[HN Gopher] Two people killed in fiery Tesla crash with no one d...
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Two people killed in fiery Tesla crash with no one driving
Author : bdcravens
Score : 168 points
Date : 2021-04-18 13:43 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.click2houston.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.click2houston.com)
| decafninja wrote:
| Hanging out in a Tesla online community, I've noticed there are
| two types of Tesla fans (and investors even).
|
| The first are those that believe that EVs are the future and love
| the cars Tesla is producing.
|
| The other are robotaxi/FSD evangelists and believe Tesla will
| usher in the age of autonomous cars sooner rather than later.
| These people genuinely believe we'll have fully road legal
| autonomous cars (as in, requiring zero human input) by 2025 and
| that human driven cars will be outright banned in many developed
| countries by 2035 or even 2030. Some of them actually want Tesla
| to stop selling cars to the public in favor of stocking them for
| the robotaxi fleet which they are absolutely sure will be widely
| deployed in a matter of a few years.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There are two types of people: those who divide people into
| groups and those that don't.
|
| Seriously though: there are many more Tesla fans, there are
| also those that hope the company succeeds but that wished that
| that self driving feature had been postponed until _it actually
| worked_ because in the longer term this is bad for the brand
| and bad for electrics as a whole.
| decafninja wrote:
| Don't get me wrong - I too am a Tesla fan, and my next car
| will most likely be one too. And disclaimer: I also own
| stock.
|
| But yeah, I wish both Elon and the rabid FSD evangelists
| would quiet down and stop hyping FSD and robotaxi. I agree
| that hyping it right here and now today is going to hurt the
| brand more than help.
|
| The bad attention is already happening. You hear about any
| other company making incremental advances in autonomous
| vehicle tech, and it's generally met positively. News about
| greater, more significant, advances from Tesla, are met with
| second guessing, doubts, and worries about how many people
| will get hurt.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Regarding the latter group, this video[1] that was archived by
| an HN user[2] is pretty telling.
|
| [1]
| https://troll.tv/videos/watch/54bc7bd0-8691-4359-aa7d-dc5148...
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26810351
| pier25 wrote:
| > These people genuinely believe we'll have fully road legal
| autonomous cars (as in, requiring zero human input) by 2025 and
| that human driven cars will be outright banned by 2035 or even
| 2030.
|
| I'm not a Tesla fan, but I think that's going to happen
| eventually. Probably much closer to 2100 though.
| o_p wrote:
| By 2100 people will realize how dumb people in the 2020 were
| and have efficient public transportation for that
| "autonomous" travelling.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Unless we've discovered how to teleport from place to
| place, I think people in 2100 will prefer private cars to
| public transport, as they have done ever since the car was
| invented.
| lxgr wrote:
| Do they, for all types of trips? Personally, I much
| prefer trains for every trip over two hours.
|
| Being able to stretch my legs, get coffee and food, and
| comfortably work are worth it.
|
| Cars are very nice for when there is no (direct) train
| connection available to where I want to go, as well as
| for shorter trips, but they don't scale well at all in
| terms of density of traffic as well as efficiency.
| decafninja wrote:
| Distance is definitely a factor, as is frequency. I'd
| prefer public transportation systems (trains, buses,
| planes, etc.) if it's a longer and occasional trip.
|
| For short, regular, frequent travel, i.e. a commute? Give
| me a personal car anyday.
|
| But my opinion is jaded from the awful urban public
| transportation systems we have in the US. Give me
| something like what Tokyo, Seoul, etc. have, and I might
| prefer public transit for commuting too.
| PhantomGremlin wrote:
| Someone on HN has put together a fairly detailed timeline of
| Elon's comments on FSD:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26519357
| everdrive wrote:
| "Authorities said they used 32,000 gallons of water over four
| hours to extinguish the flames because the vehicle's batteries
| kept reigniting. At one point, Herman said, deputies had to call
| Tesla to ask them how to put out the fire in the battery."
|
| Wow. Have there been other electric car fires which are so
| difficult to put out?
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| There have been many situations like this, including cars
| reigniting days later. Also a few cases of cars randomly
| catching fire while parked:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tesla-cars-catch-on-fire...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I was under the impression they are all this difficult to put
| out.
|
| But maybe it depends on how many cells ruptured. Hitting a tree
| dead center is going to take out a lot of cells I guess.
| matwood wrote:
| > Wow. Have there been other electric car fires which are so
| difficult to put out?
|
| (In)famously the electric super car that Richard Hammond
| crashed.
|
| _The Rimec One Concept car is all-electric. Hammond 's model
| was left destroyed and took five days to fully extinguish_
|
| https://www.thesun.co.uk/motors/5092851/richard-hammond-cras...
| o_p wrote:
| This is even worse than the deadly autopilot, EV cars are much
| more likely to burn and the fire is much hard to extinguish,
| but no one who tries to sell you an EV will tell you "hey you
| are more likely to die by being burned alive!"
| atarian wrote:
| Reminds me of a separate incident, where the fire department
| ended up dunking the Tesla in a container of water to prevent re-
| ignition: https://electrek.co/2019/06/01/tesla-fire-supercharger/
| wyldfire wrote:
| My car gets irritated that I let go of the steering wheel for a
| few seconds. I've never dared to see how it reacts to a continued
| violation but presumably it could disengage the gas or engage the
| brakes.
|
| Doesn't Tesla have some kind of seat or steering wheel sensor to
| prevent this? Could the owner have defeated the checks somehow?
| ajross wrote:
| They do have a steering wheel sensor. And yes, it can be
| defeated.
|
| Per the article this happened on a cul de sac in a residential
| neighborhood. My question is how on earth they managed to get
| the vehicle to a fatal speed in that environment (seriously:
| Google the address, there's almost no runway available). It
| seems likely they were playing with launch mode and not
| autopilot, or perhaps manually messing with the accelerator
| from the passenger seat.
|
| This definitely doesn't smell like an "autopilot" failure,
| though we'll have to wait for details.
|
| (In fact as others are pointing out based on the location of
| the damage: it actually seems not unlikely that there was a
| human driver who fled the scene.)
| ethagknight wrote:
| Well Teslas are known for their incredible acceleration, and
| then if the occupants weren't wearing seatbelts, even a
| relatively low speed crash can cause severe injury.
| ajross wrote:
| Tesla autopilot doesn't exploit that, though. The question
| is how they launched the car, and how they managed to
| launch it into a tree. You just can't do that with
| autopilot to my eyes.
| fassssst wrote:
| Software can have bugs...
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| How fast would they need to be going for this to be
| fatal? I could definitely see autopilot missing this turn
| and crashing into the tree, and it's possible they were
| trapped inside rather than killed on impact.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >My car gets irritated that I let go of the steering wheel for
| a few seconds.
|
| My passengers get irritated.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Wow, that fire must have been intense. I have never seen so
| little left of a car. Is that from the battery fire?
| jmcguckin wrote:
| Evolution in action!
| mimixco wrote:
| I live in this neighborhood and it's easy to see how you could
| get a Tesla up to high speed and quickly encounter a tight turn.
| The entire area is full of that kind of layout. It's all long
| roads with curves around trees.
| samfisher83 wrote:
| I think it was more people doing stupid things than the
| environment since no one was driving the car. I wonder how old
| the people in the car where.
|
| Also they need to stop calling this thing autopilot.
| worik wrote:
| "Auotpilot"
|
| Elon Musk is a lying toad.
| avereveard wrote:
| so, aren't tesla coming with an attention system and aren't tesla
| autopilots allowed on the pubblic road to the condition that a
| driver is always attentive?
|
| I'd say there have been enough death from inattentive drivers and
| it's about time the legislators and licensing bodies start
| looking into the issue.
| d4l3k wrote:
| They measure torque on the wheel from the drivers hand. It is
| possible to fool via defeat devices etc (ex www dot
| autopilotbuddy dot com).
|
| There is a WIP system that uses the selfie camera to monitor
| the driver but it's still possible to fool (image taped in
| front or block it with tape etc) so unlikely it can catch all
| cases of drivers being willfully being dangerous.
| https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1379928419136339969
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| dang or other moderators, can someone add the official title to
| this post? It's unclear from the submission's title that no one
| was driving the car, which is the only thing that makes this post
| notable.
| [deleted]
| cjohansson wrote:
| "Ah I see they died, we released a bug fix for those scenarios
| yesterday, just make sure to update before going on your holiday
| trip."
| zorpner wrote:
| Bodes well for the narrow tunnel with no egress meant for these
| cars to self-drive in.
| blamazon wrote:
| In fairness there are very few trees pictured in the TBC
| tunnels so far.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Trees sure. But a disabled car or something drops out/off of
| a car? That seems plausible.
| fguerraz wrote:
| The article only has "beliefs" for evidence. Obviously a great
| piece of journalism...
| williesleg wrote:
| Holy crap! Those teslas catch fire a lot more than gas cars!
| websites2323 wrote:
| Something in this story doesn't add up. There is no
| implementation of AutoPilot on Tesla cars that doesn't require
| intervention by the driver every 15 seconds. Perhaps the driver
| undid their seat belt and reached behind to get something and was
| then thrown from his seat elsewhere?
| vesinisa wrote:
| TFA doesn't agree:
|
| > The company's cars only check that attention with a sensor
| that measures torque in the steering wheel, though, leaving
| room for misuse
|
| So they could have held the steering wheel from the passanger
| seat.
|
| > Tesla CEO Elon Musk has rejected calls from Tesla engineers
| to add better safety monitoring when a vehicle is in Autopilot,
| such as eye-tracking cameras or additional sensors on the
| steering wheel, saying the tech is "ineffective."
|
| In my country there was recently an event where a Tesla on
| Autopilot crashed out with the driver fast asleep behind the
| wheel. I'd say regulation to make it mandatory to install fool
| proof safety tech ensuring the driver is actively observing the
| traffic is needed, and fast. And this tech is trivial compared
| to even semi-autonomous driving, no matter what Musk is
| claiming.
| mimixco wrote:
| I live in this area, which is highly wooded and full of curvy
| roads. It would be a cinch to crash into a tree here in 2 or 3
| seconds. It wouldn't take 15.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| My first thought on seeing the tree in the right front quarter of
| the car and the fact that the driver's seat area is uncrushed, is
| that there was a third person, who departed the scene. I'm
| guessing whatever data the car collected to tell one way or the
| other perished along with the electronics. But don't these cars
| also upload telemetry all the time?
| sml156 wrote:
| From the article
|
| >The owner, he said, backed out of the driveway, and then may
| have hopped in the back seat only to crash a few hundred yards
| down the road. He said the owner was found in the back seat
| upright.
|
| My first thought was they were making a YouTube video
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Yup, that or just showing off a sort of autopilot variation
| of ghost ride the whip to his buddy. Really sad and dumb
| reason to die.
| markdown wrote:
| Why does the car move when there's nobody in the driver seat?
| Shouldn't a sensor have stopped the car?
