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Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving linked to hundreds of crashes, dozens of deaths
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
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That's kind of a tough article to trust if I'm being honest. It may in fact be true, but it's an opinion piece.
I find it a little weird to look only within sales for the year and also not to discuss the forms of autopilot or car use cases.
For example, are we talking about highway only driving, lane keeping assist, end to end residential urban, rural unmarked roads? Some of these are harder problems than others. How about total mileage as well? I'm not sure what the range is on a Nissan leaf, but I think comparing it to a Taycan or mach e seems disingenuous.
All that being said, yeah Tesla has a lot of deaths comparatively, but still way less than regular human drivers. I worry that a truly autonomous experience will not be available until and unless a manufacturer like Tesla pushes the limits on training data and also the fed responds by making better laws. Considering Elon douchiness, I'm also kinda happy Tesla is doing that and catching flak, but paving the way for more established manufacturers.
We were early adopters of Tesla, and trust me the cars are made cheap and the "autopilot" drives like shit even now, but it's amazing the progress that has been made in the last 6 years.
You're happy that a racist, misogynist billionaire whose companies have some of the worst employee safety data in the industries he's involved in is pushing these cars onto public roads? Musk doesn't care about our safety. Like everything else, he lies about it to make money.
We have no clue if Tesla's are safer than humans drivers in any other car. Tesla publishes those charts, but the data is no where to be found.
Musk lies to make money. You can't trust anything Tesla publishes.
I don't want Tesla testing their shit on the public roads and putting me at risk so that Musk can make more money. I don't opt in to be one of his beta testers.
We get it, you hate Elon Musk. That's a fine position to take.
You are beta testing for anyone and everyone who is doing anything on the road. You can say "look at this lending tree report" and see accident rates, or look at the article you posted, and compare to human drivers to know which is safer. Or you can say it's an unknowable lie in which case why are we citing anything besides you saying I hate Musk? Again valid.
He's making money regardless, so yeah I'm glad that spaceX lands reusable boosters and Tesla pushes the limits of what is possible with an EV so at least we get something back. Considering how many other people hate the shit out of Tesla, I'm sure every time someone hits a raccoon in a Tesla we will get to read about it.
It's not just hatred for Musk. Yes, he is a racist that had a place in his factory called "the plantation" for black workers. He swatted the wife and children of a whistleblower. There is so much shit he does, but that isn't what makes Teslas dangerous.
Teslas are dangerous because he creates a culture that despises safety engineering practices. When someone has sex on autopilot and endangers everyone on the road around them, does Musk rebuke them? No, he makes a joke. Now, good followers think that the silly little warning that pops up every time probably doesn't mean much. If a worker says that something probably needs more testing before release, do you think he pauses to consider the safety implications? I can guarantee he doesn't care.
So, you get someone who runs into a fireman on the road and kills them because they were using autopilot while distracted. Or you back over a motorcycle driver and kill them, or plow into a firetruck and kill some more people.
Musk and sycophants like you that think it's okay to have a cavalier attitude about safety because people just have to be sacrificed for technology. You are menaces. We don't have to sacrifice passengers to make airlines safer. We have proper testing and systems in place to integrate better technology at very little risk. In the same way, we don't have to sacrifice motorcycle drivers, first responders, other drivers or pedestrians just because you think your technology is worth it. Other car manufacturers have implemented those safety test systems. Tesla just doesn't want to spend the money so Musk can get his payout.
You also forgot to mention that the damned things are rolling death traps since the doors arent properly mechanical. Why the fuck should I trust something that requires power to work in an emergency. Any number of things can knock out power and disable the doors if I back my 20+ year old jeep into a fucken river I could still open the door the seals are all shot as well so reduced pressure issues.
There is no obligation to sacrifice anybody. This is a question of risk vs law vs driver requirement which has got to be sorted out. Sure, point out that musk is shit and his factories are shit, it's true. He's also a liar. All true. What I take issue with is saying that the cars are 4 wheeled death machines killing everyone in their path. That is not true. It is also not true that other companies are solving the same problem without risk. They are solving a different problem of highly mapped cities and solutions for specific scenarios.
It's a people problem and drivers (people) are irresponsible. I bet lift kits have killed more people than Tesla has had autopilot accidents by people not adjusting headlights. People are gonna fuck up. It has to happen, then laws have to be implemented and revised. There's no hop skip and jump that solves autopilot on a closed course and has zero incident in practice. Conditions on the whole are just too varied. Of course, machine learning is my job so maybe I'm just a pessimist in this regard.
I never said that. It isn't black or white. I said musk creates a culture that despises safety engineering. Other companies like Volvo embrace it. Different companies embrace it to different degrees. As a result, you have wildly different fatality rates. Teslas happen to be the worst (although, like you said, it's impossible to get good data that accounts for all the factors).
Yes, it is a people problem, but it is also a systems problem. Volvo has aimed for zero fatalities in their cars. They engineer for problematic people. They went 16 years without a fatality in the UK in one of their models. Tesla simply doesn't care about problematic people. In fact, problematic people may even get a boost from a Musk re-tweet.
I agree, zero incidents may be impossible and people are problematic. But attitudes, practices, cultures and systems can either amplify those problems or dampen their effects. Musk and Tesla amplify the negative effects. It doesn't have to be that way.
On all of that we can absolutely agree.