Should The Media Cover Tesla Accidents? (chicagotribune.com) 268
Elon Musk tweeted about the accident:
It's super messed up that a Tesla crash resulting in a broken ankle is front page news and the ~40,000 people who died in US auto accidents alone in past year get almost no coverage. What's actually amazing about this accident is that a Model S hit a fire truck at 60mph and the driver only broke an ankle. An impact at that speed usually results in severe injury or death.
The Associated Press defended their news coverage Friday, arguing that the facts show that "not all Tesla crashes end the same way." They also fact-check Elon Musk's claim that "probability of fatality is much lower in a Tesla," reporting that it's impossible to verify since Tesla won't release the number of miles driven by their cars or the number of fatalities. "There have been at least three already this year and a check of 2016 NHTSA fatal crash data -- the most recent year available -- shows five deaths in Tesla vehicles."
Slashdot reader Reygle argues the real issue is with the drivers in the Autopilot cars. "Someone unwilling to pay attention to the road shouldn't be allowed anywhere near that road ever again."
Dear Uncle Elon...let it go already (Score:3, Insightful)
A. It really wasn't front page news unless you count maybe the local paper
B. There is this thing called statistics. The United States has over 263 Million registered cars not including the 3 warehouses worth of them that Jay Leno owns. You have yet to make 200 Thousand. It's also expected that your brand new luxury cars will be marginally safer than my 1974 AMC Gremlin.
Re:Dear Uncle Elon...let it go already (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think that there is any doubt about whether a Tesla is safer than your 1974 AMC Gremlin*. The question is whether Teslas are more likely to be involved in an accident than other cars (including your Gremlin).
* you choose to drive a classic car and the model you choose is a Gremlin? Really? You could not find a collectible car with more class? 1957 MGA here.
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* you choose to drive a classic car and the model you choose is a Gremlin? Really? You could not find a collectible car with more class? 1957 MGA here.
What makes his Gremlin less classy than your MGA? The increased reliability?
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They are incredibly less likely to be involved in an accident than other cars because you can hardly find one outside of the San Francisco Bay Area. This isn't necessarily because they are safer but because nobody can afford them and Tesla is incapable of building them in any kind of volume, and what is safer than a car you can't even buy?
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The Model 3 in my garage suggests that you are wrong on both counts.
You are thinking of Triumphs. The B-series engine was never used in a tractor. The nearest agricultural application was a combine harvester. The leaking thing, though? That's just my car marki
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The Model 3 in your garage suggests that you were willing to buy a supposedly $35,000 car minus rebates for $55,000 because nobody that pre-ordered the base model has yet to receive one to date. They started delivering dual motor version this year (edging ever closer to Model S specs) but the bas
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After much (2 minutes) of research I concur...it was used in the Marina Princess and the Wolseley 16 which is almost as insulting (although far more obscure to 'Muricans) so I'll go with that.
I'm also going to stop questioning you about the $55,000+ 'Model 3' you bought even though the theoretical base price is $35,000-rebate and still remains entirely theoretical
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Don't forget the Hindustan Ambassador.
Yeah, it was a bitter pill to swallow to pay $9k for the long range battery and another $5k for the premium package. But, on the flip side, it's so much fun to drive. And, the simple fact is, I can afford it.
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So you're saying you need 310 miles of range in a country that is only 301 miles wide at its longest point (485 km for you) and features excellent mass transportation?
Help us peons live through you, exactly what advanced features do you get with the $5K premium package and how far was I off on my $55K USD price point discounting for tariffs and import duties?
Re:Dear Uncle Elon...let it go already (Score:4, Informative)
A. It really wasn't front page news unless you count maybe the local paper
Let's examine this one shall we? This isn't the first time I heard this story mentioned and not through some Streisand effect either. This shit is showing up in general on news sites everywhere and even in my Google feed under the generic "car" header. I don't even live in America let alone locally. So why should this get covered? An estimated 5500 people get injured every day in the USA due to car accidents, and about 90 die. Yet here we are talking about a broken ankle.
B. There is this thing called statistics.
Exactly. So by your own account we should be seeing 1460x the coverage of the competition's fender benders. But we don't.
