I'm going to put this another way. How much of Tesla's reputation was built on their approach to vehicle safety? That's great, I don't have to worry about my life when I get into a Tesla. But I'm in that weird position in the world where I can afford a Tesla, but not the burden of a legal case. I can look after myself, but I can't make the software not fuck up.
If Tesla can't shoulder that responsibility, I'm certainly not going to.
I remember literally over 5 years ago hearing from someone at a big auto-manufacturer, and they just explained, they can't afford to have their cars known for killing people. They sell a shit tonne of cars, and if they start running people over they're done. It'd be an extinction level event for their brand, and probably a serious knock to the entire industry. Apparantly Tesla is happy to take that risk. it's not that Tesla is more advanced, it's that they're happy making claims that no other company in an industry obsessed with safety would make.
Imagine Volvo, but instead of Volvo you have a company that distinguished themselves by their lack of interest in safety.
I'm truthfully not understanding whether you've missed the point or if you're so interested in defending Tesla that you choose to look past it.
I'm not making a claim about relative feature capabilities (yes, having replied in this specific thread makes that confusing, but that's where your comment was). I'm making a claim that the vast majority of developers do not know how to judge a system's safety.
As an example of this from you, and for a more critical view of Tesla from me, I'll say that when I look at Tesla's capabilities, I could not make a claim that it does anything safely. Safety implies that the system knows its limits and refuses to operate outside of them. This is definitely not Tesla's way. Else it would be impossible, for example, to have sun blind spots make it not "see" a semi.
Reading this actually made me feel better about Tesla as a company. For every new vehicle concept, I expect the manufacturer to find at least one safety-related design flaw after production begins.
If you are that manufacturer, you can save a little money by quietly telling your service centers how to fix it without informing the public. Auto manufacturers do this on a regular basis, even with serious powertrain safety issues like the ones found in Ford's 2009+ Ecoboost engine and Audi's 2002-6 CVT. Like Ford and Audi, you will probably get away with it. Your customers won't notice the pattern until their cars are well out of warranty, and then they'll blame it on age. If anyone dies as a result (and their family connects it to you) you'll just settle confidentially out of court.
As far as I can tell, that is not what Musk chose to do. Tesla will be fixing the issue at no expense to the customer, before the NHTSA or the class action lawyers force their hand. I truly respect that decision.
How is that any different from any other product from any other manufacturer, though? Tort law has a thousand year history in our culture. Is there something specific about Tesla that needs something new?
I mean, what you say is sorta specious. Of course that's true, it's always true. The interesting question is "are the cars dangerous?". And the answer seems to be a pretty emphatic no, at this point. So instead everyone wants to argue about abstractions ("they're still liable") or absolutisms ("no failure is acceptable").
And that seems increasingly counterproductive, and frankly to have more to do with the somewhat questionable mental stability of the CEO than to the behavior of the actual products.
Why do I feel like there is so much more attention paid to every Tesla accident? It's not news when a BMW or Mercedes has a fatal crash when their version of cruise control + lane keeping is active.
Is Tesla following accepted industry best practices for designing their algorithms? If not, Tesla is exposing itself to a tremendous amount of liability when their autonomous system fails(and, as software engineers, we know it will fail). I applaud them for pushing the technological envelope and driving expectations. I'm not criticizing them for the damage those failures will cause, because it may be offset by reductions in human caused damage. I'm saying there is established legal precedent that will cost them dearly if they're not properly developing and testing their code(ISO26262, MISRA, etc). See the Toyota accelerator debacle for background.
I have to drive with Teslas every day on my way to work.
Teslas drive like drunk drivers, whether using AP or FSD.
Tesla fans might feel like they are safer, but from the perspective of someone else on the road, they are objectively less safe, unless you consider swerving, randomly slamming on the brakes, and tailgating to be examples of safe driving.