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| Vehicles with self driving capabilities should in my opinion be
| required by law to have black boxes like the ones from jetliners.
| And the tools to read the data must be given to the the
| government.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Teslas do have black boxes. Whether they would survive a fire
| like this is questionable though.
|
| Tesla's "black box" data is obtainable like any other kind of
| crime scene evidence, via court order.
| buran77 wrote:
| > Authorities tried to contact Tesla for advice on putting out
| the fire; it's not clear whether they received any response.
|
| This will become a massive issue in the years to come unless we
| find a way not only to drastically reduce the number of crashes
| but also massively improve reliability.
|
| High voltage battery fires are probably the worst kind of fire a
| regular emergency responder would have to deal with, between the
| hard to put out fire and the risk of electric shock. It also
| causes some massive damage to the surroundings (the actual road
| surface, surrounding cars, or any garage unfortunate to house the
| car at that time).
|
| Today very few emergency responders are even trained to properly
| deal with such a fire, and it's a topic really lagging behind
| everywhere compared to the rate EVs are popping up on the
| streets.
| remarkEon wrote:
| What's the best way to actually put them out?
| amelius wrote:
| > What's the best way to actually put them out?
|
| Submerge them in a container filled with water, [1].
|
| [1] https://www.carscoops.com/2019/03/firefighters-dropped-a-
| bur...
| elisaado wrote:
| What if the lithium reacts with the water??
| RamRodification wrote:
| Quickly connect a bunch of fans to them, which will then blow
| the flames out or drain the batteries. Whichever comes first.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| There's the unfortunate middle area where the air makes the
| fire rage even hotter, like a blast furnace.
| [deleted]
| TheRealNGenius wrote:
| This sounds like horrible advice, flames don't "blow out"
| bitexploder wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they were being sarcastic. There is no
| practical way to get close to a fiery auto crash and
| attach a bunch of fans to a currently on fire battery.
| athrowaway3z wrote:
| A dump truck of sand.
|
| Its basically the _only_ way to put them out. I doubt the
| average firetruck will have tools to put out a recently
| started EV fire for a couple of decades.
| remarkEon wrote:
| I'm afraid to even ask this question, because of the
| environmental implications, but are there chemical
| alternatives to sand?
| testfoobar wrote:
| Thermal runaway in Lithium-ion battery packs is one reason that
| I don't ever want an EV parked _inside_ my garage. These fires
| are hard to put out.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| Everybody else keeps trying to tell you ICE cars store more
| energy, or could spontaneously combust just as easily, and
| they're not wrong.
|
| But when I'm filling up my car with a jerry can, I'm
| literally holding it. I know to have some sense of caution,
| and I can see spills. I do not leave it to slowly trickle
| fill overnight, like one would with an EV; not only am I not
| there in that scenario, but odds are I'm not even awake.
|
| The odds are minuscule, and you're more likely to die in many
| other ways. But the fix is so easy - assuming it's not going
| to hit -30, just keep it outside. And the risk (probability
| multiplied by chances for it to happen) is going to get so
| great when everyone has an EV, that I can at least see your
| point.
|
| I don't agree, and were I able to afford a house with a
| garage and a Tesla to park in it, I probably would. Doubly so
| as it hits -50 with wind chill here. But to dismiss your
| concerns outright doesn't feel quite right to me.
| rybosworld wrote:
| I don't believe EV cars are anymore likely to catch fire than
| gasoline cars. Either way, if a car catches fire in your
| garage you are in for a bad time.
|
| It's definitely good to spread the awareness that many fire
| extinguishers are not suitable to put out lithium fires,
| though.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| > fire extinguishers are not suitable to put out lithium
| fires
|
| Only Class D fire extinguishers can put out lithium metal
| fires. But lithium-ion batteries _do not contain lithium
| metal._ Lithium metal batteries do so, but no EV uses
| lithium metal batteries because they 're too dangerous.
| Class B fire extinguishers work just fine on lithium-ion
| battery fires. The difficulty with lithium-ion EV fires is
| that they tend to re-light, but water is still the tool of
| choice for putting them out.
| rybosworld wrote:
| Today I learned!
| brianwawok wrote:
| I have literally never heard of a Tesla bursting into flames
| while parked in a garage. Have you?
|
| I mean that's fine if this is the hill you want to die on,
| but right now I think it's just as likely your gas car
| fireball explodes like a Hollywood movie while parked in your
| garage.
| fhrow4484 wrote:
| > I have literally never heard of a Tesla bursting into
| flames while parked in a garage.
|
| Maybe a quick search would help you find the answer for
| yourself before making such comment.
|
| See for instance this article compiling a couple examples:
| https://www.thedrive.com/news/28420/parked-teslas-keep-
| catch...
|
| Some of the occurrences are while the vehicle is being
| charged, some are simply when the car is parked.
| pessimizer wrote:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tesla-cars-catch-on-
| fire...
|
| Now you have.
| alrs wrote:
| aside from running into fire trucks, isn't that their
| primary claim to fame? https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-
| fire-shanghai-parking-ga...
| lancesells wrote:
| I've also never heard of people burning alive in a car
| without a driver.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Many promising alternatives to lithium ion batteries are
| being experimented with now, so saying you don't ever want an
| EV parked inside your garage based on problems with lithium
| ion batteries may not be entirely reasonable.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| I interpreted it as "I would never want an EV with the
| current tech in my garage". Considering he probably keeps
| his ICE car with a 12volt lead battery in his garage.
| asddubs wrote:
| that seems like a pretty nitpicky response. I mean
| contextually it's clear what was meant
| samatman wrote:
| I'm not really seeing a scenario where an out-of-control car
| fire has worse results in a garage for gasoline vs. lithium
| ion.
|
| In both cases it's an absolutely massive thermal
| conflagration, with no hope of putting it out using anything
| a homeowner has on hand, and it will proceed so rapidly that
| the house is going to be totaled by the time the fire
| department shows up.
|
| I have to figure this is just bias toward the familiar. I
| will grant you that I don't refill an ICE car inside my own
| garage, so maybe charging genuinely makes the electric more
| dangerous. But it probably doesn't do so in fact, I would
| guess in both cases the biggest risk is something like
| leaving rags soaked in linseed oil and getting spontaneous
| combustion.
| testfoobar wrote:
| Many newly built homes have automatic sprinklers - capable
| of containing and localizing the damage from fires.
|
| A sprinkler system running on regular water supply pressure
| is not going to put out a lithium ion fire.
| greedo wrote:
| This is not common by any stretch. I have never seen a
| residential home with automatic sprinklers, only
| commercial real estate and apartments. The cost is
| prohibitive, and in many climates (where freezing is a
| norm) would be useless in garages.
| testfoobar wrote:
| California is a big EV market. Sprinklers are required in
| new construction in CA.
|
| https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/advocacy/docs/top-
| prioriti...
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I haven't heard of any ICE engines spontaneously
| combusting. I have heard of many lithium batteries,
| primarily in phones, combusting. We're better at keeping
| gasoline safe than charged electrical energy.
| sgt101 wrote:
| Electrical fires regularly kick off gasoline fires in ice
| vehicles.
| greedo wrote:
| My friends house burned down due to a car fire inside his
| garage. The engine didn't spontaneously combust (any more
| than the Tesla power-ask in the article), but having a
| car in a garage does pose some risk.
| jhealy wrote:
| When I was a kid in the early 90s our family car caught
| fire while parked in the driveway and turned off.
|
| It'd been parked for an hour or two, and the trigger was
| something electrical in the engine cavity.
| tlb wrote:
| They are fairly common. 233,300 fires and 329 deaths per
| year in the US according to http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-
| research/fire-statistics-and-re...
| HWR_14 wrote:
| That covers the number of times vehicles have caught
| fire. It doesn't reference the cause (e.g. spontaneous
| combustion vs. as a result of a crash).
| wrycoder wrote:
| I had a friend whose block heater shorted out while the
| car was in his garage. He was alerted by a smoke
| detector, went out in his PJ's, opened the garage door,
| and pushed the car outside, whereupon it burst into a
| pillar of flame.
|
| He noticed significant tingling in his feet while pushing
| the car out. This was in the days before GFCIs. He's
| lucky he wasn't electrocuted.
| alistairSH wrote:
| FWIW, a friend's Aston Martin V8 Vantage spontaneously
| combusted in front of his house a few years ago. Car was
| a total loss and took the insurance and manufacturer
| months to sort out who was liable for damages
| (fortunately, just replacement of the car - no other cars
| were parked nearby, and friend kept it in the street).
| extropy wrote:
| Gasoline has way more thermal energy. Yes, it's easier to put
| out, bit it gives you way less time before things really get
| out of hand.
| foepys wrote:
| Gasoline is not what makes a car fire bad. It's everything
| else of the car which is almost identical between ICE and
| EV.
| underwater wrote:
| Tesla's and other electric cars have been around for a decade
| now. It's completely reasonable to expect fire departments to
| have trained their staff to deal with EV crashes.
| walshemj wrote:
| Any fire department employees should no the basic classes of
| fire and what I used and not used on them,
|
| Any company H&S rep will know this
| paulv wrote:
| I think you may be overestimating the resources fire
| departments have. Many are woefully underfunded as is,
| particularly the ones that are 100% volunteer. There are
| probably dozens of things (equipment and training) that
| departments could spend money on that would benefit the
| community they serve more than training for ev accidents.
| athrowaway3z wrote:
| How are 3 out of 3 replies discussing what the fire-
| department should do from a training and policy perspective
| and nobody commenting on the science/engineering of dealing
| with a EV fire.
| foepys wrote:
| You can train all you want but unless you have a burning EV
| right in front of you, all training is only theoretical.
| Practice makes perfect and no fire department will set a Li-
| Ion car battery on fire just to demonstrate what happens.
| walshemj wrote:
| Up to a point - but knowing you don't pump water onto a
| battery fire should not be an issue.
| maxerickson wrote:
| There's been comments here for hours linking to multiple
| official sources that say exactly to pump water onto the
| battery fire.
|
| There's not that much lithium and there is lots and lots
| of heat.
| gugagore wrote:
| This is really not good safety culture. I'm sure it's not
| the same experience when a pilot practices emergency
| procedures in a simulator vs in a real emergency, but it's
| still helpful.
|
| Your point is maybe that the simulation is bad. But I think
| it can be helpful nonetheless. Even if the simulation is
| "you have a battery fire in front of you. Tell me what you
| would do?"
| buran77 wrote:
| EVs have represented a relatively small fleet of new and
| mostly high end cars so far. Which means that they haven't
| posed much of a problem so far. The budgets for most fire
| departments are pretty limited and they focus on priorities.
| EVs are hardly a priority for most of them even now as the
| fleet is growing exponentially and perhaps more critically,
| it's aging thus increasing the risk of fires.
| dTal wrote:
| I think it certainly raises questions about the extent to
| which it's reasonable for public utilities to pick up the
| slack for negative externalities caused by profitable
| companies. Of course it's a hard thing to price because of
| course fossil-fuel vehicles have a laundry list of negative
| externalities of their own.
| notatoad wrote:
| I generally agree, companies should pay for their
| externalies.
|
| The efficient way to do that is to tax companies and use
| the tax dollars to fund public services like fire
| departments. Expecting Tesla to send in their own
| firefighters when a Tesla catches fire would be ridiculous.
| Public services are good, and the method for funding them
| is well established.
|
| If we want to have additional levies for safety regarding
| lithium batteries, hopefully we are making sure to do the
| same for oil too...
| fastball wrote:
| Does it? This is the same issue it's always been: things
| catch on fire sometimes, we've decided that the best people
| to handle this are firemen, paid for by the local
| government.
| eevilspock wrote:
| Another reminder that we have a hybrid socialist free-
| market system, without even mentioning Tesla subsidies or
| how much of the science was publicly funded or "borrowed"
| from history without payment to the past.
| gugagore wrote:
| But what previous thing is most analogous to batteries on
| cars? Cellphones and hoverboards are so much tinier.
| Maybe this isn't the same issue specifically, and some
| scale of government can require a tax to fund e.g. more
| education or training.
| tyingq wrote:
| What's really odd is that it happened about midway onto a very
| short ( < 300 meters) dead-end, cul-de-sac street where you have
| to take a hard right turn to enter. The address of the place is
| in the story...look at it on a map. Really odd.
| dctoedt wrote:
| Back in the 1970s, I heard a story (from my dad, a USAF officer)
| about a young officer in a foreign air force, from a wealthy
| family, who was in U.S. pilot training in San Antonio. Supposedly
| the young gentleman bought a tricked-out van, with a bar and a
| bed and everything. He got onto the freeway, put the van on
| cruise control, and went into the back to mix a drink.
| Fortunately, no one else was injured in the ensuing crash that
| killed him. (I have no idea whether the story is true and am
| disinclined to research it.)
