A Tesla Crashed Through a Harris County Home. Is the Car to Blame?

delichon 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.

There is no actuator that can press the pedal down, so if investigators find that the accelerator was still pushed down after the crash it probably means that this isn't a software problem.

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SigmundA 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Why does the FSD blindly accept accelerator input in the face of a dead end cul de sac with much lower speed limit? Is this some sort of regulation?

I have driven normal cars that cut power and brake if they detect a perceived dangerous situation usually annoyingly and in error. Traction control will also cut power to prevent wheel slip regardless of pedal position.

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delichon 10 hours ago | parent [-]

FSD has Automatic Emergency Braking but that does not apply to hard acceleration by the driver, which is an explicit UI to take control from the autopilot.

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SigmundA 10 hours ago | parent [-]

>FSD has Automatic Emergency Braking but that does not apply to hard acceleration by the driver

Why?

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em-bee 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

you don't want your car to refuse to move when you are stuck on a railroad crossing despite the gate in front of the car being down. there must always be a way to override the autopilot.

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SigmundA 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Moving off a railroad track at what maybe 15mph max is very different than doing 70mph down a cut de sac double the posted speed limit. I am not saying FSD should prevent any forward movement, how fast can it go in reverse? Probably something like that.

	▲	em-bee 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		yes, but according to the car you'd be crashing right into a barrier no matter the speed. the car needs to ignore that and allow you to break the barrier.

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delichon 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The design philosophy is that this is driver assistance where the driver is the supervisor, rather than the car supervising the driver. Sustained acceleration is interpreted as the driver overriding the car. For unsupervised autonomy in the Cybercab they remove the ambiguity by removing the accelerator pedal.

	▲	SigmundA 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I guess that seems ridiculous to me. I could understand if its some sort of government regulation, but if you want to ram a house or anything else or go double the posted speed limit then you should be required to disengaged FSD and go manual, obviously. There are plenty of videos of stuck vehicles that have a hard time due to traction control disallowing power even with full accelerator pedal, this is not a foreign concept in a modern vehicle. Here is one example, they refer to traction control as the soup nazi, no power for you! : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLVae7-N_Vs It's a feature to look for in a off road vehicle if it has a traction control disable and even ABS disable on motorcycles, this is an explicit command to disable a safety feature that typically resets when power cycled. Not sure why FSD would allow overriding an obviously unsafe situation, the operator can disable the whole thing at any time if they wish to do so and go manual with a specific on screen command rather than hitting a pedal right next to the other stop pedal with your foot resting between them otherwise.

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firtoz 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

@wingdiction please always link to the direct article: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/tesla-autopilot-c...

	▲	wingdiction 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		sorry will do

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verteu 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Seems the actual article is here? https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/tesla-autopilot-c...

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moneytide1 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"In the centuries since the Axiom left Earth, its passengers have degenerated into helpless obesity due to microgravity and laziness, with robots catering to their every whim. Captain B. McCrea sits back while his robotic AI autopilot helm, nicknamed AUTO, pilots the ship."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E

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SigmundA 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So my understanding is the telemetry shows the FSD was on and driver held the accelerator down the whole time and the car did 70+ mph into the home.

Tesla proponents say it’s the drivers fault since the accelerator was held while dissenters say why didn’t the FSD step in.

I happened to just test drive a new model Y having never done so before and not being very interested for various reasons. I may be getting the new L version when released soon in the US it was very impressive especially for the current price compared to the competition and how impressive FSD was is part of my change of heart.

You can hold the accelerator while FSD is engaged to tell it to go faster, this made sense but I assumed it was a suggestion not a go down with the ship command.

So the question is should FSD prevent unsafe speed and ramming objects when engaged even if operator holds accelerator. Based on what I saw with FSD it should know the speed limit and that it was heading to a dead end cul de sac ahead of time and the cameras should see the house near the end perhaps too late to stop but at least slow down.

The argument is I have heard there are actually regulations requiring it to accept accelerator input regardless but I have used other vehicles that emergency brake based on sensor input while manually driving even somewhat annoyingly when no actual obstruction exists (phantom braking).

My thoughts are FSD was on so the accelerator is a suggestion not a to the death command and it should have not allowed the vehicle to enter the house at 70 mph. So while the driver is at fault so is FSD and the complacency it presents contributes to driver error.

Most likely explanation is the driver panic hit the accelerator instead of brake. From driving with FSD it seem easy to get complacent and then do something like that when needing to take over vs normal driving where you are already engaged with braking and accelerating manually.

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JumpCrisscross 11 hours ago | parent [-]

> the telemetry shows the FSD was on and driver held the accelerator down the whole time and the car did 70+ mph into the home

We don't know what the telemetry shows. Tesla tweeted something. The driver says something else. That's insufficient data with which to conclude anything with confidence.

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SigmundA 11 hours ago | parent [-]

That is the current public information if it is true is only the driver at fault?

What are the alternatives? FSD on and no driver input? FSD off and driver rammed house without assistance?

This is mostly a thought experiment for me provoked by the incident after being impressed to buy one.

Tesla obviously wants to blame driver to absolve themselves while it’s obvious to me driving with FSD is not the same as driving normally when it comes to reacting to unusual circumstances and a certain amount of responsibility is given to the FSD.

Based discussion with the younger owners of FSD it’s obvious driving around manually will be like driving stick shift soon or writing in cursive, an atrophied skill that the younger generation will have no use for.

	▲	JumpCrisscross 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> if it is true is only the driver at fault? Probably not. If FSD (Supervised) led to predictable complacency, I could see a jury holding Tesla partly responsible.

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jdkee 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Spammy clickbait.

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spullara 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

	▲	rbtprograms 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		yes