These statistics remind me of the previous media crusade against Tesla: Car fires. OMG Tesla's are unsafe because they can catch fire! The media seemed to want to cover a car fire every opportunity it happened to Tesla. I didn't hear of the 150000 other non Tesla fires that happen either, because no one seems to give a shit about statistics.
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Because that = 0.00006 of the non Tesla cars?
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That's one interpretation, the other is that we should be seeing 1/1460x of the Tesla coverage that we do and their stock prices should actually make some kind of rational sense. Since I can guess which one of these Elon would prefer, I'm suggesting he STFU, but if you want to personally argue about it maybe argue the points I raised instead of making up your own and hitting reply?
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The last base Toyota I owned came with manual windows and the exact same side impact standards afforded by a 2 day old loaf of bread but go on, sell me.
And? (Score:4, Interesting)
And? That's their defense? At the start of 2016 there were 69k Teslas on US roads; at the end, 110k. Average of ~90k. There were 113 million registered cars on US roads in 2016, and 37461 deaths, or 1 in 3000 cars. 90k Teslas on average with 5 deaths means 1 in 18000 Teslas.
This is how AP defends itself?
Seriously, what sort of argument is "not all Tesla crashes end the same way" to begin with? Wait a minute, you're telling me that Teslas aren't invincible? OMG, I guess the star wore off, that explains why it's not flashing anymore!
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Newspapers are not academic statiticians, they are out to sell copies. Tesla crashes sell copies. Musk has largely brought this publicity on himself by deliberately adopting a high profile and pumping out hype.
Since it seems you (Rei) might be a Musk insider, care to respond to AP's complaint that Tesla will not release mileage figures, by giving us those figures? We are all agog here.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Useless statistic. Yes, that's ostensibly lower than the average (one per 13,000 cars) for all registered vehicles in the U.S., but without knowing how many miles the Teslas were driven, we can't know if that's actually low or high.
Typically, the number of accidents (and, thus, fatal accidents) is proportional to the number of miles driven, not the number of cars. Some cars sit in somebody's front yard rusting, and never even see the road except when another car isn't working. And people who are wealthy enough to afford Teslas are more likely to live close to work, and thus have shorter commutes, so they are exposed to fewer opportunities for wrecks. They're also less likely to be driving home for an hour or more after a long day of work, and thus less likely to suffer from fatigue-related crashes.
And even if you assume all of those confounding factors don't exist, there's still the elephant in the room, which is that most folks use AP only on streets where it has worked well for them in the past. Thus, the potential for AP-caused accidents is artificially reduced. If some other driver used it differently, that other driver could have very different results, making a general "this makes driving safer" conclusion impossible to reach without much more fine-grained data in which you compare the crash rates for various types of driving (city streets versus highways, urban versus rural, straight versus windy) independently with AutoPilot off versus on.
And realistically, you also need to separately compare AP unavailable versus AP off, because drivers may behave differently when they have deliberately disabled AP versus drivers who do not have AP. (This can determine to what extent regular use of AP makes drivers less situationally aware over time.)
In short, comparing the number of crashes to the number of vehicles is so prone to being skewed by other variables that it is almost useless as a metric for the safety of the vehicles. You might as well throw darts at a dartboard.
Personally, I think that AutoPilot reduces driver fatigue, which likely improves safety on the whole. But I'm not willing to state that definitively without actual data, which Tesla has thus far refused to provide. That's unfortunate, and it makes me wonder if they have something to hide. After all, if the data really were in their favor, you would expect them to be quick to release it. Unless, of course, they just haven't bothered to do any analysis, in which case I wonder about their competence.
In other words, I would say to Tesla, "Data or GTFO."
Re:And? (Score:5, Interesting)
Meanwhile, in the real world, you'd find (if you actually hung out with Tesla owners) that when people get their Tesla, they tend to drive it more than the vehicle that it replaced, not less. For multiple reasons. One, it's a new car; they want to drive it. Two, it's a fun car, which reinforces #1. People often go on road trips in them. And three, it's cheaper to operate. The consequence of this is that multiple car households try to put as much distance on the Tesla as possible and minimize the distance spent driving their other vehicle.