| pwinnski wrote:
| This was a common urban legend when I was a kid, updated
| periodically to make the ignorant driver different
| nationalities.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cruise-uncontrol/
| trhway wrote:
| race cars (and tanks and submarines - closed areas with high
| chance of fire and/or catastrophic consequences of fire) have
| automated fire suppression system. I wonder if EVs need to have
| one too. Right now the EV fires in the accidents call for
| memories of 196x movies where ICE cars would burst on fire in
| accidents. It was solved for ICE cars and need to be solved for
| EVs too - looking at those accidents, specifically at the damage
| from impact and thus related speed/etc. - it seems that the fire
| killed the people not the impact itself (i myself been in an
| accident in a regular ICE car where front of the car got smashed
| while we inside, being seatbelted of course, got only bruises,
| and if the car burst into flames the outcome would be completely
| different)
| jollybean wrote:
| "They just get too used to it. That tends to be more of an issue.
| It's not a lack of understanding of what Autopilot can do. It's
| [drivers] thinking they know more about Autopilot than they do."
|
| Hmm, that seems like a rather stark contradiction.
|
| Elon I think has some character flaws and when people are dying
| it's not the time to be defensive. I'm one of the least naturally
| empathetic people I know and yet I wouldn't be talking about
| anything other than condolences.
|
| Finally he can't continue to defend the term 'autopilot' - in
| Public Communications, you're talking the masses, the lowest
| common denominator, and the 'laziest mode' of even high
| functioning people - you gotta use words that will shape
| outcomes. 'Autopilot' is just a bad choice - he needs to change
| it.
| dm319 wrote:
| I agree. People here will cite the aviation term not refering
| to autonomous flying, but if you ask a regular person in the
| street, they think that Tesla's are self-driving. This is a
| dangerous belief that is held by a lot of people and needs to
| change. However, Tesla knows this adds an intriguing cachet to
| the brand, so they seem reluctant to downplay it.
| freerobby wrote:
| It doesn't matter what a "regular person in the street"
| thinks, from a safety standpoint. What matters is what Tesla
| owners think (i.e. the people driving the cars). Are they
| fooled by the term? Search around on TMC, /r/teslamotors, or
| any other owners group, and you'll find it's pretty
| universally understood.
|
| Additionally, the car reminds you of its limitations every
| time you use it. And it disables if it doesn't detect torque
| on the steering wheel, or weight in your seat, or the
| seatbelt clipped in. I understand how someone could be
| mislead by marketing early in the buying process. But by the
| time you get to operating the vehicle, it is borderline
| impossible to use Autopilot and still believe it requires no
| human attention.
| kube-system wrote:
| Not sure that these guys are in the reddit demographic...
| but regardless, Tesla intends their cars to be a mass-
| market product. Peer pressure is a thing, and many of the
| people who buy these cars are showing them off to their
| friends who are eager to see the "autopilot" in action.
| When people are given conflicting information, they'll
| believe the story they want to believe. ("that fine print
| is just stuff the lawyers put in there") While drivers have
| the ultimate responsibility for sure, the situation this
| perception has created is foreseeable.
|
| https://abc7ny.com/amp/tesla-crash-houston-fatal-car-
| autopil...
|
| > two men who were found dead inside the car had dropped
| off their wives at a nearby home and told them they were
| going to take the 2019 Tesla S class for a test ride.
|
| > The man, ages 59 and 69, had been talking about the
| features on the car before they left.
| mlazos wrote:
| The more I read Elon's responses to these things, the less I feel
| like he actually cares. Elon's response for me translates to
| "It's not a misunderstanding of the name, it's a misunderstanding
| if the name by experienced users" In the end the name Autopilot
| is a really cool name, but it is by actual definition misleading
| af. Given I don't think Tesla's cars are inherently more
| dangerous, it just seems like people think Autopilot is more than
| it is, experienced or not. They absolutely should implement
| features to make sure the driver is at least in the seat!!
| jimmaswell wrote:
| I find the implication highly questionable that naming this
| feature something else would have prevented this boneheaded
| incident. Stupid people do equally reckless things in their
| normal cars every day. As Musk says, experienced Tesla drivers
| know the limitations of the system and just get complacent. Or
| for all we know these people were just suicidal.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| There's been aggressive self-driving promotion for Tesla cars
| from the company and the naming of the 'autopilot' feature is
| just a small part of this. I don't know if this specific
| accident happened in a way that related to this, but I think
| it's likely that the general way that Musk and Tesla talk
| about their cars has led to accidents where people trust
| autopilot more than they should, or are trying to show off
| how great their car is because they think it can do more than
| it can.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| Honest question: What is your opinion on the Coca Cola
| Vitamin Water case [0]? I feel this is pretty much the same
| thing.
|
| [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/coca-cola-vitaminwater-
| settl...
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Largely frivolous.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| I like to imagine the word _pilot_ in autopilot is the
| adjective form:
|
| _serving as an experimental or trial undertaking prior to
| full-scale operation or use_
| ra7 wrote:
| This is the exact reason why Google/Waymo moved on from a
| similar system a decade ago to directly making level 4 autonomy
| work. It provides users a false sense of security. Same with
| FSD feature set as well. Tesla and Musk's constant misleading
| statements and marketing doesn't help either.
|
| At the very least, these kind of systems must have fairly
| strict driver monitoring. Musk says it's not effective because
| they don't try hard enough. The wheel nag and seat weight check
| currently implemented are too easy to defeat. There are
| literally products you can buy online to overcome that. I don't
| know what's stopping them from implementing an eye tracking
| system using cameras the way GM Super Cruise does. It's a much
| more effective solution IMO.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| its pretty wild that you start out trying to automate driving
| but are on a route that requires you to automate warning a
| human who is giving too much trust to your automation.
| colordrops wrote:
| Is there more than anecdotal evidence confirming that more
| people than average are getting killed by this? HN is usually
| so critical of anecdotes and single sample points, unless it
| comes to Tesla.
| quasarj wrote:
| There is not even anecdotal evidence. I am 100% sure that the
| rate of deaths per 1000 autopilot-driven miles is at least an
| order of magnitude lower than the rate of deaths per 1000
| human-driven miles. Tesla has that info and occasionally
| publishes it... people just like to get freaked out when
| there _is_ an accident. Sure, someone died doing something
| dumb with autopilot... but what, 50 people died doing
| something dumb in a normal car in the time it took them to
| put out the fire? Why are we even having this conversation?
| it 's ridiculous.
| sircastor wrote:
| It feels to me like Job's response to the iPhone 4's antenna
| issues. "You're holding it wrong" just comes off as "stop
| besmirching my product..."
|
| Blaming the user for a failure of a product is tacky.
| zepto wrote:
| Not really. Even the iPhone 4 wasn't fatal if held wrong. At
| worst you might drop a call.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| I think his main argument is that if it's measurably safer than
| a person, that's good enough.
|
| Dunno where the sweet spot is. My fear is that anything that
| isn't 100.00000% safe won't be allowed autonomy, it's easier to
| make a thing not happen than to make it happen.
|
| I expect that at this point it's all about data acquisition.
| Keep pushing out new releases as you learn something, hopefully
| the system needs less and less driver input. Crashes are
| probably pretty interesting to the engineers.
| discodave wrote:
| Can you point to data that shows these systems are currently
| safer than people?
|
| As far as I am aware, neither Uber, nor Google/Waymo, nor
| Tesla has released data showing these systems are safer than
| people.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| I suppose that if I had said that, I might feel obligated
| to find a study for you.
| merpnderp wrote:
| If you turn on the autopilot in an airplane no one sane
| believes you can hop in the back seat and take a nap, and they
| don't have eye tracking or control sensors. It's not reasonable
| to blame Elon for someone who jumped into the back seat of a
| moving car.
| foepys wrote:
| So what you are saying is that Tesla should require
| certification with practice sessions with an instructor and a
| written test for all users of Autopilot? Or do you mean that
| Tesla should assign a controller to each car to keep it 1km
| away from other cars?
| sneak wrote:
| Those features exist. The article mentions that it is not
| specified whether or not the driver assist features were even
| in use in this instance.
|
| > _One of the men killed was in the front passenger seat of the
| car, the other was in the back seat, according to KHOU. Harris
| County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman told KPRC that "no one
| was driving" the fully-electric 2019 Tesla at the time of the
| crash. It's not yet clear whether the car had its Autopilot
| driver assist system activated._
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| How would the car still be moving forward if driver assist
| was not in use?
| matsemann wrote:
| Friend of mine thought they activated the driver assist and
| let go of the steering wheel, only to go straight and off
| the road in the next curve of the road.. Had only activated
| cruise control or so.
| [deleted]
| daveFNbuck wrote:
| If no one was ever in the driver's seat, how did the car
| begin moving at all?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Brakes deactivated and rolling downhill?
|
| IDK if this is even possible in Teslas or if there is a
| safety mechanism that prevents it.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| > The more I read Elon's responses to these things, the less I
| feel like he actually cares.
|
| He doesn't. Why would he, would you?
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. We're
| trying for something else here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| quasarj wrote:
| Of course he doesn't. Autopilot is _already_ saving lives. It
| sucks when people die, but THEY DID IT TO THEMSELVES. How
| many others died in car crashes while OP was typing that
| question? 20? 50? 100? Where are the tears for them??
| Uehreka wrote:
| While certainly not required, caring about whether one's
| company's products are killing people is generally seen as a
| favorable quality in a CEO.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Unless you are CEO of a guns company...
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Is there an example of a gun mfg CEO that didn't care
| that their product hurt someone because of failure to
| understand/explain a feature?
|
| If there is a gun with an "autoshooter" feature and
| people think it's something it's not, that seems
| relevant.
|
| HN disagrees you should throw digs at people you don't
| know but don't like for owning tools you are fearful of.
| I don't mind. I like when people are upfront about their
| positions, and in many place that will definitely get you
| internet virtue points.
| [deleted]
| chrisco255 wrote:
| At 40-60k deaths per year in the U.S. alone, clearly the
| CEOs of car companies have a bigger weight on their
| shoulders.
| [deleted]
| zepto wrote:
| Generally gun company CEOs care a lot if their products
| are killing people by accident.
| [deleted]
| beowulfey wrote:
| Some people do have that ability, yes.
| haecceity wrote:
| How fast was the car going? Why how did they die? Did seatbelts
| and airbags fail?
| maxharris wrote:
| People are commenting on this story without the benefit of all of
| the necessary facts.
|
| 1) Autopilot will not activate without lane lines on the road
|
| 2) FSD will not activate without lane lines either
|
| 3) The car was not equipped with FSD software
|
| 4) There were no lane lines on the road where this happened
|
| https://twitter.com/WholeMarsBlog/status/1383855271710056460
| josephcsible wrote:
| Nitpick: there's a difference between "will not activate" and
| "will deactivate if it was already active". (For the record, my
| opinion is that this was entirely the driver's fault and not
| Tesla's fault at all.)
| o_p wrote:
| Why would someone use autopilot when Tesla is not liable for
| damages? Its like you hire a driver but you are liable for any
| crash they do.
| Google234 wrote:
| There is something called personal responsibility that most
| people believe in. We aren't children. You could ask that
| question about literally anything that you buy that could
| potential kill you.
| o_p wrote:
| >There is something called personal responsibility that most
| people believe in.
|
| If you are talking about the personal responsability of Elon
| Musk by misleading the public into thinking his cars have
| anything close to a self driving car, I agree. If autopilot
| is not autopilot, then why name it as such?
| ominous_prime wrote:
| Because it is similar to an actual autopilot. Aircraft
| autopilots are also not fully-autonomous, and basically
| just follow a predetermined course.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| Turns out following a pre-determined course on the
| streets is harder.
| ominous_prime wrote:
| Which makes what Tesla calls "autopilot" all the more
| appropriate IMO. Both will get you _most_ of the way from
| A to B, while you have to pay very close attention at any
| critical point, and generally supervise it at all times.
