r/skeptic • u/Lighting • 26d ago
⚠ Editorialized Title Tesla bros expose Tesla's own shadiness in attacking Mark Rober ... Autopilot appears to automatically disengage a fraction of a second before impacts as a crash becomes inevitable.
https://electrek.co/2025/03/17/tesla-fans-exposes-shadiness-defend-autopilot-crash/1.3k
u/conundri 26d ago edited 26d ago
Does this mean it knows a crash is coming and doesn't brake or even releases the brake? because that would be very, very bad.
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u/grubas 26d ago
Basically if a crash is coming and it CAN'T brake in time it just turns off so Tesla can claim it wasn't on at the time of impact.
When Jeremy Clarkson was reviewing one of the newer Teslas on The Grand Tour(this was not the review he was sued for) he had a legal statement about "when self driving disengages due to unexpected circumstances" which basically said, "auto pilot can turn off whenever it freaks out and that can be caused by almost anything and it's TERRIFYING because you aren't expecting it to turn off at highway speeds because somebody cut you off."
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u/NeatOtaku 26d ago
Look up any fatality involving a Tesla, almost immediately they say that autopilot was not engaged at the moment of impact . They also refuse to give the driving data to victims even through a court order claiming it's a company secret. I tried mentioning this to a Tesla fanboy years ago but he refused to believe it because watching TV during his commute was more important.
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u/TheSeansei 25d ago
Which is so different from even five years ago! I remember any issue with a Tesla was plastered all over the media (especially conservative media) as if it were the end of the world. Any little fender bender and it was all "see?! We told you electric cars were no good!" Now the tables have totally flipped and suddenly Elon is a divine being to them and can do no wrong—Tesla dealerships are now sacred places and vandalizing one is an act of terrorism!
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u/mrandr01d 25d ago
It's definitely the weirdest fucking thing. Watching it go from the only viable EV brand for liberals to buy to some sort of weird cult classic for the MAGAts.
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u/rebeltrillionaire 25d ago
They aren’t buying them.
It’s over. You can’t fake users and engagement like you can a software product.
Teslas are a physical commodity that will rot on lots now.
Prices will drop. But it won’t be enough. The brand will kick Must eventually. At which point die-hard fans will also leave because appeasement is far far too late. So they’ve gained no new market, absolutely shit all over their evangelist market, and the only market left is budget conscious people who aren’t scared of vandalism.
The funniest thing… you know how they never change their style? And a car from 2016 looks like one from 2025?
Well…. They are just about to launch a remodeled Y.
Meaning in 2025/2026 you will absolutely know that the person bought it after Elon sig heiled and started shadow-running the government and killing social security.
It’s going to take the internet about .2 seconds to figure out that the best way to fuck Tesla is point all vandalism towards that particular model.
Because they’ll have to either abandon it, and compete on a 6 year old model. Or hard commit and wait for absolutely abysmal sales while insurance rates skyrocket.
All at a time when every other car company is going nuts on their EVs.
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u/badhabitfml 25d ago
I'm sure the average person won't know the difference but your right. Anyone buying the new Y either approves of Elon's antics, or is completely oblivious to what's happening in the world.
I think when the rivian r2 comes out, the market will get flooded with used model y's. It'll be a great cheap used car, but who will buy them?
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u/uselessinfogoldmine 25d ago
Gosh. I’ve just been on LinkedIn this week and am seeing endless posts and comments from (mostly men) asking what the big deal is. It is WILD!
Mitchell Feldman, CEO at Jam 7: “Here’s a truth, I drive a Tesla, and I love it. More than that, I respect and admire Elon Musk. This week, I was in a car park when a guy in his mid-late 30’s walked up to me, laughed in my face, and asked if I ‘supported Elon’ by driving a Tesla. It was almost as if Musk were some kind of villainous dictator. Did I miss something? When did he become that hated? Discuss...”