And if you want to talk about demographics, EVs are most popular among people who own homes, not people who rent apartments / condos. Aka, the suburbs, not downtown.
As for whether people tend to use AP more or less in certain situations, that's irrelevant. AP isn't self driving; it's a combination of a human and the vehicle, and the result that matters is how the two interact. If the human - in driving 1/3 to 1/2 of the average vehicle's distance - does so in cases that AP handles best... well, good.
But trying to break apart AP and non-AP is beside the point. Associated Pres is trying to portray Teslas as dangerous. The numbers they gave to "prove their case" do precisely the opposite.
Is it autiopilot that kills? (Score:2, Interesting)
five deaths in Tesla vehicles.
A quick search for Telsa deaths suggests that ALL the fatalities (of people in Teslas) have been when autopilot was running.
What would be a useful addition to the debate would be to understand just how much of the time Tesla drivers use autopilot. Is it engaged for (say) 90% of the time on almost all journeys? Or is it only used for a tiny fraction of the miles that Teslas clock up?
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Huh? Did you miss the "2016 NHTSA fatal crash data"? That was the number of deaths in one year in the US. Not total.
The number of deaths related to AP in the US is:
* Williston, Florida (May 7, 2016) - side of a white truck
* Mountain View, California (March 23, 2018) - concrete barrier missing the crash attenuator
Of the deaths in 2016, only 1 in 5 were related to Auto
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A quick search for Telsa deaths suggests that ALL the fatalities (of people in Teslas) have been when autopilot was running.
The major cause of accidents in Teslas is the same as in other cars, and is mechanical: a loose nut behind the steering wheel.
Maybe Tesla needs some super fancy AI that detects dangerous driving conditions and refuses to engage the autopilot:
"I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
Otherwise the autopilot might morph into a "auto loose nut" mode.
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five deaths in Tesla vehicles.
A quick search for Telsa deaths suggests that ALL the fatalities (of people in Teslas) have been when autopilot was running.
You need to redo that search. There was the crash in Florida just a couple weeks ago [usatoday.com] that resulted in fatalities and did not have autopilot running - instead, it was the entirely predictable result of 3 teenagers driving at 60 mph around a turn known as "deadman's curve".
What kind of question is that? (Score:2)
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The media should report on whatever they think is newsworthy.
Dog bites man: not news.
Man bites dog: news.
Senile grandmother rear-ends truck: not news.
Autopilot rear-ends truck: news.
Welcome to public life (Score:2, Insightful)
Hatorade Distortion Field at work (Score:2)
Elon should go have a beer with Tim Cook. Literally half a dozen iPhones behind the (awesomely named) Bendgazi yet it was a huge story. Me
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Because the company was Samsung and not Apple. They had to recall an entire product release because their batteries were blowing up and it was a two day story. If it had been iPhones setting people's homes on fire, you haters would have been pressing for war crime trials for Apple executives.
E. Musk should know better as this isn't new! (Score:3)
What's actually amazing about this accident is that a Model S hit a fire truck at 60mph and the driver only broke an ankle. An impact at that speed usually results in severe injury or death.
It's called Media bias. For that reason, I do not watch MSM anymore. If they're not regurgitating government propaganda, they are telling blatant lies.
From the WMDs, to Syria and the Mid East, to doping in games.
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Or it's reasonable reporting on the most common type of car with level 2 autonomy features.
What we need to see is if they report accidents with Nissan ProPilot and GM Super Cruise enabled cars just as often. That would be a very useful comparison, since both have more safety/nag features than tesla does.
Can't have it both ways Elon (Score:5, Insightful)
You want to promote your darling as the next evolutionary step that will replace all existing automobiles. You're especially proud of your " autonomous driving " feature. This accident is news because Tesla supposedly rolled out a safety update that enabled automatic emergency braking but appears to have been limited to vehicles operating under 50mph. ( Whoops, guess we should have upped that a bit )
See, when you promote your vehicle with said safety features and it still ends up crashing just like the " dumb " cars out there, it doesn't shine a positive light on your over-hyped / over-priced* product. ( *Compared to the typical ICE vehicle )
Moral of the story: When in the spotlight, you don't get to pick and choose what people see.