| andrepd wrote:
| That doesn't apply to cars, which have the potential to kill
| anyone who shares the road with you (or people on crosswalks,
| the sidewalk, cafes, inside shops, etc). So it _is_ my
| business that you drive safely.
| xxpor wrote:
| Because autopilot has nothing to do with the crash. You're
| supposed to pay attention and take over at any time.
|
| Why does anyone drive any car when the manufacturer isn't
| liable for mechanical failures that could cause a crash? I'm
| much more worried about a suspension part failing and my wheel
| flying off than autopilot doing something dumb.
| Hypocritelefty wrote:
| Where does tesla find clowns like you? Lol
| fma wrote:
| >when the manufacturer isn't liable for mechanical failures
| that could cause a crash
|
| uhm. Ever heard of the GM ignition switch defect? Ford Pinto?
| I'm sure there's more where a manufacturer is liable for
| mechanical failures that cause a crash.
| bobsomers wrote:
| > Why does anyone drive any car when the manufacturer isn't
| liable for mechanical failures that could cause a crash?
|
| Manufacturers absolutely _are_ liable if there is a design
| problem. This is the entire reason recalls exist.
|
| One could certainly argue that Tesla's laissez faire attitude
| toward autopilot safety constitutes a systems engineering
| design failure, making it grounds for a recall.
| stretchwithme wrote:
| Gotta treat it like cruise control.
| DalasNoin wrote:
| They behaved irresponsible, but Tesla could really use actual
| driver attention monitoring. It should not be possible to
| have no one sitting in the driving seat. They seem to have a
| broken attention monitoring system that is easily tricked.
| d4l3k wrote:
| They are working on a camera based solution though it's
| imperfect. You can see examples of it running at
| https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1379928419136339969
| matz1 wrote:
| To make driving more relaxing.
|
| Instead of actively driving you switch to be a driving
| supervisor instead.
|
| Think about it as a really advance cruise control.
|
| Autopilot doesn't mean it won't crash, thats absurd.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| mulmen wrote:
| You are expected to pay _full_ attention.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| New information released says it was a 2019 Model S and the 2 men
| were talking about the car's features with their wives before
| they took it for a test drive. Police believe the vehicle was on
| autopilot and traveling at a high rate of speed at the time of
| the crash.
|
| https://abc7ny.com/amp/tesla-crash-houston-fatal-car-autopil...
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| > Tesla has previously cautioned its customers that Autopilot is
| not an autonomous driving system
|
| Then why the fuck did you call it autopilot then? Are we trying
| to prove that bad marketing can kill people or something?
| discodave wrote:
| Because that's how they sell cars, and nobody has gone to jail
| yet.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| They should change the name, but the name is correct, because
| that's what autopilot means. But because everyone has the wrong
| definition of autopilot in their mind, they really should
| rename it.
|
| It's the right term, but that term has evolved in the public's
| mind and shouldn't be used anymore even though it's accurate.
| quasarj wrote:
| So, I'm confused about this argument. What do people think
| airplane autopilot does? Do they think it takes off, lands,
| navigates, and avoids unexpected obstacles in its path? Like
| honestly, people do know actual autopilot doesn't do any of
| that, right???
| toast0 wrote:
| Of course the autopilot doesn't land the plane; that's what
| the autoland system is for. Autoland has been available on
| some planes since the 1970s.
|
| Not a whole lot of unexpected obstacles in most flight paths
| to avoid either. However, collision avoidance systems are
| available, I don't think they're commonly connected to the
| flight controls directly though (I could easily be wrong
| though, I only fly an armchair)
| jvolkman wrote:
| Maybe Tesla can help design some portable wall/dam system that
| could be setup around vehicles to capture water used in a pool
| rather than have it all immediately lost to drainage.
| oivey wrote:
| It seems like Tesla should at least have a safety feature that
| checks if someone is in the drivers seat. Cars already do this
| for warnings about seatbelts and enabling the air bags. Maybe the
| sensor is already even there.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| They do, I mentioned in another comment I once unhooked my belt
| to take my jacket off while in auto pilot. It started beeping
| horribly, disabled autopilot and started slowing down. It then
| wouldn't even let me re-enable it until after stopping and
| putting it into park.
|
| I've heard it does the same with the seat sensor.
| freerobby wrote:
| Why is this comment downvoted? It is 100% correct.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Wasn't there a recent article posted here how safe Teslas are?
| JUNGLEISMASSIVE wrote:
| Yes and that is why this accident was staged.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Occam's razor
| itisit wrote:
| 6 deaths from Autopilot now. At the very least, Tesla ought to
| drop the name.
|
| https://www.tesladeaths.com/
| icapulet2 wrote:
| That's without counting for the Houston deaths as the use of
| FSD/Autopilot hasn't been verified.
| ominous_prime wrote:
| If anything the name is the most accurate part of the
| marketing. My Garmin autopilot will gladly fly me straight into
| the ground if given the chance to do so. While they are getting
| more advanced, aircraft autopilots are even less autonomous.
| But yes, their marketing is aimed at making people think it's a
| self-driving feature.
| motohagiography wrote:
| We should rethink this as figuring out how to make self-crashing
| cars less efficient to a point above a ROC curve.
| [deleted]
| de6u99er wrote:
| >The owner, he said, backed out of the driveway, and then may
| have hopped in the back seat only to crash a few hundred yards
| down the road. He said the owner was found in the back seat
| upright.
|
| How is it possible, that the car doesn't stop immediately as soon
| ad there's noone in the driver seat?
| robben1234 wrote:
| It's the age of stupid smart vehicles. My favorite is 2018
| Panamera heading into the sea[0] with no one at the driver's
| seat during a test.
|
| [0] RU - https://youtu.be/nKMk3q7bHjA?t=564
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Two men ... nobody driving.
|
| This is a "hold my beer and watch this" accident.
| freewizard wrote:
| I'm wondering how often does Elon Musk use autopilot? If he does
| not do that all the time, users should not either; if he does,
| I'm worried about him and Tesla share holders.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| I would be shocked if he drove at all. His time is worth more
| than that whatever it costs to hire a driver.
| irrational wrote:
| Did the car start driving with nobody in the driver's seat? Or
| did someone move out of the driver's seat after it started?
| ztjio wrote:
| The car won't even go into Drive without weight in the driver
| seat. These people had to put a lot of effort into making this
| happen.
| andybak wrote:
| > Two men are dead after a Tesla traveling in Spring crashed into
| a tree [...]
|
| What do they mean "traveling in Spring"? Is it the name of a
| place? That sentence is rather baffling to my ears.
| lwl wrote:
| It's the name of a city just north of Houston.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Texas seems to have very silly names for places.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West,_Texas (not to be confused
| with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Texas)
| cbozeman wrote:
| Meanwhile... in Austria...
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugging,_Upper_Austria
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| Yep, The three others I know of are Center, Texas, which is
| not in fact in the center of Texas; Earth, Texas, which I
| suppose is in fact on the Earth; and Texas City, Texas,
| which is indeed a city in Texas.
| echelon wrote:
| Would the two have survived in an ICE car?
|
| The car doesn't appear to be wrapped around the tree, and the
| body looks intact.
|
| It looks like the battery fire killed them.
| vladoh wrote:
| Some people are quoting the recent Tesla safety report [1] as
| evidence that Autopilot is on average much safer than a human
| driver. This is a classic case of the Simpson's Paradox [2].
|
| On the first look it seems that Autopilot is 4x safer than
| driving without any safety features (1 accident every 4.19
| million miles vs 0.978 million miles). However, the data used to
| compute the stats is different in two important ways:
|
| 1. Autopilot cannot be always activated. This means that is some
| particularly difficult situations, the driver needs to drive
| himself. These are more dangerous situations in general.
|
| 2. If a driver disengages Autopilot to avoid an accident and
| engages it again straight away on a 10 miles drive, then you will
| have 9.99 miles driven on Autopilot without accident. The
| statistic misses the cases where the human driver intervened to
| avoid an accident.
|
| This means that we are comparing the same measure (accidents) on
| different datasets and therefore in different conditions. This is
| dangerous, because it may lead us to wrong and often opposite
| conclusions (see Simpson's Paradox [2]).
|
| I'm not saying that Autopilot isn't safer than a human driver,
| given that the driver is at the steering wheel and alert, but
| that this data doesn't lead to that conclusion. If the driver is
| not sitting at the driver seat, then it is certainly much more
| dangerous.
|
| [1] https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox
| jacquesm wrote:
| The marketing and messaging around auto-pilot simultaneously
| argues that auto-pilot is safer than a human driver but blames
| the driver when there is an accident.
| josephcsible wrote:
| A human and Autopilot working together is safer than just a
| human driving. Autopilot by itself is currently less safe
| than just a human driving (which is why it's still level 2).
| There's no mixed messaging.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| > _A human and Autopilot working together is safer than
| just a human driving._
|
| I am not so sure. The data from Tesla is always comparing
| apples and oranges and I have not seen a good third-party
| analysis confirming this hypothesis.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Heads I win, tails you lose. What's so difficult to
| understand? /s
| [deleted]
| riffic wrote:
| Just for the record, people who study the problem space
| concerning traffic safety have disavowed the word "accident"
| because it all too often dismisses the preventable root causes
| that can be learned from here.
|
| context:
|
| *
| https://laist.com/2020/01/03/car_crash_accident_traffic_viol...
|
| * https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/04/04/associated-press-
| caut...
|
| * https://chi.streetsblog.org/2021/04/05/laspatas-ordinance-
| wo...
|
| It'd be nice if folks here would be mindful of the role
| language plays. Here's also a preemptive "intention doesn't
| matter" because the first post I share covers that in the
| section "The Semantics of Intention", where it argues that the
| decisions have already been made in both the designs of our
| streets and in the choices people make behind the wheel, and
| those have known and changeable outcomes.
|
| last edit I swear, but a good catchphrase I've seen recently
| that I'll be pinching is "Accidents happen, crashes don't have
| to."
| andrew_v4 wrote:
| Wow, how unhelpful. I don't know the acceptable way to call
| this out, but how about focusing on substance instead of just
| bringing pedantic language stuff into the mix. I see this
| happening a lot, when people can't find a real way to
| contribute, they start debating the position of commas or
| whether it should be called inquiry or enquiry or whatever.
| It distracts from real debate, and maybe gets you some
| attention (lots of bureaucratic leader types love this sort
| of thing) but it's really wasting everybody's time.
|
| (Edit, the irony isn't lost on me of providing a low value
| comment that doesn't contribute to the discussion in response
| to one I accuse of something similar. But I've seen so much
| time wasted and so many people getting ahead and in some
| cases basically build a career on engaging with these kind of
| language things instead of doing any actual work, I wanted to
| bring it up)
| shkkmo wrote:
| His comment added a lot more to the conversation that your
| comment (or mine.)
|
| Sometimes pedantism is important and useful. In this case I
| have no problems imagining that we could reframe our
| understanding of how to design traffic systems by reframing
| the language we use to talk about how those systems fail.
|
| Not that I necessarily agree, but I don't think you can
| dismiss the argument by waving your hands and saying
| "pedantism is bad".
| vladoh wrote:
| Interesting - I never thought about this aspect! This crash
| was of course 100% preventable by... driving.
| riffic wrote:
| > crash was of course 100% preventable by... driving.
|
| By following the guidance indicated to you in the
| manufacturer's owner's manual that every new car is
| supplied, yes.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I believe autopilot's safety features were disabled so these
| statistics are meaningless. I'm not talking about simply
| forcing it into autopilot, but disabling autopilot's ability to
| control the vehicle's acceleration. The reason I think this is
| the case is due largely to the speed the vehicle was traveling
| which is... unlikely under autopilot which limits speeds to 5
| MPH over the speed limit.
|
| If you are pushing on the gas pedal, the car can only steer and
| has no control over speed.
|
| This weird sort of hybrid riding where the car is controlling
| the steering and the driver is controlling the speed puts the
| car in an untenable situation. It is a driver with no brakes
| and no control over the gas pedal.