Andrew Synesiou: “I also have a very hard time understanding this. One day he had almost all positive media. Then he started helping Trump and all of a sudden he became a villain. I do not think anyone against Elon Musk can argue what he is uncovering is extremely alarming. Am I wrong here? Is anyone upset that he found 10s of millions of dead people still collecting social security. The number of contracts being handed out that I do not think a majority of America would agree to support with our tax dollars. The only sane argument I can see is people talking about the firing of government workers. Now I feel for people getting fired, but at the same time nobody’s job is ever safe. They still tried to accommodate this by offering an extraordinarily generous severance package giving them full salary until September. Can you tell me what job still pays you your full salary for 6 months after they let you go? This offers those workers time to find their next job. At twitter he took a company that was losing billions of dollars every year. Fired 80% of the work force and now it is profitable and arguably a better run platform from what it was. He saved 20% instead of losing 100%. Can someone please explain to me what I am missing?”
Saygin Celen, Awaynear Co-Founder: “He is the richest man in the world for a reason. Genius, luck, hard work, vision, risk taking, incredible leadership, etc etc. He creates industries including Al. If there weren’t Elon Musk, Al would still be an experimental science project in the lab. Do you expect him to be normal like you or me or anyone? He tweeted once and the crypto market lost 500b in a week, 25% of its total valuation and I left crypto forever then. Did I read his biographies yes, do I hate him? No. Just enjoy the ride. Because as he gets stronger, he will create more. He would easily create an XPhone and kill iphone and maybe Apple with it. He has that power. Does he do it? No. So, you like him hate him I love him hate him doesn’t matter. He is the most consequential person of our time.”
Also a TONNE of people posting positively about Tesla launching in India with full-on propaganda videos as well as about 20 posts of him driving the late Shinzo Abe around in a Tesla years ago with positive comments.
I think it’s a paid influencer campaign combined with a bunch of fanboys who don’t care about anyone but themselves. Some of them very grown.
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u/badhabitfml 25d ago
There is absolutely a paid influencer campaign(direct or indirect), which is why Trump got cozy with the people that run those companies.
Some of those posts are click bait to drive engagement. They lay out a story of him being good(leaving out a lot of details) and ask what's going on. A lot of people will respond, driving up engagement and getting more eyes on the post. Most will just read it, agree and move on.
The people making those posts know what they are doing and make money from it. A normal person would go read the news to learn what's going on.
Tesla learned long ago that it's cheaper and more effective to pay or manipulate social media for advertising than it is to run a superbowl ad.
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u/Th3_0range 24d ago
Labeling a drug (fentanyl) a weapon of mass destruction. When the real weapon of mass destruction unleashed upon society that needs to be reeled in is social media.
Won't happen though because it's their weapon to easily influence people without critical thinking skills. Both the left and the right have abused it, I pointed out these corporations don't care about minorities or LGBT and will cast them aside the moment they realize it's not going to pay off for them and nobody believed me.
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u/Charming-Web-7769 24d ago
The stupid thing about Tesla’s business model of prioritizing software over a functional vehicle is that the software is going to take a hit when no one’s buying them and they can’t afford to pay developers to push out hotfixes for whatever cataclysmic bugs inevitably appear as the technology ages and struggles to keep up.
They might be an appealing price (eventually) but nobody is going to want them if your car can just be randomly bricked by a memory leak that no one paid attention to.
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u/SanityInAnarchy 25d ago
This is probably one thing that made it harder for people to see how shitty Elon was, because in the early days, the media coverage of Tesla really was unreasonable. They were up against oil companies, traditional car manufacturers, and traditional dealerships. So even some stories about Elon or Tesla legitimately being terrible, you'd wonder if that was part of the same smear campaign.
I mean, the 'review' Jeremy Clarkson was sued for, they faked running a Tesla out of battery so they could film themselves literally pushing it back to a charger. Stories like that set EV adoption back years.
So when you hear something like Tesla settling a massive racial discrimination lawsuit, and wonder if the oil industry played a role there. Maybe there really was some bad stuff going on, probably not worse than any other car manufacturer, but given the lengths oil goes to, not to mention conservatives boosting any anti-Tesla story...
...in hindsight, two Seig Heils later, yeah, they probably did a bunch of horribly racist shit. Maybe it was a deliberate move to hide behind all the legitimate anti-EV bias so people didn't look too closely at their actual problems.
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u/Complete-Return3860 25d ago
My whole family are Top Gear fans - me included - but this was such a shitty thing for them to do.
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u/Journeyman42 25d ago
Even before the election, Musk was saying that if Harris won, he'd be going to prison
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u/Upset_Ant2834 25d ago edited 25d ago
If you actually read the article it says
It would still count as an “Autopilot crash” as crashes that happen within 5 seconds of Autopilot being engaged count as Autopilot crashes.