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See, when you promote your vehicle with said safety features and it still ends up crashing just like the " dumb " cars out there
Ignoring the competition which has had these safety features for years? I mean am I right in assuming that there have been zero accidents from any Nissan manufactured since 2015? Because someone's broken ankle certainly hasn't made the news when it happened for Nissan's automatic emergency breaking. So I guess no one has had a fender bender in a Volvo in the past 8 years either right?
Don't blame the media... (Score:2)
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Statistically Tesla crashes are meaningless due to their tiny market share. Tesla complaining about that is funny. Tens of thousands / Hundreds of Millions of cars = not that much. Tesla claims they are far superior so yes, when they crash there might be a tiny bit more scrutiny. I don't see how that is either public or the media's fault, Tesla invited this by saying how much
Just rename it HAL-9000 (Score:2)
As a new Tesla owner myself .... (Score:2)
I have a couple of thoughts on all of this.
1. The news media is interested in covering anything that's sensational and grabs viewer eyeballs. We've had house fires for about as long as we had houses, yet they'll still put those on the evening news any time they have some dramatic footage to show people. By the same token, if you're a high profile company that lots of people follow (like Apple or Tesla), you're also going to find yourself in the media spotlight any time an excuse can be made to do it. People
If it involves the Autopilot, Definitely (Score:2)
As long as you call it an "Autopilot" and, despite telling people to pay attention, make sure that people are able to treat it as a full Autopilot and not pay attention [slashdot.org], then the media should report every instance of someone crashing because they followed Tesla's implied instructions.
Now Musk might be correct that semi-attentive drivers with the Autopilot are safer than typical non-Autopilot drivers, even if the Autopilot sometimes screws up. But he's hardly a reputable source when he keeps playing this "Lo
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As long as you call it an "Autopilot"
...then people should understand that, just like an aviation autopilot or a marine autopilot, it will pilot you straight into an obstacle if you're not paying attention.
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As long as you call it an "Autopilot"
...then people should understand that, just like an aviation autopilot or a marine autopilot, it will pilot you straight into an obstacle if you're not paying attention.
Except you get a bit more reaction time in the air or ocean.
Of course, even there, one real cause of airplane accidents is when a situation arises where the auto-pilot needs to disengage and the highly trained professional pilots get confused and screw up. This is because those people, whose job it literally is to pay attention and be ready to retake control, find it extremely hard to do so.
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Isn't this what Musk wants? (Score:2)
It's news (Score:2)
Why wouldn't the media do its job and report on such accidents? It's no different than when a plane crashes. It happens so rarely it is a news event.
The same with Tesla. The number of crashes of Tesla vehicles is small, but because of the hype surrounding Tesla, promulgated by Musk himself, any crash should be examined.
If Musk doesn't like the media reporting on the crashes of his vehicles, then perhaps he shouldn't be out and about promoting how safe they are or that they practically drive themselves.
Taken from the Tesla website (Score:2)
"Standard Safety Features
These active safety technologies, including collision avoidance and automatic emergency braking, have begun rolling out through over-the-air updates
Automatic Emergency Braking
Designed to detect objects that the car may impact and applies the brakes accordingly
Side Collision Warning
Warns the driver of potential collisions with obstacles alongside the car
Front Collision Warning
Helps warn of impending collisions with slower moving or stationary cars"
So which of these did her car have?
Problem is quantity and quality of coverage (Score:2)
The media should cover the non-fatal crashes - ONCE a year, listing each crash and the results, along with percentage (by both per vehicle and per miles driven) comparing it the same stats for a similar car.
But covering a broken foot crash as if it's breaking news? That's called bad reporting.
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You have missed the point entirely.
My swimsuit has a pretty obvious design flaw, it doesn't stop bullets. You have to compare things to OTHER products, not to some theoretical perfection
The truth is
1) Yes, AI software is not perfect, it makes mistakes. The current tech needs a lot of work, in 20 years it should be 100x better.
2) Even so, IT IS ALREADY BETTER THAN HUMANS.
3) You think it's newsworthy that an AI car rear-ended someone? Normal human cars do the same thing every freaking day.