|
| Maybe Tesla should disable this mode entirely. Tesla (very
| reasonably) limits speeds to 5MPH over the speed limit when you
| are in autosteer mode, so lots of people like the ability to
| bypass the speed. Personally, I very much like being able to
| push the speed when it's reasonably safe to do so. If you are
| operating the system as designed, it's no less safe than cruise
| control.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| To avoid #2, Tesla specifically counts any accidents within 5
| minutes after autopilot disconnect as an autopilot accident.
| lancesells wrote:
| Can you explain how that avoids it? Not sure I understand.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| It avoids a variant of point 2. The case where the driver
| disengages the autopilot to avoid the crash _and fails._ It
| avoids chalking that crash up to human error. It does not
| avoid the initial point you made that the human accident
| avoidance avoids the crash (and thus statistic) on the N
| miles of autopilot usage before it is disengaged.
| reitzensteinm wrote:
| Five _seconds_.
|
| "To ensure our statistics are conservative, we count any
| crash in which Autopilot was deactivated within 5 seconds
| before a crash, and we count all crashes in which the crash
| alert indicated an airbag or other active restraint
| deployed."
|
| At the bottom of:
|
| https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport
| klmadfejno wrote:
| That's an interesting problem. The right answer mostly
| depends on the distribution of crashes at time t since
| deactivating autopilot. I would personally guess the
| relevance of autopilot fades to near 0 once you're 30
| seconds since deactivation for 99.9% of crashes.
|
| 5 feels a little too aggressive, but would probably capture
| the majority of the true positives. I would have picked
| 10-15 seconds based on my gut.
| nilkn wrote:
| Does that really avoid #2? My understanding of that situation
| was this:
|
| 1. The driver senses an impending accident or dangerous
| situation, so they disengage autopilot.
|
| 2. The driver personally maneuvers the car so as to avoid any
| accident or crash.
|
| 3. The driver re-engages autopilot afterwards.
|
| In this scenario, there is no accident, so there's nothing
| for Tesla to count either way. The idea is that there _could_
| have been an accident if not for human intervention. Unless
| Tesla counts every disengagement as a potential accident, I
| don 't really see how they could account for this.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| You need to look at the whole system. The end result (of
| autopilot + human) is no accident.
|
| If the human prevents 99% of autopilot could-have-been
| accidents, and as a result, 10 people die per X miles
| driven whereas through purely human driving 20 people die,
| then driving with autopilot is safer.
|
| Unless you're trying to answer "is autopilot ready for L5",
| this is the right metric to look at.
| dheera wrote:
| What they of course _should_ do is count any manual
| intervention as a possible autopilot accident.
|
| When I say possible, what I mean is they should go back, run
| the sensor data through the system, and see what autopilot
| would have wanted to do in the time that the human took over.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| That's a bit speculative, since your actions will affect
| the actions of others, but I agree if it were done
| correctly would give the best picture of autopilot safety.
| emodendroket wrote:
| The problem of people overestimating the capability of the car
| or just losing their attention when Autopilot is engaged could
| easily wipe out whatever wins you do get.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Does the safety report account for vehicle age and price?
| Because I imagine there's a difference in accident-free miles
| if you were to compare a new Mercedes-Benz S-Class to a
| 15-year-old Camry.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| No it doesn't, that's one of the main criticisms along with
| comparing highway miles to city miles.
| tyingq wrote:
| And Tesla owner demographics (presumably mostly affluent +
| older) with "everyone".
| reissbaker wrote:
| I have read the criticism of how the Autopilot miles aren't
| apples-to-apples comparisons with national averages many times.
| However, this cherry-picks a single number from the safety
| report and ignores the other reported statistics. If the
| explanation for why Autopilot miles were so much safer than
| non-Autopilot miles is that people turn it off in dangerous
| situations -- and thus equal or greater numbers of crashes were
| occurring for Autopilot users _overall_ compared to the
| national average, they were just occurring when Autopilot was
| off -- the crash rate without Autopilot engaged would have to
| be higher than the national average. Otherwise, where would the
| crashes go?
|
| However, it isn't. The crash rate with Autopilot off (but with
| other safety features on) is about 4x better than the national
| average. And with all safety features turned off, it's still 2x
| better.
|
| I don't think you can explain away the high safety record of
| Autopilot by claiming the crashes are concentrated in the non-
| Autopilot miles, because they aren't. While Autopilot miles are
| safer than non-Autopilot miles, non-Autopilot miles are no more
| dangerous than the national average (and in fact are less
| dangerous).
|
| Autopilot+human is considerably safer than human alone.
| nnm wrote:
| The total crash rate in Tesla cars is not necessary less than
| that of say Prius cars.
|
| Comparing Tesla cars crash rate with that of the overall
| population is dishonest:
|
| 1. drivers are biased population 2. the age of the car is
| biased
| reissbaker wrote:
| It is not "dishonest." Toyota, AFAIK, does not publish
| these numbers; comparing to the national average is just
| the best you can do. Publishing the numbers without any
| comparison would be silly; what does it mean to know
| Tesla's accidents per mile if you not only don't know it
| for any other manufacturer, you also don't even know what
| the national average is?
|
| And while I couldn't find numbers for Prius specifically,
| it seems that hybrid cars are actually on average more
| dangerous than other cars, so I would be surprised if Tesla
| were not handily besting the Toyota Prius given Tesla's
| safety record:
| https://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1022235_hybrid-
| drivers...
|
| Yes, there may be biases in driver population that make
| Tesla owners slightly more or less likely to crash.
| However, I think it is a very large stretch to claim that
| this would result in the fairly astoundingly different
| safety numbers.
|
| As for the age of the car: car age is mostly a statistical
| factor due to safety systems in newer cars. (It is also
| important in terms of _deaths_ due to safety standards like
| crumple zones and airbags, but we are talking about a count
| of accidents, not deaths; if a crumple zone has been used,
| it is an accident.) Tesla publishes the statistics both
| with safety features on (4x better than national average),
| _and the numbers for if they have been disabled_ which is
| still 2x better.
|
| I think if the claim that the crashes are concentrated in
| the non-Autopilot miles were true, and that Autopilot+human
| is more dangerous than human alone, it would be very hard
| to understand how the crash rate was still 2x better than
| the national average with safety features disabled and
| Autopilot off.
| bcrl wrote:
| Please correct for demographics. The average Telsa owner does
| not include poor people driving beaters with bad brakes, so
| there's a heck of a lot of self selection going on that is
| probably skewing the statistics.
| vladoh wrote:
| Even if what you argue is true, it doesn't follow from this
| report. Why is the accident rate of Tesla with Autopilot and
| all safety features off 2x better than the national average?
| Because there is a difference in the demographics - Tesla
| drivers are probably younger and more enthusiastic about
| driving than the average driver.
|
| Now, if you do the same statistics on the same demographics
| for all non Tesla cars, you could actually get less accidents
| than Tesla - here are where the hidden accidents went. Again,
| I don't have the data about this and I don't claim it is
| true, but without knowing this, you cannot make the
| conclusion you are making as well.
|
| Otherwise I agree with you - I also believe that
| Autopilot+human is safer than just human. Unfortunately, the
| usual way that people interpret these numbers is that
| Autopilot is safer than human...
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Tesla drivers are probably younger
|
| Don't younger (hence less experienced) drivers generally
| have more accidents? If this is true, isn't it more
| evidence that Tesla's safety features are helpful?
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| The quoted statistics on either side are not helpful here.
| See:
|
| >> Driving to Safety
|
| >> How Many Miles of Driving Would It Take to Demonstrate
| Autonomous Vehicle Reliability?
|
| >> Key Findings
|
| >> Autonomous vehicles would have to be driven hundreds of
| millions of miles and sometimes hundreds of billions of miles
| to demonstrate their reliability in terms of fatalities and
| injuries.
|
| >> Under even aggressive testing assumptions, existing fleets
| would take tens and sometimes hundreds of years to drive
| these miles -- an impossible proposition if the aim is to
| demonstrate their performance prior to releasing them on the
| roads for consumer use.
|
| >> Therefore, at least for fatalities and injuries, test-
| driving alone cannot provide sufficient evidence for
| demonstrating autonomous vehicle safety.
|
| https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1478.html
|
| Note also that Tesla's numbers are reported after several
| years that Tesla cars with Autopilot have already been driven
| on public roads. Whatever the numbers say _now_ when
| Autopilot was first released there was no evidence of it
| being safer than human-driven cars, only wishfull thinking
| and marketing concerns.
| buran77 wrote:
| As I like to point out to people when they quote this self
| driving statistic, student drivers have the best driving record
| out there. No fines, no accidents. Yet nobody would ever
| confuse a student driver for a good driver even if they are
| probably better than current self driving tech.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| That's a pretty weak argument regardless of your stance on
| self driving cars. Student driver records aren't meaningful
| because we don't have enough data to make a judgement. We
| have lots of data on self driving cars. There are other ways
| to cast doubt on self driving car records but this isn't one
| of them.
| imtringued wrote:
| Tesla's self driving cars are students that are under
| constant supervision of their teachers.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| That's just a bad analogy though. If a student driver
| accumulates a million miles of driving with no accidents,
| they're probably a fine driver even if the teacher was in
| there the whole time. Conversely, you're not a safer
| driver if tomorrow a driving instructor decides to sit in
| the back seat of your car tomorrow.
| bscphil wrote:
| Why do you say that? Student drivers certainly do get into
| accidents, despite the fact that some driver's ed cars allow
| the instructor to take partial control. When my partner was
| in a program, the student driving the car they were in rear-
| ended another car.
|
| Maybe you mean that it doesn't go on their driving record,
| but is that really true? The one reference I could quickly
| find of this happening says that the student was issued an
| infraction: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2018/04/04/Student-
| driver-crash...
| [deleted]
| nnm wrote:
| The Tesla Safety Report is so misleading:
|
| 1. The accident rate does not take into account of drivers age,
| credit score and prior safety record, or the age / value of the
| car.
|
| 2. Most people only turn on autopilot when driving is easy
| (e.g. on a highway).
| hurflmurfl wrote:
| Sorry, a non-American here. By "credit score" are you
| referring to the financial credit score or some sort of
| "points system" for drivers? If the former, then why would it
| be important to include it?
| skissane wrote:
| Credit score is correlated with personality traits such as
| conscientiousness, risk-taking, etc, which in turn
| influence driving safety
| igorstellar wrote:
| In some states auto insurance companies are using credit
| score because there is correlation between insurance claims
| and credit score [1]. I guess you can establish "crash-
| free" and insurance claim correlation even more easier.
|
| [1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/auto-
| insurance-...
| IncRnd wrote:
| Not some states but 94% of the states, according to your
| link.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| Does any car company give a detailed normalized report like
| you're asking for in 1?
|
| edit: by which I mean, if tesla autopilot gets into more
| accidents than rich white yuppies but less than the national
| average, it's not entirely obvious to me is the conclusion is
| rich white yuppies shouldn't use autopilot or that autopilot
| isn't safe enough. It also suggests its very useful for poor
| minorities.
|
| Location and local driving conditions are the only real
| differentiator where this might make a difference on decision
| making. Those are going to be correlated with the
| demographics of the person driving them, but are weak proxies
| at best.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Car company? Probably not, but they'd be the wrong
| organisations to ask.
|
| Insurance companies certainly would know _a lot more_
| detail.
| eevilspock wrote:
| This is a tangent about the Simpson's Paradox that may or may
| not be relevant to Autopilot. Specifically about the archetypal
| example given in the Wikipedia article, "UC Berkeley gender
| bias":
|
| Even if the deeper data analysis showed a "small but
| statistically significant bias in favor of women" in terms of
| admission rates in individual departments, it doesn't prove
| that there isn't another kind of bias behind the overall
| admission rates (44% for men, 35% for women). Specifically, why
| doesn't the university rebalance department sizes, so that all
| departments are similarly competitive? It would result in the
| overall male and female rates converging. It would also make a
| lot of sense from a supply and demand perspective. It is
| entirely possible that there was no urgency or desire to do so
| because of bias on the part of administrators, who were mostly
| male.
|
| Might the quickness to dismiss the issue as a Simpson Paradox
| reflect another bias?
| Hypocritelefty wrote:
| Two guys died because fraud Karen sells vapurware but the Tesla
| shills on hackernews selling it as not a tesla problem.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| It was only a matter of time, no one was driving the car.
| DSingularity wrote:
| I thought hey had systems to ensure that an attentive human was
| in the driver seat. Someone found a way to circumvent this?
