An Update on Last Week’s Accident

Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by tuna-piano on Friday March 30, 2018 @11:32PM (#16721542)

Their statement blames:

-The driver

-The crushed barrier

-Statistics

But they do not take responsibility themselves. It's apparent and in my opinion shameful.

If Tesla's goal of this is to just share the facts, why didn't they state what AutoPilot did? In addition to statements like "...the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision.", wouldn't it make sense to have a statement like "AutoPilot seems to have made a grave error here, and steered the car into the barrier."

They never admit that their car didn't perform properly. This reads like a carefully crafted, legal approved statement - not the more human statements that we see many times after tragedies. This absolutely lowers my opinion of Tesla by a decent amount.

"We feel very bad about what happened... and want to take responsibility and do what's right" - A quote from the Walmart CEO after a Walmart truck accident injured Tracy Morgan and killed another man. I wish Tesla could stand up and say the same in this case (if the evidence points that way, which it appears to).

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/walmart-ceo-on-tracy-morgan-ca...

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by sp332 on Friday March 30, 2018 @11:34PM (#16721553)

It was a median in the middle of the highway. The car probably continued in a straight line instead of "steering into" a barrier. https://imgur.com/a/iMY1x

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by tuna-piano on Friday March 30, 2018 @11:42PM (#16721586)

Fair. Could be rewritten as "AutoPilot seems to have made a grave error here, and drove the car into the barrier. AutoPilot should have either avoided the barrier or disengaged."

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by subinsebastien on Friday March 30, 2018 @11:41PM (#16721579)

Why the car was not able to detect and avoid the collision in such a simple situation (from a human POV)? We have seen Tesla's autopilot performing very well in a much more complex scenario than this. Ref:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FadR7ETT_1k

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by wcoenen on Saturday March 31, 2018 @06:42AM (#16722724)

Stationary obstacles are a harder problem, because there are so many stationary objects and features around a road that have to be ignored.

This autopilot incident is similar to the one with the tractor-trailer[1] in that regard.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/30/tesla-aut...

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by oldgradstudent on Saturday March 31, 2018 @07:03AM (#16722788)

Or the one in China with the street sweeper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc0yYJ8-Dyo

Or the one with the fire truck: https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/23/16923800/tesla-firetruck-...

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by jijojv on Friday March 30, 2018 @11:42PM (#16721585)

No it's autopilot steered into the median lane in the first place where it diverges from the HOV lane.

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by Tempest1981 on Saturday March 31, 2018 @01:49AM (#16721944)

Note: Both left lanes are HOV lanes. #1 leads onto Hwy 85, #2 onto Hwy 101. Do they say which lane he was in before entering the median?

Just curious why autopilot would be in lane #1 if he intended to stay on Hwy 101. Or vice versa. Maybe it couldn't make a safe lane change sooner? (Pure speculation)

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by agumonkey on Saturday March 31, 2018 @02:15AM (#16722014)

Not excusing tesla but how on earth can there be a piece of flat concrete instead of a v shaped bendable deflector ? Was there one but had to be replaced ?

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by URSpider94 on Saturday March 31, 2018 @02:40AM (#16722098)

There is a crushable barrier there. It was broken that day, because someone had recently crashed into it. Drove past there yesterday, it has been replaced.

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by agumonkey on Saturday March 31, 2018 @03:16AM (#16722198)

I see, sad timing u_u

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by mirimir on Friday March 30, 2018 @11:53PM (#16721623)

Indeed.

But maybe this is just a variant on https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-why-crash-radar/ That is, maybe Mr. Huang was following another vehicle, which merged out of the way, and his Tesla ignored the stationary object.

If that's so, Tesla ought to emphasize the failure mode.

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by anilshanbhag on Saturday March 31, 2018 @12:14AM (#16721685)

It is pre-mature to say this. Why would they say "AutoPilot seems to have made a grave error here, and steered the car into the barrier." if it is possibly not their fault ?

If indeed it was auto-pilot's fault, they will likely put the statement out later.

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by TwoBit on Saturday March 31, 2018 @02:33AM (#16722073)

What you are asking them to do is legal suicide. If they were to claim this was their fault, they would be immediately slapped with multi-million dollar lawsuits from everybody who ever had a problem with auto pilot. It would end the company.

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by blarneystun on Saturday March 31, 2018 @12:22PM (#16723884)

Really? I don't think so. It's not like a "confession".

Can't people sue them even without their admission of any responsibility whatsoever? I think so.

And that they simply say: "We are sorry, we take full responsibility." does not open them up to lawsuits -- the courts still have to hear the arguments to back up "actual legal liability" and then adjudicate / elaborate a verdict / judgement, right?

Comments from lawyers, please. Very interesting.

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Re:An Update on Last Week’s Accident by jonhendry18 on Saturday March 31, 2018 @12:43AM (#16721762)

To be fair, a famous person wasn't involved in this crash.

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