The real problem here is that Tesla is operating under the assumption that people obey warnings they give them, and that they behave rationally around their luxury cars. They do not. In a perfectly rational world, people would read the warnings and understand the risks, and thus not "expect" the Tesla to detect things that it warns that it cannot detect.
The warnings say you need direct line of sight, that the system isn't perfect, and that it may not detect all obstacles. Even ones expected to be in parking lots. Those warnings all make sense, but the people recording the videos don't care. They're just pressing the button and being shocked that it doesn't work.
Ultimately, regulators will step in if they feel that people still get into crashes despite having the warnings. If the warnings don't stop people from doing stupid things, they'll require more warnings or kill the feature. Unfortunately for Tesla, the regulator focus is public safety (and the underlying statistics). If the tables turn then it doesn't matter how safe the feature is when used correctly. Instead, it matters how safe the feature is when used incorrectly.
And that will only hurt Tesla in the long run. And that's a shame, because it will make true self driving cars that much harder to get to market.
”If the warnings don't stop people from doing stupid things, they'll require more warnings or kill the feature”
No, they will happily accept the third option: a product that doesn’t require warnings.
Cars must have seat belts, ABS, airbags, crumple zones, etc. You can’t buy a chainsaw without kickback reduction, heavy presses are specifically designed so that you need two hands to operate them, etc. etc. There are zillions of cases where we deem warnings insufficient.
Why would this feature, that even can injure bystanders, be different? It’s not as if its benefits are so large that they obviously outweigh its risks.
It's amazing how many times I walk across a crosswalk and look behind me to see a Tesla going by. I don't hear them at all at low speeds, I can't imagine what would happen if I have a kid and a bag of groceries making noises if one of these cars comes creeping up behind me and kills (or cripples) my kid, by slowly driving over them.
“Starting September 1, 2019, all Model 3 cars built for the US market now come with a Pedestrian Warning System (PWS) to meet US requirements.”
“The Pedestrian Warning System (PWS) is an audible tone played when the vehicle is moving slowly (up to 19 mph) in either Drive or Reverse. The sound is played via a speaker mounted in the front fascia and alerts nearby pedestrians of the car’s presence in low-speed situations.”
Easy to unplug, but I don't recommend doing so depending on your state's liability laws. The pedestrian takes on a percentage of liability when they're in the roadway in several states.
All the comments on that post are from people talking about how they unplugged the speaker. Given that Tesla fans can't be trusted to account for others' safety, IMO the regulation should mandate that the car should not operate without it, with steep fines for those who mod their cars anyway.
I am a cyclist and a pedestrian, and I hate this entitled attitude that a minor unpleasantness is worth more than my safety. Even with the noise, the cars are much much quieter than an ICE car.
I think (hope) that the sensors would prevent it from doing that.
It always used to be the case that OTA-updateable cars are one security incident away from becoming a car botnet, but now that "summon" exists, it's theoretically possible to hack a Tesla to hunt humans by camera and other sensors.
I have a child, and I don’t understand how I would feel any differently if done by an alcohol impaired driver, someone using their phone, or the many other reasons capable of causing distraction.
I’d argue the real problem is that Tesla puts this experimental buggy self-driving stuff out into the general public, knowing, because they’re not dumb, that ‘troubles’ are going to happen because of it. The big auto manufacturers don’t do this public beta testing with 2-ton behemoths because at their scale, the ‘troubles’ caused by that attitude Tesla has would be a national scandal with prison time.
The reliance on warnings has amazed me. In medical device designs I’ve worked on, we consider what happens when the user doesn’t follow the instructions and incorporate those failure modes into the design. And our users receive documented training on our devices!
Tesla is incentivized to allow users to ignore their warnings, as it gives them a ton of real world data with which to train their algorithms, all the while using case law precedent around “intended use” to shield them from actual liability, even though the abuse is totally foreseeable and easy to prevent.
They’ve been doing this with Autopilot since the beginning: they have the demonstrated ability to restrict Autopilot to highways, which is the only intended use, but they choose not to flip this switch, so that they can use customers (and you, me, and your children) as guinea pigs and collect that sweet, sweet data, which they upload continuously to their servers.
Another point which needs to be brought up is insurance. If accidents are being caused by this technology, insurers are eventually going to either: increase rates on cars with FSD, or just stop offering insurance on cars with FSD.
IMO if Tesla were really confident in their summon technology, they would cover accidents with it themselves. Relying on errors with their technology to be covered by outside insurance is reckless.
>> insurers are eventually going to either: increase rates on cars with FSD, or just stop offering insurance on cars with FSD.
This occurred to me as well. I have wondered if Tesla started their own insurance pool as a contingency plan to address the risk that other insurers will begin to decline coverage or price it impractically, or to show that it's possible with reasonable prices.
> If accidents are being caused by this technology, insurers are eventually going to either: increase rates on cars with FSD, or just stop offering insurance on cars with FSD.
> It’s hard to verify Summon is in use when only Tesla has access to the data
Mathematical certainty, or even criminal-style proof beyond a reasonable doubt isn't required. The insurance company writes the rule in their policy, refuses to pay if they think there is sufficient evidence that the policy allows it, and if the insured disagrees they get to sue the insurance company over it, and the case will be decided on the civil preponderance of the evidence standard.
I tried the V10 SW a few days ago. In sunny, dry weather, with no debris and 0 traffic. In a flat, well-maintained parking lot. A dog with a paper bag over its head would navigate better. I won't trust it until they are 10 iterations into it.