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| The system detects torque on the steering wheel: you can find
| various hacks online to fake the input.
| [deleted]
| SEJeff wrote:
| You can see from the red brake calipers for his is a performance
| model. I wonder if it was a Model S or a Model 3. The newer Tesla
| battery packs have put serious work into heat dispersion and
| preventing thermal runaway like this.
| blamazon wrote:
| For anyone else wondering why this is notable:
|
| "Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman told KPRC 2 that
| the investigation showed "no one was driving" the fully-electric
| 2019 Tesla when the accident happened. There was a person in the
| passenger seat of the front of the car and in the rear passenger
| seat of the car."
| bin_bash wrote:
| I'm confused how this is possible. I have a 2020 Tesla and you
| have to turn the wheel every couple of minutes while Autopilot
| is on otherwise it will just turn off after beeping a ton.
| spockz wrote:
| It is perfectly possible to nudge the steering wheel from the
| passenger side.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Tesla has not thought of incorporating a sensor to ensure
| that someone is actually behind the wheel and not at the
| side of the wheel? I would find that unlikely.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Well, you'd be mistaken. The only use the torque sensor
| in the steering wheel. There've been news articles with
| Tesla engineers asking for a better system, and Musk's
| explicit response was that technology like eye tracking
| or such would be ineffective.
| [deleted]
| zaroth wrote:
| AutoPilot will also disable if you unbuckle your seatbelt
| or lift your butt off the seat.
| api wrote:
| Reach over and turn the wheel from the passenger side?
|
| This one sounds like an ID10T error.
| blamazon wrote:
| Most of Tesla's ass-covering mechanisms can be circumvented
| easily. The steering wheel nag in my Model X is easily fooled
| by any kind of asymmetric weight on the wheel. There are
| other mechanisms, like seat belt and seat weight monitoring,
| but these can be easily circumvented as well.
|
| To Tesla's credit, they have reportedly recently started
| using gaze tracking on cars equipped with a passenger-facing
| cam, which is much harder to circumvent. If you look at
| literally every other public sale automaker doing self
| driving, they use gaze tracking.
| cal5k wrote:
| If you're actively circumventing your car's safety features
| to use it in out-of-spec ways it's hard to argue that an
| accident is anything but your own fault.
|
| It's like pulling high negative G in a Cessna 172 and then
| blaming the manufacturer when the wings fall off.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| What if the Cessna salespeople and marketing was all
| doublespeak about high G flying (allegedly the
| salespeople on the floor go way beyond doublespeak
| sometimes)? Yeah the pilot would be to blame, but in that
| case Cessna would also be to blame.
| [deleted]
| ogre_codes wrote:
| You have to actively ignore multiple safety warnings and
| deliberately bypass failsafes.
|
| The big thing I have to wonder about is how on earth did
| they get the car going so fast on residential streets?
| Autopilot is hard-coded to limit you to 5MPH over the speed
| limit. I know you can push the gas down with a brick or
| something stupid like that, but doing that _disables_ the
| car 's ability to slow down or stop automatically which is
| a pretty fundamental part of what Autopilot does and how it
| operates.
|
| So many people look at this as if the driver pushed a
| simple bypass button to get around a safety feature, but
| getting a Tesla going fast enough to wrap itself around a
| tree on a residential street is not simple at all.
| josefx wrote:
| Tools to fool Teslas minimal hands on detection have been
| available for years. Amazon even sells them[1]. Anyone buying
| them should have their license suspended as precautionary
| measure.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/QCKJ-Steering-Autopilot-Assisted-
| Auxi...
| juli1pb wrote:
| Totally agree with you. I own a Tesla and I am definitely not
| a big fan of how they communicate or treat their customer
| (customer service is just horrible). But in the present case,
| this is not a tesla issue, just an issue of two irresponsible
| people. The car would have beeped thousands times before
| crashing (at least very loud beeps for not applying force on
| the steering wheel and other loud beeps because the car was
| going off road and hitting a tree - obstacle detection).
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| Yeah, it seems to me that this sort of safety measure only
| has to be strong enough to force people to go out of their
| way to circumvent it: anyone who circumvents it has ipso
| facto displayed malicious intent and should be liable for
| any damage caused.
| Black101 wrote:
| Also:
|
| > Authorities said they used 32,000 gallons of water to
| extinguish the flames because the vehicle's batteries kept
| reigniting. At one point, Herman said, deputies had to call
| Tesla to ask them how to put out the fire in the battery.
| sbassi wrote:
| https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/2020_Lit.
| ..
| Black101 wrote:
| lol:
|
| > Tesla's recommendation is to fight a Tesla Energy Product
| fire defensively. The fire crew should maintain a safe
| distance and allow the battery to burn itself out.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| I'm sure the Tesla crowd will jump in to say this is driver
| error because Tesla has a disclaimer that the feature requires
| active driver supervision, but the problem has always been the
| marketing that causes users to over estimate the system's
| capabilities. Musk says that autopilot is safer than human
| driven miles, but this is apples and oranges since the human
| driven miles include city driving and all models of car, which
| have much higher rates of accidents than luxury cars like
| Teslas.
|
| Full Self Driving's marketing has been criminal. Tesla is
| trying to solve self driving without lidar, which it's
| competitors are using. Waymo is way ahead of Tesla, but they
| create the illusion of being ahead by releasing features that
| are clearly extremely dangerous.
|
| This video is a little over the top but highlights the abuses
| of FSD marketing better than anything else I've seen:
| https://twitter.com/FinanceLancelot/status/13752898727562731...
| joezydeco wrote:
| _I'm sure the Tesla crowd will jump in to say this is driver
| error_
|
| Did I read the parent post incorrectly? _There was no driver
| in the seat._
| jgwil2 wrote:
| That would be the error. You're supposed to be seated in
| the driver's seat and alert.
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| They might have been using the orange hack to make Tesla
| think someone was driving (orange wedged in the steering
| wheel causes enough weight/pressure for the sensor to think
| it's a hand)
| strictnein wrote:
| > I'm sure the Tesla crowd will jump in to say this is driver
| error
|
| There was literally no one in the driver seat.
| ajross wrote:
| I don't see how autopilot was involved here. This was a tiny
| cul de sac (the address is in the article). Autopilot simply
| won't achieve the kind of speeds needed to cause that
| collision.
|
| Frankly I agree with other posters here that the most likely
| scenario is that there was a human driver in the seemingly-
| undamaged drivers' seat who fled the scene. Absent that,
| you'd have to play games with launch mode or some kind of
| device to press the accellerator. You just can't do this with
| autopilot as I see it.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| "Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman told ABC
| News the two men who were found dead inside the car had
| dropped off their wives at a nearby home and told them they
| were going to take the 2019 Tesla S class for a test ride.
|
| "The man, ages 59 and 69, had been talking about the
| features on the car before they left."
|
| https://www.yahoo.com/gma/investigators-looking-explosive-
| te...
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| If so the investigators on the scene are wrong, from the
| article:
|
| "Herman said authorities believe no one else was in the car
| and that it burst into flames immediately. He said it he
| believes it wasn't being driven by a human. Harris County
| Constable Precinct 4 deputies said the vehicle was
| traveling at a high speed when it failed to negotiate a
| cul-de-sac turn, ran off the road and hit the tree."
| ajross wrote:
| Again, that scenario (taking a high speed turn in a cul-
| de-sac) just doesn't correspond to any known accessible
| autopilot behavior. Given the choice between "initial
| investigation was wrong" and "heretofore unseen high
| speed residential driving by autopilot" (also "non-
| autopilot driving from passenger seat" probably needs to
| be in the list), I know which way Occam points.
|
| To be glib: if you could get the car to drive itself at
| 60mph+ on a residential street, that shit would be all
| over youtube.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Occam's Razor says: "entities should not be multiplied
| without necessity", but it's your explanation that is
| "multiplying entities", specifically the occupants of the
| car and certainly without necessity: two car occupants
| suffice to cause an accident.
| FriendlyNormie wrote:
| Occam's razor is peak midwit bullshit. "Believe the most
| braindead retarded simplistic explanation and reject
| everything else." That's Occam's razor. Everyone using
| Occam's razor should be permanently shadowbanned
| immediately. Right dang? Aren't you all about curiosity?
| tyingq wrote:
| If you look at it on a map, it is very odd. The address
| where happened is maybe 200 meters into the cul-de-sac,
| which requires a hard right turn to enter. The crash site
| isn't very close to the right turn. And the street itself
| isn't long, maybe 300 meters total.
|
| Trying to imagine how it was going fast enough to cause
| this, well after a right turn, with nobody in the
| driver's seat...isn't easy. Occam's razor is hard to
| apply, because I don't see a simple explanation.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| I don't think Occam's razor is hard to apply: there's no
| evidence of a third person in the car, there's no reason
| to assume a third person in the car.
|
| Occam's razor cuts out unlikely explanations. It doesn't
| help you find a likely explanation, but at least it helps
| you avoid wasting time in considering unlikely ones.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| I agree it doesn't look like there's much ramp up, I'd
| want to know why the people actually there sound so
| confident there was no 3rd party. Here's the approximate
| location of the crash:
| https://goo.gl/maps/4Rk3DPdtnnRQuGd69
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| The WSJ article says they are almost 99.9% sure there was
| no driver. https://www.wsj.com/articles/fatal-tesla-
| crash-in-texas-beli...
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| They are pulling that number out of someone's ass.
| zby wrote:
| Doesn't Tesla record everything? I imagine there should be
| records somewhere that would resolve such questions.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| >> Frankly I agree with other posters here that the most
| likely scenario is that there was a human driver in the
| seemingly-undamaged drivers' seat who fled the scene.
|
| Do we really need to imagine a third person, who left
| leaving behind no evidence of his or her existence, to
| explain this accident?
| vmception wrote:
| Fire can burn away obvious and forensic evidence
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| If I understand correctly the reason the OP has to
| suspect a third person in the driver's seat is because
| the driver's seat appeared undamaged?
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| I don't see anything in that photo that looks undamaged.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| To be honest, I don't either, but if I understand
| correctly the OP thinks there must have been a third
| person because the driver's seat was "seemingly
| undamaged".
| FriendlyNormie wrote:
| All Teslas have a backdoor enabling the ability to
| remotely take over the car and intentionally crash it.
| Obviously this was a test of that feature. Everyone who
| didn't see this coming is a moron.
| Geee wrote:
| Wow, based on that video it seems that the oil industry
| backed short sellers are getting pretty desperate.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| Name one short seller who has been backed by the oil
| industry. Tesla is worth 3 Exxons, 3 Chevrons, or 10 BPs.
| This is a tired excuse that gets the motivations of short
| sellers backward. They do not short a company and then find
| damaging information, they find damaging information and
| then short the company. None of that excuses Tesla's
| complete disregard for human life, particularly here by not
| having the advanced driver monitoring capabilities that
| their competitors have and instead relying on easily
| bypassed measures like steering wheel torque that will
| clearly lead to predictable abuse. Elon Musk has never
| condemned the social media stunts where people recklessly
| test self driving by getting out of the driver's seat, and
| even commented on the porn video without condemning the
| behavior it encourages.
| Geee wrote:
| Did you see that video? It's clearly a propaganda video
| with various obvious lies, biases and cherry-picking. It
| contains false statements like "Elon musk is not an
| engineer, he is a scam artist". It's very clearly
| produced by oil industry or someone who benefits from
| delaying electric cars. It's professionally made to have
| an emotional effect. It's very similar in style to all
| those anti-vax propaganda videos.
| dang wrote:
| " _Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and
| generic tangents._ "
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Geee wrote:
| I don't agree. It's clearly a propaganda video and I just
| wanted to point it out.
| dang wrote:
| It's fine to point things out, but on HN please do so in
| a way that is (a) informative and (b) avoids inflammatory
| rhetoric.
|
| Even assuming you have a good underlying point, the
| comment you posted was internet flamebait as well as
| pointing way off topic. We're trying to avoid that kind
| of thing here, not just because it's below the desired
| quality threshold but more importantly because it evokes
| worse from others. If you think of the value of a comment
| as the expected value of the subthread it will lead to,
| this may make more sense.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&
| sor...
