This Tesla’s Autopilot System Would Have Been Fine If It Wasn’t For A Pesky Moth
While happily letting Autopilot take care of the driving, a Model S driver was shocked when the autonomous system stopped working. He described the incident on Reddit, saying: “my driver console flashes red and commands me to take control of the vehicle. AP drops off. Cruise control drops off and I get the ominous warning, ‘Radar visibility has been reduced.’”
Pulling into the next fuel station, he soon found the issue: the front radar sensor had been almost entirely covered by a disgustingly large moth. One “quick scrape with the window squeegee” later (not something we want to picture), and Autopilot was resurrected.
The ladies and gents at Tech Insider got in touch with Tesla to see what the company made of the bug splat. Firstly, the company told Tech Insider that hitting such a weirdly large insect in exactly the right place to disable the sensor is an unlikely occurrence (we’re thinking Luke Skywalker Death Star torpedo shot levels of improbability), and secondly, that it wouldn’t happen with one of the new facelifted cars. The reason? Because the sensor now sits behind the redesigned, fake grille-less bumper instead of in front of it, safe from any moth strikes.
Source: Reddit via Tech Insider
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
[DELETED]
That moth was trying to boldly go where no moth has gone before. He wanted to be the first moth to kill a Tesla. Wonder what he’s telling his moth buddies in the afterlife or whatever happens to a moth when it dies.
This goes for my article of why i wouldnt buy a autonomous car
HAHAHAHAHAHA! Your autopilot is nothing in the face of my Ultimate Great Moth!
https://en.yugiohcardmarket.eu/img/7072361ee34c2f7a4af426b376199503/items/5/TSC/perfectly_ultimate_great_moth.jpg
I’m sorry, but that moth is not even that big, drive at night in north QLD Australia and your car will be covered with bugs like that…
I’ve had a similar problem in my Tesla. We left it outside in a snowstorm and some ice covered up the radar so it kept beeping and the emergency braking system kept coming on and not letting us move. My mom was driving so she didn’t know what was going on and couldn’t fix it.
Rip
Proof that Moths are here to destroy humanity.
If the car braked hardly to a full stop making everybody behind crash into it because the sensor detected something in front of it then we can have something to talk about, but the system reaction was the safest reaction you could imagine when a sensor suddenly gives implausible data, it just gave a warning that the radar has reduced visibility and it turned off auto pilot, which is what i’d expect to happen as an engineer, nothing wrong here, parking sensors do the same thing if they have something stuck on them.
Solution: mini wipers like Volvo headlights used to have, but for the sensor
+1 for volvo!
i soo hate that big screen and electric cars