The May crash occurred when a tractor trailer drove across a divided highway, where a Tesla in autopilot mode was driving. The Model S passed under the tractor trailer, and the bottom of the trailer hit the Tesla vehicle’s windshield.
“Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied,” Tesla wrote.
This is tragic, but you have to maintain control of your car. Perhaps it happened so quickly that the driver wouldn’t have been able to avoid it either.
Typo in headline.
Very sad, but this will be interesting. The driver should have, and may have been, aware of surrounding traffic conditions. Tesla stated that the driver did not notice the trailer in the bright sunlight. I wonder if this would have been avoided had the driver been in full control.
It makes me think of when I borrowed my parent’s Subaru Forester with adaptive cruise control. As great as that feature was, it would not work in when the sun was low and directly in front of the cameras. It simply turned off in those conditions. I wonder if Tesla will have to take this type of approach when it’s sensors and cameras cannot function properly. Seems reasonable.
The problem with automation is that it can work for a long time until it does not. The human user becomes too conditioned and is un-prepared to take back control when the system fails. This is well known in flight automation. This is why pilots have to go back to flight simulators every so often to maintain their skills.
Like our air force and space program, Tesla will learn from this and improve.
Had to be a “first one” sooner or later.
We don’t know if the automation failed in this case, that is why an investigation is taking place. It could have been the conditions of the accident, that it might have been unavoidable.
I don’t think there’s any implied culpability here—except whatever the media and Wall Street (as well as its “investors”) may be able to churn up for their own purposes.
“Investigation” is simply what the NHTSA routinely does in such circumstances. And, of course, Tesla would naturally want to learn whatever it can to correct, evaluate, and/or improve its system.
Tesla already said that the car did not apply the brakes at all. See their press release.
perhaps but that isn’t what happened here. they imply it couldn’t see the tractor due to its color and lack of contrast.
I didn’t mean for my comment to imply that the same thing happened here. It was meant more as an example that there are conditions that today’s cameras and sensors fail to see everything. In this case Tesla will have to see why the cars system could not see the truck and determine if they can improve the performance and safety in situations like this one or if they need a failsafe that turns the autopilot should be disabled in similar conditions. It will be interesting to see how the investigation turns out. It could end up that nothing could have been done if the driver couldn’t see the truck either.