Tesla Defends Autopilot Again After A Fatal Model X Crash
Elon Musk has defended Tesla’s publication of investigation data following a fatal crash that happened while a Model X was driving on Autopilot.
Despite the whole world knowing that Autopilot is not a foolproof self-driving system and was never designed to be, Apple engineer Wei Huang reportedly refused to grab the wheel even after his car had issued several ‘take control’ warnings.
The accident occurred on 23 March, when the Model X struck a California Route 101 concrete lane divider head-on between a slip road and the main carriageway, causing massive damage to the car and fatal injuries to Mr Huang.
According to details released by Tesla, Mr Huang had received several warnings to retake control of the car, a process one fellow Tesla owner has suggested could have been caused by bright sunlight and ‘cut lines’ on the road that could have been mistaken for lane markings, confusing the car and triggering it to call upon the human driver.
After harvesting the car’s data, Tesla issued a blog post saying that the driver had “about five seconds and 150 metres of unobstructed view of the concrete divider.” The crash, which utterly destroyed the front of the car, was made much worse because the crash attenuator, a sort of crumple zone for the concrete, had been crushed in a previous accident and not replaced.
Tesla’s statement explained what the official investigation into the crash had found, clearly protecting its interests in terms of stressing that, while its level two autonomous systems are far from perfect, they were not directly at fault. The National Transportation Safety Board – an advisory body – had voiced its displeasure at Tesla’s release of the details.
Now Elon Musk has responded with a tweet putting the body in its place, pretty much asking the NTSB to stop butting into the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s business regarding autonomous driving.
The bottom line seems to be that it doesn’t matter what kind of autonomous car you’re driving. You, the human driver, need to stay alert and ready to take control at all times.
Comments
Just drive your damn car
lol
Too all the people saying that Tesla should test the autopilot more before putting it on the road:
First of all, more than 1 billion miles have been driven while using autopilot, and that is with normal users like us. For Tesla employees to drive 1 billion miles, it would take 10+ years. We live in 2018, 10+ years is too slow. Second, Tesla’s Autopilot is damn near perfect. Why? Well think of your cellphone. How many times per day does it take 0.5 seconds more to open that application? That can be considered as a bug. My cellphone is a brand new 1k phone and it still bugs many times per day. In summary, I am quite frankly impressed by Tesla for not having 100+ accidents to their record.
I see legislations being made!
What if the censors on the wheel didn’t detect his hands? What if something actually failed on the car’s end? It is highly unlikely but knowing how the build quality is then…
“Despite the whole world knowing that Autopilot is not a foolproof self-driving system and was never designed to be,” What’s Self-righteousness statement. “whole world knowing”?! “ foolproof”?! Does the author really understand what he talking about? Maybe I don’t. anyone can explain to me?
Thousands of fatal accidents of normal cars happen every day, noone bats an eye ..
May electric cars never see the light of day and may everyone who liles this comment get a toyota supra amen