.
Come on now, its not a real truck. Its not got enough ground clearance for a start. Its belongs in the same class of vehicle as a Chevolet El Camino and the Ford Ranchero. Those were called "Coupe Utility Vehicles" and were designed primarily for fun and recreation, not to haul stuff to and from jobsites. Ford actually has something more in that line with their F-150 Lightning but I don't think its selling that well.
I read a lot of knocking copy about Tesla, its almost a subject of blind hate in some quarters. I tend to be ambivalent; all the Tesla owners I know seem to love their vehicles. I don't know why but nobody seems to bother asking them.
As for "Full Self Driving", "Autopilot" or whatever -- only a fool would trust the machinery 100%. Its just a potentially useful driving aid. The recall/update is because a minority of morons can't be trusted to use it properly (its the same sort of people who hire a Tesla and wreck it in street racing -- you just can't trust some people so everyone has to suffer as a result).
>like the Christmas fruitcake that is perpetually regifted
A cultural note here. American fruitcake** is "a bit of an acquired taste" because it tends to be over sweet, a bit short on substance and has thinks like weird bits in it that defy description such as vartious type of candied peel. Hence all the jokes about "it being regifted" (itself a bit of an American expression).
A proper British fruit cake, say a traditional Christmas cake or a Dundee cake, is a work of art. They do suffer from the problem that their calorific content makes an energy bar seem like a slimming aid but you don't back them that often. They, like mince pies, are also a handy vehicle for carrying festive cheer should this be what turns you on.
(**Actually, American cakes, period. Nasty thing)(and don't even mention 'frosting'.)
“Autopilot is an advanced driver assistance system that enhances safety and convenience behind the wheel. When used properly, Autopilot reduces your overall workload as a driver.”
“The currently enabled Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.”
"“The currently enabled Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.”"
Yet, in interviews, Elon will show just that by removing his hands from the steering wheel while he drives reporters around and how he claims that FSD often does all of the driving for him with no interruptions. Those videos and quotes aren't very hard to find. While the written word is what they'll point to when in court, people are getting their information from the media releases since reading a EULA/Contract is tedious and those documents are created for maximum unreadability and just there to trot out in court.
"Yet, in interviews, Elon will show just that by removing his hands from the steering wheel ..."
Not any more apparently. The OTA update will reportedly require hands on the wheel at all times.
BTW, how does one toggle turn signals with both hands on the wheel? Toes? Tounge? Brain implant? (Can that last be installed OTA)?
>>BTW, how does one toggle turn signals with both hands on the wheel?
Dunno where your/a Tesla's turn indicator controls are but mine (VAG Vehicle; so probably common to all vehicles in the group) are within a finger's length of the steering wheel - its easy to activate the appropriate signal by sticking out a finger and moving it in the appropriate direction without removing the hand from the steering wheel; use of middle finger optional!
On the Model 3 I test drove earlier this year, the indicators were only accessible as buttons on the steering wheel, there were no stalks at all. This was highly problematical when (trying to) signal exiting small roundabouts, as the wheel was upside down, but less of an issue for lane changes on the motorway.
Holy shit, you’re right.. they actually found a way to make the cabin-controls even worse in a Tesla. I remember the M3 indicators being the inferior “return-to-centre” type, but they were definitely mounted to the steering wheel column, and did not rotate with the wheel, but on the latest cars, they have indeed been replaced by buttons on the fucking steering wheel.
To quote TopGear magazine: “Sounds like a terrible idea in theory, and having sampled the system on the Model S Plaid, [we] found it to be a terrible idea in practice too. You have been warned.”
I hope they’ve got good lawyers at Tesla..
You’ve hit the root of the problem - it’s inconsistent no matter what you do: do you keep Left and Right aligned to the wheel (and thus your hands), or to their orientation within the cabin? If you do decide to flip the meaning, there has to be a point (at about 90º) where that changeover happens, which itself makes the system unpredictable (you cannot add a dead zone in the middle, because the rules say that the indicators always have to work in a car). If you don’t make the sense flip, then the driver has got to mentally map “left” to your right hand when making turns (or worse - they have to look at the wheel). I know first-hand that that this is error-prone - my car has radio controls on the rear surface of the steering wheel: left hand side changes source/track/station, right hand side does mute/volume, and I have regularly pressed the wrong one when trying to mute or turn down the radio while steering).
The obvious accident case here is when you’ve parked at the side of the road, with the wheel turned 180º due to the parking manoeuvre, you hit the road-side indicator button, and then you pull out. Indicating toward the kerb is not how you tell drivers already on the road that you want to join traffic... in some places it gives the exact opposite message.
This is nothing but more cost-cutting by Tesla - mounting all the controls on the steering wheel means there’s no need to bring signal/power lines out to the stalks. It’s the same reason why the Model3 has no instrument binnacle, and why Teslas don’t have secondary controls (e.g., air conditioning) on buttons, despite the proven safety advantages of physical controls allowing the driver to operate them by feel without needing to look away from the road.
"Unless you do what sane people do ... purchase a car with logically thought out controls."
The evolution of controls in cars has been over many years and the reason most cars are very similar is that the designs have all converged on what works.
Did i see 100% in the article ?
That's quite a large percentage.
Still , I think the feature should at the very least include a nod to the top <variable> in the room in this one.
Not Elo n
Darwin
Yes , the option should be named the DARWIN option or button if you will.
Now the next time you hear the words Elo and Autopilot together you can imagine a little cloud including DARWIN floating above both.
You know it makes (more) sense.
There should be audio and visual warnings inside and out of the car that autopilot is engaged.
My amigo sat nag app asks me questions I yes and no to, autopilot should ask the driver to put hands on the wheel and audibly confirm the instruction.
Hopefully it’ll be so annoying that people don’t use it.
I have auto features in my car & it complains if it thinks I’m not holding the wheel, newer cars have Capacitive sensing in addition to what mine has.
> There should be audio and visual warnings inside and out of the car that autopilot is engaged.
Student Drivers, at least in New Jersey, have to display STUDENT DRIVER signs on the car when they train on the road. Some jurisdictions have a probation period even after a license is granted, some sort of tag to warn other drivers of a newbie.
I'm sure the Tesla is not as smart as the average teenager. Yes, billions of machine-training hours but how much actual learning?
"Some jurisdictions have a probation period even after a license is granted, some sort of tag to warn other drivers of a newbie."
Mercedes has added a exterior blue indicator light to show that their system is engaged. I'm not sure that the color would be accepted in all places. In the US, only police cars can show a blue light.
Quote: suspension of Autopilot if the driver "repeatedly fails to demonstrate continuous and sustained driving responsibility."
I can forsee the next issue - driver suffers a medical emergency and engages Autopilot. Autopilot disengages, as it determines the driver is not behaving responsibly...
The next issue is that Tesla vehicles supposedly do a poor job of enforcing the requirement that Autosteer should only be engaged on limit-access highways without cross traffic. There were a couple of accidents where Teslas crashed into vehicles that pulled onto the road ahead of them or ran off the road when it came to an end.
GM's Supercruise has the same requirement and it will bark and refuse to engage if you try using it on anything other than a freeway.
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"In certain circumstances when Autosteer is engaged, and the driver does not maintain responsibility for vehicle operation and is unprepared to intervene as necessary or fails to recognize when Autosteer is canceled or not engaged, there may be an increased risk of a crash,"
Sounds like the sort of ruling that got us the stern warning on McDonalds coffee, Caution: Contents hot.
Instead of these stupid restrictions couldn't we just stop, um, less capable folk from going out without supervision?
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