[Shank]

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.

[Someone]

”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.

[spiderxxxx]

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.

[toomuchtodo]

“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.

https://electrek.co/2019/09/10/tesla-pedestrian-warning-syst...

[notJim]

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.

[blub]

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.

[vo2maxer]

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.

[gurumeditations]

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.

[anon1m0us]

Why should they be shocked that it doesn't work? Why is something that doesn't work and can kill people being deployed anyway? It doesn't work!

You cannot blame people who bought a car because it has a feature they want actually trying to use that feature.

[wiggles_md]

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!

[new_realist]

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.

[kerng]

Elon Musk just tweeted 500000+ parking summons since launch.

They certainly have the front seat compared to any other competitor when it comes to real world scenarios.