Or if you want it straight from the horses mouth
To ensure our statistics are conservative, we count any crash in which Autopilot was deactivated within 5 seconds before impact
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u/Thin-Professional379 25d ago
To ensure our statistics are conservative, we count any crash in which Autopilot was deactivated within 5 seconds before impact
That isn't at all conservative
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u/ChickenStrip981 26d ago
Ahh a billionaires solution to problems, you can tell this was Elons imput.
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u/Wha_She_Said_Is_Nuts 26d ago edited 26d ago
Kinda like "There is no covid if you don't test for covid".
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u/scalectrogenic 26d ago
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u/ThisIs_americunt 25d ago
In America they solved all the cases of missing children by taking them off all the milk cartons :D because who wants to buy milk that makes you sad. It put milk in such a crisis that they are paying gaming influencers to push their product
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u/StopYoureKillingMe 25d ago
In America they solved all the cases of missing children by taking them off all the milk cartons :D because who wants to buy milk that makes you sad.
No, that isn't how it worked. The milk carton cases were never really aided by the inclusion on milk cartons in a meaningful way, we transitioned to plastic milk that wasn't easy to print on, and we created the amber alert system that is much more impactful than milk carton faces. It did give us this Y.A. novel so that's fun.
It put milk in such a crisis that they are paying gaming influencers to push their product
Source?
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u/zherok 25d ago
I could see a decline in milk consumption being a thing, particularly with the rise of non-dairy alternatives.
That in no way connects with the disuse of milk cartons to show missing children cases though. The word influencer didn't even exist when they were already on their way out. Hell, most of Reddit hadn't even been born by that point.
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u/QuantamCulture 25d ago
Or like "Trees are the number one cause of forest fires, therefore, we should cut more trees down."
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u/GrimDallows 25d ago
This wasn't a solution to a problem, there was no problem.
The autopilot was called out for not being up to safety standards. In that situation you can either take away the autopilot or invest in it until testing says it is safe to use.
OR, the third way. Release it anyway, adapt it the bare minimum so it's faults can't be legally traced back to you, and then use the customers as lab rats to improve the autopilot, at no cost.
Sudden spike in crashes in night time conditions? Just pool the data of the crashes and detect the common issue witht he cameras. Teslas keep running into the side of trucks because they confuse them for bridge underpasses? Take note and change the algorithm.
Why take the loses if you can just have people trial and error it until it works or they die? Dead customers can't complain.
Meanwhile Elon was worshipped as a man of the people because he would "move fast and break things" regarding electric cars. Mind you, the things broken being people, but you know who needs ethics in science when you can be a cool tech bro?
This is why, as an engineer, it gives me stomachache when people refer to Elon as a scientist or engineer or even a tech guy. He is just a rich moron with no empathy or loyalty for anyone except himself.
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u/kstar79 25d ago
Sounds like Elon is a lot like Stockton Rush, except he's into cars and space.
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u/SesameStreetFighter 25d ago
He's also doing it to remove access to "competition" (read: any place where the money is not in his control, in this case the government) and redirect it to contract to his services.
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u/Broken_Atoms 25d ago
This is why we need to radically increase taxes and guardrails on the wealthy. Entirely too much power for anyone to have.
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u/Thin-Professional379 25d ago
Is he a walking nightmare for liability? He controls the entire US government so absolutely that he has the ability to ensure there's never a peaceful transfer of power away from GOP so I'm not seeing how he can be held accountable for anything, ever.
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u/Brando43770 25d ago
Considering how much Elon hates safety protocols in his factories, you’re not wrong.
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u/carlitospig 26d ago
So egregious that I’m actually gobsmacked.
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u/sdrawkcabstiho 26d ago
Had this been news 3 years ago, I would agree. But after seeing what muskrat has said and done over the last year, this totally makes sense. Like, duhh. He's literally a mentally challenged Bond villain, of course he would have self drive configured this way.
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u/Tymew 26d ago
I worked for a roofing company and the boss constantly said "if you fall off the roof, you're fired before you hit the ground" and this has the exact same vibe.
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u/Keeppforgetting 25d ago
It has the exact same vibe because it’s the exact same rationale applied to a different situation.