I find it funny that the US requires to have engraved "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear" on their mirror, and yet allow to sell cars with dubious autonomous driving claims which are misleading.
"I expected the Tesla to ‘see’ it and stop, however I had to take my finger off the (app) button when I saw that my Tesla wasn’t slowing down,”
Your car is not a fucking toy. He could have injured the occupants of the other car while he watched and filmed because he wanted to play with a cool feature without first learning how it works.
If you don't know what's going to happen, don't assume your automated car knows how to avoid a collision.
If I drive drunk then I have to face legal consequences, even if I don’t cause an accident. Just because of the higher probability of causing an accident.
Tesla on the other hand can freely release half baked software killing people, causing accidents with being 100% at fault and now threatening kids in shopping malls without any consequences.
1. Legally, just because you're a licensed driver does not mean you've been licensed to remote-operate a car, while standing on the sideline, in a pedestrian-heavy environment, where your line of sight, and your vehicle's path of travel is obstructed by hazards.
2. Teslas seem incapable of reliable collision avoidance, so you can't just expect your car to do the right thing.
The driver had to hit an e-stop, to prevent an accident.
And also, while we're at it, please explain how a self-driving car that is incapable of seeing that it's going to get t-boned, if it crosses an intersection where it does not have the right of way is in any way ready for the public.
We have no idea if the Tesla would have stopped itself - im positive the driver releasing the button wouldn't have the reaction time the car did thus proving the car was avoiding the accident by itself. get worked idiot
As a driver I’d avoid that by seeing the car backing up and not driving in front of it.
Was the human at fault in the video I saw? Yes IMO. But even the Tesla owner who shot the video posted it saying he wasn’t sure whether his insurance company would consider him or the other driver at fault.
How much authority do they have on private property? If I buy a farm who has the authority to stop me from driving remote control or autonomous cars on that farm? If i make that farm accessible to the public to buy my vegetables how does that change?
NHTSA investigates vehicle safety; whether the accident occurs on private or public property is irrelevant. e.g. when actor Anton Yelchin was killed by his Jeep in his own driveway, the NHTSA issued a statement:
What happens on your private property is your business... up until the point you allow public access. If public has access then normal laws governing motor vehicles are applicable even on your private property.
>If public has access then normal laws governing motor vehicles are applicable
Laws certainly apply, but not necessarily "normal laws governing motor vehicles". For example, you probably can't be ticketed for running a stop sign in a parking lot on private property. However, you would almost certainly be liable for damage if running that stop sign caused an accident and you could be potentially charged with some type of generic reckless driving offense. Obviously the laws vary by jurisdiction.
Here (Australia) the rules define "road related areas" as including private property that does not have a "normally locked gate" protecting access.
This means all road rules (including stop signs, alcohol/drug rules, mobile phone use, and speed limits) apply in places like publicly accessible carparks on private property, and homeowner's driveways if they do not have a "normally locked gate". People have been booked for drink driving and mobile phone use sitting in their cars in their own driveways here (almost certainly after "failing the attitude test" and pissing a cop off enough for them to punitively enforce a stupid interpretation of a poorly written law, but that's a different rant...)
In CA, local governments can and often do pass ordinances allowing Vehicle Code enforcement on certain. Private property; this is most common on parking lots and private roads that are generally open to the public.
And law enforcement investigates and assigns fault in reports for accidents on private property even where vehicle code (other than hit and run and DUI, which IIRC apply everywhere) does not apply.
IANAL, but it seems like the most conservative expectation (baring some new law or clarification) would be that you're simply liable in the same way as if you were driving if something bad happens. Similarly, someone with standing might try suing the automaker if autopilot was implicated as defective or unsafe.
It's probably not clear yet how safe the "summon" feature is. Presumably the sample of it's performance is still small, but those videos don't look very encouraging, not just in the sense the car made "mistakes" like failing to yield, but also qualitatively. I would certainly have misgivings about being responsible for the results.
It seems like a less risky strategy to improve fully autonomous operation this way then on the freeway, but still risky. Perhaps the thinking is that parking lots are expected to be low speed, low stakes environments, and the car is pretty good at detecting pedestrians and avoiding low speed collisions, so the likeliest problem is property damage. However, people have a way of occasionally doing things that are hard to predict or imagine when we are defining our safety assumptions.
In the worst case, a wrongful death suit or something similar might be affordable in dollars but probably not publicity. Even a few less severe accidents seem likely to test the patience of both regulators and the public. Maybe autopilot will get better with more real world use and training data. Or maybe it won’t, or not fast enough. I’m really curious to see how this turns out, but not be being personally responsible when somebody gets hurt :(
As others have said, this is going to vary a lot depending on where you are. For the most part, the enforcement powers of the NHTSA are limited to things like prohibiting the sale of vehicles that don't meet safety standards. What you actually do with the vehicle once you have it is between you and your local law enforcement.
The warnings say you need direct line of sight, that the system isn't perfect, and that it may not detect all obstacles. Even ones expected to be in parking lots. Those warnings all make sense, but the people recording the videos don't care. They're just pressing the button and being shocked that it doesn't work.
Ultimately, regulators will step in if they feel that people still get into crashes despite having the warnings. If the warnings don't stop people from doing stupid things, they'll require more warnings or kill the feature. Unfortunately for Tesla, the regulator focus is public safety (and the underlying statistics). If the tables turn then it doesn't matter how safe the feature is when used correctly. Instead, it matters how safe the feature is when used incorrectly.
And that will only hurt Tesla in the long run. And that's a shame, because it will make true self driving cars that much harder to get to market.