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| FYI the title of this post is misleading as it leaves out
| the key part of the original title, can we get it set to
| the actual article's?
| dang wrote:
| I've imported the title from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26854994 since it's
| a bit more neutral.
| Balgair wrote:
| Aside:
|
| >Musk says that autopilot is safer than human driven miles
|
| Is there a breakdown for income with road safety? The best I
| could find is that poorer _countries_ have higher road deaths
| / km, but I couldn't find any data on road safety within a
| country.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| Here's a report linking vehicle age to accident outcome and
| showing a correlation, I would assume higher incomes are
| associated with newer vehicles. I only took a quick look so
| not sure if they compare likelihood of an accident with
| vehicle age. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Vi
| ewPublication/...
| Ecstatify wrote:
| The CEO of Waymo just resigned so I doubt they're way ahead.
| davidcbc wrote:
| Tesla is only ahead on body count.
| gumby wrote:
| Rapture.
| faitswulff wrote:
| I found this notable as well:
|
| > Authorities said they used 32,000 gallons of water over four
| hours to extinguish the flames because the vehicle's batteries
| kept reigniting. At one point, Herman said, deputies had to
| call Tesla to ask them how to put out the fire in the battery.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Some "authorities" they are. Took me about 5 seconds to find
| the answer. Not one person thought to Google it?
| robin_reala wrote:
| Maybe in a situation like that, going by the first search
| engine result isn't the best idea?
| mikestew wrote:
| I would expect professionals to have this information in
| cache. I've been driving a production BEV for ten years,
| this isn't exactly new-fangled.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Better than going with the first result out of your head
| (pour water on it) which is what they did.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| Which turns out to be the right answer.
| jvolkman wrote:
| The first result for my query says "copious amounts of
| water are recommended as the best means to extinguish a
| high voltage vehicle fire." What did you find?
| fallingknife wrote:
| https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=how+
| to+...
| jvolkman wrote:
| I'm guessing those strategies work well for phones but
| maybe not cars which are absolutely enormous amounts of
| battery and possibly wrapped around a tree at the time of
| the fire.
|
| Here's what FEMA has to say (https://www.usfa.fema.gov/tr
| aining/coffee_break/061819.html)
|
| Secure a large, continuous and sustainable water supply
| -- one or more fire hydrants or multiple water tenders.
| Use a large volume of water such as master stream, 2
| 1/2-inch or multiple 1 3/4-inch fire lines to suppress
| and cool the fire and the battery.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Right. A fire extinguisher is a "first aid" response to a
| fire. The kind of advice that's relevant to fire
| extinguisher usage is predicated on a small fire; general
| advice is that any fire larger than a small trash can is
| too big to fight with an extinguisher.
|
| The fire department plays from a different rule book.
| maxerickson wrote:
| So it seems pretty possible that they followed the standard
| procedure and it didn't work?
| fallingknife wrote:
| A lithium battery fire is considered a class B fire, so
| pouring water on it is not standard procedure. They
| should have known that in the first place, but if they
| had googled it, they would have found out very quickly
| anyway.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Tesla recommends spraying the battery with copious
| amounts of water. Read all about it:
|
| https://www.tesla.com/firstresponders
|
| Lithium-ion is different than lithium...
|
| (my other comment is a question because I haven't seen
| any information about what procedures they did follow)
| fallingknife wrote:
| My point it is
|
| 1. firefighters should know this already
|
| 2. if they didn't they could have googled it like you
| just did instead of having to wait around to get in touch
| with someone from Tesla
| maxerickson wrote:
| Yes, my point is that a possible explanation for using
| 32,000 gallons and calling Tesla is that spraying 3,000
| gallons on the battery did not successfully extinguish
| it.
| exporectomy wrote:
| Sounds like they did already know this and that's why
| they did it. If they googled it, they might have got the
| wrong answer like you did. So your criticisms aren't
| valid.
| tzs wrote:
| What you are overlooking is that the correct procedure as
| documented by Tesla, which is what the firefighters had
| been doing for four hours, _did_ _not_ _stop_ _the_
| _fire_.
| detaro wrote:
| Lithium-Ion batteries are class C fires: https://www.usfa
| .fema.gov/training/coffee_break/061819.html
|
| Water is used on electric car fires, because you need to
| cool the thing down and water is the best for that.
| fallingknife wrote:
| I'm seeing class B:
| https://resources.impactfireservices.com/how-do-you-put-
| out-...
|
| And class D: https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/
| safety_concerns_...
|
| Looks like B for batteries and D for lithium metal
| Erik816 wrote:
| Fire departments are going to need to learn how to put out
| battery fires and have the relevant equipment available. If
| they are in the profession of putting out fires, at some
| point it's on them to know how to not waste 32,000 gallons of
| water as these vehicles become more common.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| "Use lots of water" is actually the best practice for
| extinguishing these kinds of fires.
|
| First of all, there are actually parts of the car that are
| on fire (plastics, fabrics, etc.) and may spread fire to
| the surrounding environment. You need to extinguish those.
|
| Secondly, the battery system is not "on fire" in the
| classical sense. It's undergoing a self-sustaining thermal
| runaway. You pour as much water as you can on it to remove
| heat and break the chain reaction.
| rightbyte wrote:
| I had a safety course and we were supposed to pour salt
| on the batteries. The extinguisher tubes were yellow
| instead of red.
| buran77 wrote:
| > You pour as much water as you can on it to remove heat
| and break the chain reaction
|
| ...For long enough to remove the immediate danger of the
| fire to the surrounding people. Such a damaged fully
| charged battery will probably undergo thermal runaway and
| reignite repeatedly as soon as it stops being cooled. The
| best bet is to just keep the fire under control and not
| let it expand while it burns itself out.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| How do you put them out?
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| It's not water that puts it out, but low temperature to
| stop thermal runaway like the FAA advocates for Li-ion
| battery fires. <0 C salt water would be best.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Maybe fire departments will need to start dispatching
| liquid nitrogen tankers to Tesla fires now.
| foepys wrote:
| German cities are in the middle of equipping all fire
| departments with containers that they can flood with
| water to submerge EVs in. The idea is to let the EV burn,
| cool it with water, and then tow it under supervision of
| a fire truck to a fire station to put the EV into water
| for 1-2 days. Compared to ICE vehicles it's very
| complicated and binding a fire truck over a span of
| multiple hours instead of 1 or 2.
| Tomte wrote:
| Just today: https://www.golem.de/news/bmw-i3-qualmendes-
| buergermeister-e...
|
| In March: https://efahrer.chip.de/news/warum-die-
| feuerwehr-diesen-bmw-...
|
| Recommendation to firefighters (in German): https://publi
| kationen.dguv.de/widgets/pdf/download/article/3...
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| From their own Manuel: FIREFIGHTING USE WATER TO FIGHT A
| HIGH VOLTAGE BATTERY FIRE. If the battery catches fire,
| is exposed to high heat, or is generating heat or gases,
| use large amounts of water to cool the battery. It can
| take approximately 3,000 gallons (11,356 liters) of
| water, applied directly to the battery, to fully
| extinguish and cool down a battery fire; always establish
| or request an additional water supply. If water is not
| immediately available, use dry chemicals, CO2, foam, or
| another typical fire-extinguishing agent to fight the
| fire until water is available. Apply water directly to
| the battery. If safety permits, lift or tilt the vehicle
| for more direct access to the battery. Apply water inside
| the battery ONLY if a natural opening (such as a vent or
| opening from a collision) already exists. Do not open the
| battery for the purpose of cooling it. Extinguish small
| fires that do not involve the high voltage battery using
| typical vehicle firefighting procedures. During overhaul,
| do not make contact with any high voltage components.
| Always use insulated tools for overhaul. Heat and flames
| can compromise airbag inflators, stored gas inflation
| cylinders, gas struts, and other components which can
| result in an unexpected explosion. Perform an adequate
| knock down before entering a hot zone. Battery fires can
| take up to 24 hours to extinguish. Consider allowing the
| battery to burn while protecting exposures. After all
| fire and smoke has visibly subsided, a thermal imaging
| camera can be used to actively measure the temperature of
| the high voltage battery and monitor the trend of heating
| or cooling. There must not be fire, smoke, or heating
| present in the high voltage battery for at least one hour
| before the vehicle can be released to second responders
| (such as law enforcement, vehicle transporters, etc.).
| The battery must be completely cooled before releasing
| the vehicle to second responders or otherwise leaving the
| incident. Always advise second responders that there is a
| risk of battery re-ignition. Second responders may choose
| to drain excess water out of the vehicle by tilting or
| repositioning it. This operation can assist in mitigating
| possible re-ignition. Due to potential re-ignition, a
| Model S that has been involved in a submersion, fire, or
| a collision that has compromised the high voltage battery
| should be stored in an open area at least 50 ft (15 m)
| from any exposure. Warning: When fire is involved,
| consider the entire vehicle energized. Always wear full
| PPE, including a SCBA.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Water, in general, isn't specific enough. Hot water
| definitely won't help. It's low temperature, high thermal
| capacity / high latent heat of vaporization
| extinguishants that are best. The FAA has a whole
| protocol and training materials on how to put out Li-ion
| fires.
| Erik816 wrote:
| I have no idea. I'm also not a firefighter. As electric
| cars become more common, we'll need to have a solution
| that is not "spend 4 hours trying and then call the
| manufacturer."