3) The real quest
Reygle needs to think for a second... (Score:2)
Slashdot reader Reygle argues the real issue is with the drivers in the Autopilot cars. "Someone unwilling to pay attention to the road shouldn't be allowed anywhere near that road ever again."
The issue is that Tesla sells an Autopilot, whilst everyone else sells a driver assist package. To the average person, Autopilot means it will pilot itself - you don't have to do anything. Driver assist means it will help, but you're still the driver. The issue is Tesla uses highly-misleading words to describe their under-performing product and then gets upset when people are misled. Change the freaking name from Autopilot! But Elon can't do that, because it would be an admission of failure...
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Yes (Score:2)
Tesla accidents should be reported until we get tired of viewing them.
Of course it should, but... (Score:2)
But, they should be held responsible for defamation when they cover the story in a misleading, reputation-damaging way. For example, after the recent crash in Florida that resulted in two deaths, there were lots of articles with headlines like "Autopilot-equipped Tesla Crashes, Kills 2" or "Fatal Crash in Florida Involving Tesla with Autopilot," and the articles would start off with "A Tesla Model S equipped with Autopilot was involved in
Driving 101 (Score:2)
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Teslae don't use LIDAR and therefore presumably don't know how far away objects are. I.e. Pike's Peak and a discarded fast food wrapper presumably can look much the same to your $80,000 electric car. When driving, you and I Identify the nature of an object and use that knowledge to estimate distance, but that's very hard for a computer. Conceptually an alternative would be two cameras and compute distance from parallax, but that's not especially easy either -- especially if you're going to be picky abou
Same old same old (Score:2)
OHMYFUCKINGGAWD! Teslas burn! We must ba them and go back to old school vehicles that never burn and are safe!
A guy drives with autpopilot screaming at him and runs into something.
OHMYFUCKINGGAWD! Teslas autopilots Are deadly cna Kill people!!!! At least no one ever ran into anything usingCruise con troy, which is percetly safe.
I would love to see every accident in the US given the same coverage as teh OHMYFUCKINGGAWD! Teslas get.
Now of course if one's head is stuck in th
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A Tesla catches fire.
pardon my spelchucker
Problem isn't Tesla accidents being over-reported (Score:5, Informative)
Suicide: 1 in 91
Police killed on duty: 1 in 104 (1.1 million officers / (135 per year [time.com] * 78 year lifespan normalization)
Homicide by gun: 1 in 285
Drowning: 1 in 1,086
Fire: 1 in 1,506
Choking: 1 in 3,138
Killed by police: 1 in 4,336 (325.7 million / (963 [washingtonpost.com] * 78 year lifespan)
Complications from pregnancy: 1 in 5,965 (325.7 million / (700 [cdc.gov] * 78 year normalization)
Terrorism in U.S.: 1 in 28,033 (325.7 million / (3277 [umd.edu] * 78 year lifespan / 22 years sample))
Killed by deer: 1 in 34,797 (325.7 million / (120 [vox.com] * 78 year lifespan)
Gun accident: 1 in 8305
Lightning: 1 in 114,195
School shootings: 1 in 121,033 (325.7 million / (138 [time.com] * 78 year lifespan normalization / 4 years sample))
Dog attack: 1 in 132,614
Plane crash: 1 in 205,552
Terrorism in U.S. excluding 9/11: 1 in 248,954
Shark attack: 1 in 3,690,101 (325.7 million / (43 [wikipedia.org] * 78 year lifespan / 38 year sample)
If news reports were truly unbiased, you'd expect to see:
Roughly 3x as many reports about fatal car accidents than gun homicides.
5x as many reports of women dying from pregnancy than reports of terrorism fatalities (including 9/11, 77x without).
39x as many stories about people dying of choking on food, versus school shootings.
43x as many stories about fatal car accidents than police shootings.
91x as many reports about suicides than gun accidents.
Over 100x as many stories about people being killed by deer, than killed by sharks.
The truth is the media picks and chooses which stories they want to publicize, whether it be because of their unusual and provocative nature (e.g. Tesla crashes, plane crashes, school shootings, shark attacks), or to serve a political agenda.
Should Slashdot Decide For Other Media Companies? (Score:2)
No.
