This doesn't really solve the PR problem for Tesla, though. If people continue to treat their cars like they're fully self-driving (they will), accidents like this will continue to happen
What Tesla is doing is like selling a space heater that emits carbon monoxide and declaring it's for outdoor use only
Multiple people have burned to death as those silly electronic locks fail and when the car catches on fire. Has there been any recall to fix this issue? No.
Multiple people have died as 'Full Self Driving' has collided into walls and trucks. Has there been a recall? No .
Multiple safety critical issues have hit this company over and over again, and they do nothing about it. I can say that Tesla will ignore this problem too.
I hope Tesla pays lots in damages and then keeps improving their systems. If they’re truly below the rate of human error when segmented by scenario there’s no reason for a ban.
I also wish they’d knock it off with purposefully misleading marketing. They have a decent product but for whatever reason their CEO feels like compulsively lying about it.
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.
Shameless copy/paste of my comment from the earlier article:
My problem with the rah-rah around Tesla is that, good as they might be compared to the status-quo, they are still cars.
There's not enough attention paid to the fact that cars and the sedentary lifestyle they encourage are a net-negative for most people. Many of the folks I talk to who'd like to move to an active form of transportation don't because they are scared of being hit by a car. We've effectively ceded huge swaths of public space to single occupancy vehicles, and made it off limits to humans. This is bad for the health of the people in those cars, but also bad for everyone else.
The NHTSA faulted Tesla for the last fatal crash and its likely they will get faulted for the current. I am just shocked that after this one that they haven't suspended its use. The level of chutzpah this company operates at is very dangerous to its future but the public as well.
The production issues are a whole different can of worms but the autonomous driving accidents are what the public sees.
People need to understand that Tesla is not the only company that can deliver self driving hardware nor are they the only manufacturer of EVs. They are currently the maker of the more desired EV but with some of the old school automakers joining the fray they will see their high end model profit vanish.
finally, I am still not convinced they ever plan to actually sell a base model.
downvote edit
Please see an owner recreation using the same version AP with the same condition zhttps://youtu.be/6QCF8tVqM3I
What is the rational thought it permitting that on the road.
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 think of it this way:
Most car manufacturers are releasing their products on the public year after year, knowing full well that a decent percentage of people that drive away from the dealership will be killed by the thing they just bought.
Tesla is merely trying to take the next step in reducing that percentage.
Their strategy is sound and we so far have not come up with any alternatives that stand a remote chance of improving safety as much as self-driving. Even if they are largely unsuccessful, they are indeed trying to ensure the safety of the public.
No one is proposing Tesla be liable for every accident on the road.... At the time they have 100% market penetration, their market cap will be much higher.
Nevertheless, it's not clear the impact on Tesla's market cap. If a self-driving car costs $1000 more, and saves me $1000 on insurance, on the net, it's a wash for the buyer. Tesla can quite literally pass on the costs to the buyer in the purchase price, who can get it back in insurance premiums.
Personally, it'd be an upside to me. My costs would be the same, but my stress, risk, liability, etc. would go down. I don't want to kill someone, and if I do cause an accident, I don't want the headache. If other people are like me, sales (and market cap) might go up.
I’m not in favor of how Tesla has used BS marketing to make their product seem more capable than it is, nor am I excited about how all these companies Over promise and under deliver.
However… driving is one of the most dangerous things we do. 1/100 people (roughly) die in a traffic related accident in their lives. That’s bonkers and unacceptably high.
Then Tesla should stop making claims about safety until they are willing to back them up with evidence. The most likely scenario given the available information is that Musk is lying and Tesla's aren't as safe as the company would have us believe.
I am a huge fan of Elon Musk and a small TSLA share holder, but there is something about Tesla and Musk’s response to this that feels so wrong. It seems two faced. On the one hand, they shout about how great and safe their technology is, and on the other hand they blame someone for dying when they chose to rely on that technology. Is it safe or unsafe? I know it’s not that simple, but this response still saddens me.
I know they must have people who want to bring them down through legal action. And I think they want to establish a precedent that they are not liable in any crashes out of a desire to protect the corporation. But still, this response seems so cold, and so uncaring, that I am reminded that Tesla is still a corporation that in the end must protect itself.
I want self driving cars, but not a world without compassion. Why is it that we seem forced to choose one versus the other?
EDIT: Immediately after hitting send, two Model 3’s passed me one after the other, before any other vehicles passed. The universe is strange.
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.
Depends on what's in front of the car. If it's a large, broad, stationary object like a firetruck or tractor trailer, then the sensors on the car aren't able to see those obstacles. Teslas have been known to frequently run into such things at top speed, completely blind to the fact they were there at all. It's so bad multiple people have been literally decapitated at this point, and Tesla has to date refused to fix the flaw (inadequate sensing) that caused the decapitations to occur.
People say Teslas are safer than humans, but humans who can't see large broad stationary objects would never be granted a license. If you are a robot driver, no problem though apparently. In fact, if you have proven to be recklessly homicidal while driving, your license is taken away and you are likely put on trial. Not if you're a robot! They will clone your flawed sensors and robot brain, and ship it to thousands of people to be deployed on roads across the world.
When your web service goes down you probably find the root cause, fix it, and issue a report about how it's not going to happen again due to your fix. Not Tesla! They are aware of the problem, know exactly how to fix it, and it seems like one man's ego is getting in the way of shipping actually safe autonomous cars. Tesla cars are not safe because Tesla as a company does not value safety as a priority. They value design, whizbang technologies, branding and image, while safety is a distant concern. Elon Musk put more effort into naming the line of cars SEXY than he did to actually producing reliably and predictably safe autonomous vehicles. Musk spent far more time lamenting over the fact he was forced to name his car the Model 3 than the fact it decapitated a human being due to his poor engineering choices.
Teslas on AP are death machines (read: they are machines who have killed people) and we in the public are the unwitting beta testers for Tesla Inc.
so while its possible, Tesla is making changes that bring accident rates down. Everyone here is acting like its certain with absolutely no scientific evidence. Clearly by significantly more than they go up. Its stupid to come down on them like they're murdering people. That IS how you stop all progress.
Furthermore, no one is forcing anyone to buy Teslas. People should be free to do as they choose. I have no doubt, for example, that a corvette, lambo, m3, or convertible all increase certain risks for their drivers by far more than autopilot - which probably decreases their risks.
That a Tesla crashes in ways a human wouldn't doesn't seem true. From what I've seen, even the most common accident type for a Tesla occurs at a lower rate than non-Tesla cars.
Do you have more info that's more specific about the types of crashes?
The problem here is a lot of the worst crashes are caused by humans behaving crazy and stupid. It's not a good criticism.
What Tesla is doing is like selling a space heater that emits carbon monoxide and declaring it's for outdoor use only
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