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Li-ion NMC and similar battery chemistries shouldn't be
| used in safety-critical applications or near human
| occupancy.
| guram11 wrote:
| Elon said he wanted to put rockets on them in the
| future... I wonder how many more hours we need to put out
| such fire hazard?
| SEJeff wrote:
| He said cold gas thrusters aka compressed air. Not
| rockets exactly.
| [deleted]
| ortusdux wrote:
| Tesla has a relatively comprehensive set of first
| responder guides on their website. They are all PDFs,
| which might not help people in the field, but they seem
| like a good thing to print out and throw in to a binder
| in every truck. Honestly, if I was tesla I would print,
| bind, and ship these to every fire dept in the country.
|
| https://www.tesla.com/firstresponders
| input_sh wrote:
| I mean the manual pretty much instructs to do exactly as
| it was done here:
|
| > USE WATER TO FIGHT A HIGH VOLTAGE BATTERY FIRE. If the
| battery catches fire, is exposed to high heat, or is
| generating heat or gases, use large amounts of water to
| cool the battery. It can take approximately 3,000 gallons
| (11,356 liters) of water, applied directly to the
| battery, to fully extinguish and cool down a battery
| fire; always establish or request an additional water
| supply. If water is not immediately available, use dry
| chemicals, CO2, foam, or another typical fire-
| extinguishing agent to fight the fire until water is
| available.
|
| > Battery fires can take up to 24 hours to extinguish.
| Consider allowing the battery to burn while protecting
| exposures.
| sorokod wrote:
| Alternatively, perhaps this troublesome aspect of their
| design should be changed _before_ they become more common?
| ajross wrote:
| What do you propose? Damaged batteries short and burn,
| it's the way it works. The energy needs to go somewhere.
| Damaged fuel tanks leak fuel much (MUCH) faster and burn
| much hotter and more dangerously. Do you demand that that
| be fixed before we allow ICE engines to become more
| common?
|
| This whole "we couldn't put out the fire" nonsense is
| click bait. Battery fires burn _longer_ , and that's
| important to know and requires different techniques to
| manage. But objectively they are safer than gas fires.
| Period. There is no serious debate on that point.
| sorokod wrote:
| I propose that Tesla may need to rethink "the way it
| works" rather then chalk it up to the price of doing
| business.
| ajross wrote:
| You think Tesla needs to rethink the fact that...
| batteries store a lot of energy? I really think you're
| missing the point.
|
| Going full-on didactic on you: Vehicles have huge energy
| requirements to move them around. To meet those
| requirement they need to store energy on-board in some
| manner. This creates known failure modes where damage to
| the vehicle releases that energy in an uncontrolled way.
| That's bad. But it's completely unavoidable given the
| constraints of the system.
|
| You seem to want Tesla to do the impossible and invent
| batteries that don't burn. Which seems ridiculous, given
| e.g. Ford's nearly-century-long failure to invent
| gasoline that doesn't burn.
|
| The question you _should_ be asking is "Are battery
| fires safer than gasoline fires?". And... duh. Yes, they
| are. And it's not even close.
| sorokod wrote:
| Can you share the data that shows that car battery fires
| are "safer" then car petrol tank fires?
| ajross wrote:
| No no no, logic works the other way around: you are the
| one claiming that this is a new and more dangerous
| technology. If you want to do that, you are the one who
| needs to bring evidence.
|
| I'm simply arguing from first principles: car batteries
| store less energy than fuel tanks and release that energy
| slower and over a longer period of time in a fire. Ergo,
| they are safer for pretty obvious reasons.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Most car fires do not actually involve the entire
| gasoline tank catching alight; as the gas tank is well-
| protected and not particularly near sources of ignition.
| An engine bay fire is much more common.
|
| If gasoline is spilled, foam works well to extinguish it
| and keep it from igniting.
|
| Once a gasoline fire is out and cool, it is going to stay
| that way,
|
| Lithium-ion battery fires are self-sustaining thermal
| runaways. You cannot put out such a battery fire by
| smothering it; it does not need oxygen from the air. All
| you can do is try to keep it cool by running water on it.
|
| Even after such a fire seems cool, it can reignite
| unexpectedly.
|
| The actual gross volume of energy is not necessarily what
| makes fighting a fire dangerous or not; it's the
| unpredictability. Firefighters may be more worried about
| compressed gas-strut explosions (from hatches, hoods etc)
| than they are about the gas tank exploding.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > You think Tesla needs to rethink the fact that...
| batteries store a lot of energy?
|
| Just as the environmental externalities of fossil fuels
| need to be internalized, so do the public safety
| externalities of the kinds of batteries in use, here. If
| its going to be a "price of doing business", the right
| parties ought to pay the price.
|
| Then, whether or not it is sensible to mitigate in
| manufacturing will be handled by the properly-aligned
| incentives.
| ajross wrote:
| But what are the externalities?! You and the upthread
| poster aren't elucidating any. All we have at hand is the
| linked article, which is... a fire. Batteries burn, in a
| safer and more controlled way than gasoline.
|
| How is that a bad thing? What are you asking for battery
| or car manufacturers to do that they aren't already doing
| simply by replacing existing more-dangerous technology?
| ziml77 wrote:
| Where are you getting this bit about batteries being
| safer from? So far you haven't supported this claim in
| any way.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| The water wasn't wasted. It was used to put out the fire.
|
| We're talking about $50 worth of water. Negligible compared
| to the overall costs.
| barrkel wrote:
| I think it's closer to $250 judging by
| https://www.midlandtexas.gov/505/Current-Water-and-Sewer-
| Rat... (the first set of prices for water in Texas I
| could find, presumably representative of scarcity etc.)
|
| That assumes household consumption. It could be as high
| $420 if the highest marginal rate applies.
|
| Still fairly inconsequential overall.
| megablast wrote:
| Yet another absolutely deadly device we are introducing to
| our neighbourhoods because people hate public transport so
| much. This is insane.
| notwedtm wrote:
| LOL, what? Just wait until you find out about gasoline.
| fullshark wrote:
| Well how do you put out a battery fire? What new materials
| does every single fire station in America need to acquire?
| What new skills/training do local firefighters need? Who's
| going to pay for all this?
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Ice water, or something even colder. Water itself isn't
| what puts out a Li-ion fire, it's ending thermal runaway.
|
| The people will pay for it because it's necessary and
| times have changed.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Why would 0c water be better in a meaningful way compared
| to 25c? Most cooling is from the steam phase change,
| right?
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Maybe because it's 25C cooler than 25C water. Takes more
| energy to convert to steam. I guess.
| rightbyte wrote:
| My point is:
|
| Water 1c change is 4184 J/kg (1 kcal)
|
| Water to steam 2260 kJ/kg.
|
| So 25c cooler is 25 * 4.184 kJ extra, which is:
|
| 25 * 4184 / (2260k + 75 * 4184) = 104600 / 2573800 => 4%
| more energy than 25c to steam.
|
| And then you need a refrigerator to cool tons of water,
| instead of just carrying more water.
| mrep wrote:
| No wonder my steam shower is the most power hungry
| appliance in my place at 10 KW.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Or they will attempt to pass on the cost to EV
| manufacturers and/or owners.
| ericmay wrote:
| How novel. I wonder when they'll pass on the cost of
| smog, climate change, emissions, etc to ICE owners ;)
| sofixa wrote:
| They really should
| gregoriol wrote:
| Maybe they can learn some techniques, but also car
| manufacturers must make the cars more ready for those kind
| of situations. It won't be the first time more "dangerous"
| vehicules are created, and technical solutions to be found
| (think of the liquefied petroleum gas design which had to
| have a safety valve).
| informatimago wrote:
| I would design the batteries element with little robotic
| legs, so that when a thermal runaway occurs, they would
| disassemble and run away dispersing from the hot
| elements, to cool down each individually. </me
| mode="overengineering">
| megablast wrote:
| Yes, perhaps run into a house or school. Or orphanage.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Brings a whole new meaning to thermal _runaway_
| tsomctl wrote:
| > The company dissolved its press office and doesn't usually
| respond to media inquiries, however.
|
| Well, that's one way to solve the problem.
| dm319 wrote:
| When automation does a 95% job, sometimes it isn't worthwhile
| using it because of the overrides required for the extra 5%. If
| you require full concentration while using driving assist, it
| might actually be easier to just drive the car regularly or
| you'll struggle to maintain that ability to intervene immediately
| when required.
| slver wrote:
| When you deliberately rig your car so the driver seat can be
| empty, yeah those extra 5% suddenly become a very tall
| mountain.
|
| Sane people can work with the software so they complement each
| other. People make mistakes, the software makes mistakes. Both
| together make fewer mistakes.
|
| If you start watching shows or playing games on your phone, or
| sleeping, that won't happen.
| dm319 wrote:
| Let's say your car has a problem with a slip road in a
| particular bit of road you are about to hit in about 30 mins.
| If on autopilot, it will start to take the slip road, but
| confuse the hard shoulder with a lane, crashing into the
| barrier. If you have spent the last 30 minutes trying to stay
| awake because you have practically no input into the driving,
| you might not be alert enough to avert the accident. If
| you've been driving, not only would you be alert enough, but
| you also wouldn't have been in that situation.
| mmmmmk wrote:
| I still wonder why Tesla doesn't use lithium ferrophosphate or
| another type of battery that won't catch fire. Shouldn't the
| safety risk of the batteries they use outweigh the slight
| increase in energy density?
| jtchang wrote:
| Is not using water to fight a lithium fire not a good idea?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| What is though? My first thought was halon gas but I think you
| still have outrageously hot temperatures in the cells that will
| reignite after the halon has dissipated.
| javajosh wrote:
| Put a large bell jar over the car and then pump out all the
| air? Or maybe pump liquid silicone into the battery
| compartment? (The theory there is you need a flame-retardant
| 'foam' at very high temp but you could submerge the battery
| compartment in...something like silicone, to isolate it from
| atmosphere; there would be heat as the batteries discharge,
| but no combustion.
| blamazon wrote:
| When it comes to extinguishing fire, you play the cards you
| have to mitigate the situation. If what you have is a
| residential fire hydrant system that can supply 36,000 gallons,
| you use water in overwhelming force. As evidenced by the
| article, it will not quell the reaction but it will dampen the
| overall thermal situation enough to permit humans to be
| extracted safely.
|
| Presumably it would have been better to dump a few thousand
| pounds of sand on it but there are few sand hydrants in USA
| residential neighborhoods.
| hallway_monitor wrote:
| Thinking about a sand hydrant is the most entertaining thing
| I've done all day!
| resonantjacket5 wrote:
| Lithium ion battery is not the same a lithium fire by itself.
| karmicthreat wrote:
| You need to cool the battery enough though. So you need water
| to carry away enough heat.
| dijit wrote:
| Article says it's unconfirmed whether the car was in auto-drive.
| Part of me (without any knowledge) thinks someone was showing off
| the auto-drive and turned it off accidentally. But more details
| will come out I hope.
|
| One thing in particular sticks out as concerning: the fire
| service did not know how to deal with the fire.
|
| That's not something specific to Tesla, Tesla does not make all
| battery powered cars, the fire service should know how to
| suppress electrical fires.
| Nacdor wrote:
| > "[Investigators] are 100-percent certain that no one was in
| the driver seat driving that vehicle at the time of impact,"
| Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman said. "They are
| positive."
|
| This would only be possible if they were using the autopilot
| feature.
|
| > the fire service did not know how to deal with the fire.
|
| Tesla's advice is "let it burn":
|
| > Tesla's guidance suggests it's better to let the fire burn
| out than continuing to try to put it out.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > This would only be possible if they were using the
| autopilot feature.
|
| I thought autopilot had a safety feature to prevent no-driver
| operation, though there is a "SmartSummon" feature intended
| for parking lots which does not (but requires continuous
| press of a fob button.) So, there's no way this _should_ be
| possible, absent a major malfunction to even allow self-
| driving in the reported condition.
| [deleted]
| ec109685 wrote:
| Auto pilot immediately switches off if it doesn't sense
| pressure in the seat, which would result it tons of beeping and
| the car slowing down and moving to side of road.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| I once unhooked my belt to take off my jacket while on
| autopilot. It immediately started screaming at me, disabled
| autopilot and started slowing down gradually.
|
| I've also heard it uses the seat sensor to do the same. Unless
| they've found a way to bypass multiple safety features, then
| the car wasn't in autopilot.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Funny how it turned a disengaged safety belt (something
| endangering the occupant) into something endangering people
| not in that particular vehicle.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean. I was dangerous to myself, yes.
| So then the car pulled over and started to gradually stop
| on the shoulder. And then it would not let me re-enable the
| autopilot because I couldn't be trusted.
|
| Not sure where endangering other people comes in. If there
| was someone standing on the shoulder of the highway it
| would avoid them obviously.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Cars on the side of the road, or slowing down for no
| apparent reason, are a hazard to other traffic.
| zaroth wrote:
| It stops applying power to the wheels automatically if
| you unbuckle or lift yourself off the seat, once
| AutoPilot goes into the "Take over immediately" state.
|
| Of course the human who is actually driving can re-apply
| power at any time.
|
| The car will not pull over unless you leave it in the
| full-on alarm state for a significant amount of time. The
| alarm is pretty loud. It's not a state a driver would
| leave the car in unless they were incapacitated or doing
| it intentionally.
| powderpig wrote:
| Lithium-ion fires are hard to extinguish, especially with
| thermal runaways. There are flame retardant products that can
| extinguish lithium-ion fires, Class D extinguishers can be
| used.
|
| I would guess the fire crews that responded were not equipped
| with this type of extinguisher.
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