I think a better question (Score:2)
Should be if the media should cover all the school shootings? The media needs to stop glorifying the shooters and the next shooting may not be so quick. At this point you know there are psychos out there trying to figure out how to get a better score and be more famous/infamous than the last shooter...
The Routine Doesn't Make News (Score:2)
Public Interest, plain and simple (Score:2)
TESLA (and all things TESLA, like stock prices, what Wall Street thinks, who is buying and selling, financial analysis, current and future models, a half dozen Musk-related businesses that are not TESLA but invoke a brief note about TESLA none the less, and ... oh yes ... TESLA accidents that might involve self-driving features, and TESLA accidents where self-driving mode was confirmed at the time of the accident, and any story about electric automobiles or self-driving vehicles by any manufacturer will inv
That's not for Musk to mandate (Score:2)
Media should cover Tesla accidents as long as it's fair and of public interest, and that is not something that Musk should have any right to say if it's ok or not... he should just shut the fuck up and have a better PR strategy than whinning about it being unfair, like Trump with it's "fake media" claims.
If you are gonna offer a disruptive technology that is going against traditional brands and whatnot, of course it'll get coverage, and that includes the bad stuff. I don't see Musk complaining about tech bl
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Should the media cover accidents?
Should the media cover terrorist actions?
Should the media provide weather reports?
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The question that the article asks is why cover a handful of accidents because they involve Tesla, while ignoring the bulk of accidents, which involve human drivers
of course you have no intention of addressing that, shill
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FWIW Tesla has approx. 5-10X more fatal crashes than do similar cars driven by similar drivers on similar roads.
Where does this factoid come from? Can you provide a citation?
Here are some citations that you're full of crap:
Tesla’s Autopilot makes driving much safer [bgr.com]
Tesla's Model X is the safest SUV ever tested [cnn.com]
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Those were over a year ago (apparently from year old data at that time,) and the data was statistically insufficient to conclude if it was safer (but could not have been 5x worse as parent claimed, at that point). IE the AutoPilot miles had been driven that you would expect 1.6 fatalities, and they had 1. But had 1 more accident been fatal, or more than one died in that accident) or a missing accident or 2 could be the abnormality not present. One more fatality would put it at 40% higher rate than withou
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As long as Tesla insist on calling their bad lane-assist technology 'auto-pilot' I will keep hammering on at what a stupid and inappropriate name it is, it's getting people killed. It doesn't matter exactly how 'auto-pilot' works in aero-planes, aero-planes fly above the earth and don't hit trailers, fire-trucks or dividing lanes.
People take 'auto-pilot' to mean self-driving, that is what matters and that is why the name is wrong.
Re:of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Tesla has not been calling AP "self-driving" - you're thinking of Mercedes [evobsession.com], describing their awful Autopilot-wannabe. Tesla goes through huge lengths to point out that it's not self driving - to the point that they sell two separate packages, "Enhanced Autopilot" and "Full Self Driving", and the latter tells you that it is not available yet - so that it's physically impossible to think that your car is "full self driving", because either you didn't choose that option, or you didn't receive it.
Contrary to popular myth, AP accidents are rarely from "newbies who mistakenly thought their car was self driving". They're overwhelmingly from experienced users who've had AP for a long time. They get overconfindent in their car's abilities and stop paying attention, just doing things like using their cell phone and only stopping to occasionally grab the wheel so the car won't harass them. Newbies are generally paranoid and hypervigilant.
Musk has not clarified exactly what it was about eye tracking that he thought was not ready for prime time, but I hope it gets remedied and implemented (Model 3 already has the requisite driver-facing camera). If the driver's attention can be ensured, I think it's pretty indisputable that "vehicular sensors and constant attention" plus "human senses and reasoning" is going to be by far the safest option. But you need to ensure that the human is actually paying attention to the road. Requiring torque on the steering wheel is good (better than just a pressure sensor), but not enough.
IMHO.
Re:of course (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's pretty indisputable that "vehicular sensors and constant attention" plus "human senses and reasoning" is going to be by far the safest option.
I would dispute it. If humans think that driving control can be left to automation, then most of them are not going to pay much attention. So if the safety does depend partly on the driver it is likely to fall between two stools. Automated driving needs to be all or nothing.