And Tesla's AP system has more recorded fatalities than all of their competitors, combined. By the numbers, NHTSA data shows that Teslas are 50x more likely to get into an accident using AP or FSD than a Ford or Toyota; and the nearest legacy automaker is still 1/3rd as likely to get into an accident as a Tesla using AP/FSD.
I don't think the issue is that Tesla's cars are dangerous. The issue people are raising is that they pretend, at least through implications, that their cars can safely drive for you.
Tesla is also not doing any kind of super special research into self driving cars. The system their cars use is (afaik) an OEM component (provided by MobileEye) that powers the driver assist features of many other brands, too.
Instead of actually improving the technology they have chosen to lower the safety parameters in order to make it seem like the system is more capable than it actually is.
A lot of Tesla drivers, especially the early ones, are part of some kind of cult. Think about all the people who paid thousands of USD/Euro to buy a license to "Autopilot is coming in two weeks", to still haven't gotten any return on investment at all (over here in Europe it is not available at all).
And I am saying this having bought my Tesla three years ago.
Also, while their build quality is pretty terrible compared to oldschool car manufacturers, with the exception of Autopilot most of their build quality problems are not safety related. Think of the excellent Euro NCAP Safety test results, for example. It's more like that you know that if you buy a Tesla you can not expect the wipers to be any good at cleaning the window, or the doors not being aligned properly.
My impression is that Tesla has a very good QA, but with a policy of "we'll ignore all cosmetics".
Boeing on the other hand does appear to have completely broken QA processes in the safety sector. Their priorities might be the opposite of Tesla's. Kind of "It's OK if it explodes as long as it looks nice while doing so".
My take - Tesla doesn't really employe people who understand safety (and I don't mean that as a ding for people working there - most of software engineers just have no idea what is required to build safety critical system). As a result, people likely think they're doing things correctly.
This is the reason Musk exaggerates in the other direction. For some reason* there is a fixation in the media such that every Tesla accident is a story. You wouldn't know the last time a Ford crashed off the top of your head.
Per [1], there are 22.5 billion miles driven in Teslas. Per [2], there have been 171 fatalities in Teslas. This comes to 0.76 deaths per 100 million miles driven. Wiki says US deaths per 100 million miles is about 1.1.
Tesla drivers are wealthier, and they're driving new cars in safer places. So this comparison is not one to one. But evidence does not support the claim that Teslas are less safe than anything else.
Edit: I'll never buy a Tesla after seeing the Twitter saga because Elon could easily make a half-based decision on a key safety feature/hardware without thinking through the repercussions. I would not feel safe owning a Tesla.
I do know that (to the extent that it's true). I also know that not driving head-first into a truck that's turning across in front of the driver, or into a stationary car when the one in front of you swerves around it, is even safer than having the highest safety rating.
Don't get me wrong - Tesla engineers are talented engineers. The culture of the company however is not suited to building mass-production cars. It's trying to put the Silicon Valley philosophy of rushing towards the future ahead of taking measured, reliably proven steps.
You don't build buildings or car structures via an agile methodology using customer feedback. Waterfall-style approaches are used because hammering out the long tail of risk is important. Car software technology must necessarily be no different.
OK, I'm not defending Tesla. I seriously dislike Elon Musk, believe Teslas have poor build quality as well as buggy software, and wouldn't buy one even if I could afford it (which I can't).
But I do get tired of every Tesla crash meriting yet another headline. All kinds of cars crash, all the time, and many of them burst into flame. That's not a good thing, but we don't see breathless reporting of every Ford or Chevy that crashes.
And surely by now, there's a general awareness that neither Tesla nor any other car has reliable full self driving. It's true that Tesla's promotional materials are deceptive, but the actual owner's manual (does anybody ever read it?) emphasizes the importance of keeping one's hands and attention ready to take over.
Is this just a reaction to the previous Tesla hype? First they were amazing and now the emperor has no clothes on? In any case, I don't think these stories are nearly as interesting as the media seems to think.
If Tesla can't shoulder that responsibility, I'm certainly not going to.
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