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And then eye tracking will detect the loss of attention, make the driver take control, and it's no harm, no foul.
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No. What happens is that the car demands they take control by beeping and flashing... more aggressively... then constantly... slowing down, (eventually, although not at present) pulling over, putting the hazards on, and stopping.
One additional thing that Tesla does - which no other driver assist systems do - is punish "misbehaving" drivers, disabling autopilot for the rest of the trip.
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Then just what is point of "auto-pilot"? If you need to have your hands on the wheel, paying attention, you might as well be steering. Saying "you don't have to do anything but I'm going to punish you if you don't pay attention to this task that is being done for you" is just dumb.
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Tesla has not been calling AP "self-driving"
Yes they have. Have you checked their webpage on it, it is literally what it says RIGHT NOW.
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They deliberately advertise the two things together to give people the impression the autopilot is like that. On top of that the full self-driving capabilities is a border line scam as the hardware can not do that, and they software wouldn't be ready before the car is scrap worthy anyway.
So yes, they are not doing provable fraud, but you have to be a fool to not see how they deliberately trying to give customer an impression that better than what they actually deliver. This is typical for many companies and
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For most people "autopilot" means self-driving
Most people are idiots. What does that prove? Have they ever been in an airplane pilot's seat to understand what "autopilot" means?
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Yes. And "autopilot" in boats and planes means you can take your hands off the controls for significant periods of time (hours in some case) and actually take your close attention off the forward progress of the thing you are piloting for substantial periods of time (tens of seconds or more) as your radar and/or visual scans tell you that there's nothing too close on a heading to worry about.
In a Tesla with autopilot you can never safely take your full attention from the road or your hands off the controls.
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For most people "autopilot" means self-driving.
"Most people" are not Tesla drivers. You can't buy or drive a Tesla without being tediously told, over and over, that the car is NOT self-driving (yet), and that you need to KEEP YOUR HANDS ON THE WHEEL and YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD.
Do people take their eyes off the road anyway? Sure. But it is not because of a lack of knowledge or understanding.
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Then how about Tesla calling their feature "driver-assist" or something similar that makes it CLEAR that the car doesn't "automatically drive itself"... which is what "auto-pilot" implies.
Re: of course (Score:2)
Because youâ(TM)re a dishonest troll, for everyone elseâ(TM)s benefit here is what the Tesla website actually says without digging into hidden sub sub sub pages on autopilot:
Autopilot advanced safety and convenience features are designed to assist you with the most burdensome parts of driving. Model S comes standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Enhanced Autopilot features today, and full self-driving capabilities in the future.
Every new Model S comes standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Enhanced Autopilot features today, and full self-driving capabilities in the
futureâ"through software updates designed to improve functionality over time.
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Tesla cars are designed to *not* warn the driver to keep their attention on the road at all times.
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No results found [google.is].
Well, maybe they're calling it that somewhere not on Tesla's website? Let's see [electrek.co]... Yep, found an entry:
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"If the driver's attention can be ensured, Requiring torque on the steering wheel is good"
Problem is Musk has designed the car so that in many situations you don't get a warning and don't have to keep your hands on the wheel for long stretches at a time.
No hands on wheel no warnings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Since Tesla and Musk are in the news almost every day
Musk loves publicity, he courts it. Too bad that it is not all good. If Musk himself had kept a lower profile, the crashes might have had a lower profile too.
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Oh, come on, it's not like there's a large number of people out there who collectively stand to lose over 10 billion dollars if Tesla's stock rises into the lower to mid 300s due to a short squeeze...
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Well, at least you'll be able to console yourself with the fact that the car was purchased with you and your fellow shorts' money.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Liberal: "willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas."
Socialism: "any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"
Pick what you really mean.
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Liberal: "willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas."
That's a rather weird definition. In fact, one I've never heard before. I've always called this "open-minded".
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That was the fist definition that appeared when searching for liberal definition on Google.
And it matches what the classic definition of Liberal is - and then the term has been hijacked by politicians that have contaminated it.
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And it matches what the classic definition of Liberal is
Really? The classic definition of a liberal isn't someone who opposes arbitrary traditional restrictions on liberties?
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If you actually don't think this, then you either haven't been paying attention or you're just a useful idiot.
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You forgot support for North Korea and MS13!
Crazy, isn't it? Trump derangement syndrome bites deep.
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Exactly. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
They owe everything to their overexposure in the media and how the media has carried the story about how the autopilot was autonomous driving (when it was not). Now they they have to deal with the fallback of overexposure and overselling their products, even if some would argue they only did it by winks and nodges.
Luke Skywalker says hi (Score:2)
Every word in your post was false.
Re:No connection between those dots (Score:5, Informative)
No, the car did not run out of juice (ever), and it was a blown fuse, which only disabled part of the braking power. Indeed, the BBC has admitted [jalopnik.com] that the "running out of charge" event was staged.
The court rulings related to Teslas lawsuit never disagreed with Tesla's claim that Top Gear staged the events. They ruled that Tesla had failed to show material losses, and that a reasonable person would not believe that what happens on Top Gear is not embellished (something I think is false, but that's what they ruled).
Beyond the fakery, then there's the deliberate distortions. Like going on about how the car only went a fraction of its rated range. Ignoring that it still had a 20% charge left when they decided to fake the "dead battery" and push it off the track, what they did would apply to any car. You think you can take your car to the track and drive foot down nonstop and get the same mileage as you get in a steady cruise? But they were trying to give the impression that you only go a short distance in the vehicle, which was simply not in any way, shape or form true.
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Right. So if I understand you correctly, the BBC itself was lying when they admitted to their own fakery? Is that the argument you're going with here?
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Re:Should we be ignorant (Score:5, Informative)
That is Elon's point as well. Disproportionately covering Tesla crashes keeps the general public ignorant of Tesla's actual safety record.
Tesla vehicles currently drive about 2.67 billion miles per year (as of July 2017 [electrek.co]). That is about 0.083% of all miles driven in the US. This means you would expect about 33-34 deaths per year in Tesla cars, without adjusting for the demographics and behaviors of Tesla drivers compared to the US average. In 2016 there were 5 deaths, making Tesla cars about 6-7 times safer than average (again without adjusting for driver demographics).
Considering the average driver age (by miles driven) is about 43, and Tesla average driver age is 53, you would expect slightly less driver deaths in Teslas. Although considering driver deaths by age are fairly consistent between ages 35-70 (with 16-30 and 75+ being much higher), perhaps there would be another 1-2 Tesla driver deaths if they had drivers of a more average age. So after taking that into account, maybe Teslas are only 4-5 times safer than an average car. Then again your average Tesla driver probably likes to accelerate faster than your average 53 year old driver, so maybe on average Tesla drivers are just as safe or even less safe than average drivers.
Teslas are also much newer than the average car. The average car on the road is about 11 years old, and my guess is the average Tesla is around 3-4 years old. 3 year old cars are about 20% safer than 11 year old cars on average, so again Tesla might kill another 1-2 people per year if they were a bit older. So perhaps Teslas are only 3-4 times safer than your average car.
The only thing that isn't disputable is that Teslas are far safer than your average car. If every car was as safe as a Tesla, its possible that 75% or more of all traffic deaths would be prevented. It's hard to tell just how many 10's of thousands of lives would be saved each year if all cars were as safe as Teslas because there are so many factors, but it would certainly be a lot.
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Where is this article saying Teslas drive 2.67 billion miles per year in the US? Article is talking about global numbers.
I did miss that, but since over 50% of Tesla owners are from the US, and European drivers drive much less than US drivers (7k-11k per year as opposed to 12k-15k in the US), it's likely that around 1.6-1.8 billion of those miles are in the US. So I guess a Tesla is only around 2-3 times safer than an average car.
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The accident occurred here: https://www.google.com/maps/pl... [google.com]
It's a limited access highway and the speed limits in the area are 55 or 60 (I had to streetview quite a way south before I could find a speed limit sign, but the sign I found was 60)
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And IMO, they desperately need to change that. There are plenty of minor, highway-like streets in the Salinas, CA and Santa Cruz, CA areas where the average speed is 15 over what Tesla's nav system thinks is the posted limit (and might, in fact, be the posted limit). If you actually drive only 5 over, you risk c