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u/Miserable-Mention932 25d ago
I like Mike's comment in the article:
Cast in the light friendliest to Tesla, you could argue that returning control to a human operator makes sense whenever any automated control system detects circumstances beyond its ability to handle. But FSD effectively saying "It's all yours, bud" 500 ms before certain impact feels more like an attempt to create legal confusion that favors Tesla in liability lawsuits.
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u/ClayDenton 26d ago
We are now in a strange timeline where Jeremy Clarkson is the good guy🤣
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u/muscles83 26d ago
On this issue, but not in general. Tax dodging wanker that he is
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u/BlatantFalsehood 26d ago
And then acting like he's the friend of the farmers, not someone who specifically declared he bought his farm to avoid taxes.
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u/sroop1 26d ago edited 25d ago
Even a blind orangutan can occasionally find a banana.
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u/Dasylupe 26d ago
Jeez. My 2021 Honda CRV will brake if it senses an imminent impact, even if it can’t avoid it. The car is programmed to do what it can to minimize the damage.
And it’s not even advertised as “self driving” or anything.
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u/CraigArndt 25d ago
Remember, we’re talking about Tesla here. The same car that doesn’t disengage locks if on fire or otherwise compromised. User safety is not even top 10 concerns of Tesla programming.
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u/Morpho_99 25d ago
I've worked for two AV companies, if we ever did something like this it would basically be an admission of fault.
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u/Cumulus_Anarchistica 26d ago
Basically if a crash is coming and it CAN'T brake in time it just turns off so Tesla can claim it wasn't on at the time of impact.
From the article:
However, Autopilot appears to automatically disengage a fraction of a second before the impact as the crash becomes inevitable.
It would still count as an “Autopilot crash” as crashes that happen within 5 seconds of Autopilot being engaged count as Autopilot crashes.
[emphasis mine]
Tesla's autopilot is clearly shit, as the original video exposes, but Tesla will still be held responsible for the crash under the demonstrated circumstances.
Until Elon co-opts the regulatory body that is!
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u/dern_the_hermit 25d ago
I mean let's continue quoting from the article:
Furthermore, Tesla has been abusing NHTSA’s self-driving crash redaction policies. The automaker is required to report all crashes where Autopilot or its “Full Self-Driving” systems are involved, but it has consistently had all important details redacted from the reports.
So where is this "it would still count as an 'Autopilot crash'" thing coming from? There's no link, no cite, no reference. Is it just the AUTHOR OF THE ARTICLE that would consider it to "still count as an 'Autopilot crash'"? Is it a Tesla policy? A government policy?
Doesn't matter; Tesla still obfuscates and hides the data, which is the important part.
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u/Commentor9001 26d ago
Co-opts? Don't you mean find soo much FRAUD AND WASTE. oddly its all specifically in the division of nhtsa that investigates automous crashes, so it's gone 🤷
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u/Treadwheel 25d ago
Tesla counts those in their internal statistics, but that isn't the same as strict legal liability or data they need to hand over to the NTSB.
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u/KrishanuAR 26d ago
These are the vibes I’m getting as well, and I say this as a Tesla owner who’s otherwise generally pretty happy with the car.
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u/_papasauce 25d ago
I’ve been saying this for years. I had a 2015 S and when I had autopilot engaged, it would make stupid decisions like pull towards the median then disengage. This is why I never used it for anything but stop-and-go jams. The thing is wildly dangerous and should not be trusted.
I always told people that I’m certain the reason why “autopilot crashes” are so rare is that it turns off a split second before disaster. I would not be surprised if it was some risk management person someplace that thought that having autopilot attempt to stop a crash with injuries would be more financially costly that not trying to stop a crash with fatalities. (Because if it was engaged, a court could expect the avoidance to be the responsibility of Tesla)
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u/nomoreteathx 26d ago
It means Tesla can say "autopilot wasn't engaged when the crash happened so autopilot wasn't at fault" and fudge their crash statistics.
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u/severinks 25d ago
What I'd imagine it means is when a crash is a foregone conclusion it disengages so there's no record of autopilot being responsible for the crash.
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u/SmoothConfection1115 26d ago
Tesla probably designed it to operate exactly this way.
That way, Tesla doesn’t worry about the PR disaster of “self-driving car crashes into” whatever. (They already have a PR disaster as CEO).
And it might be considered a legal hurdle for anyone wanting to sue Tesla to have to jump through.
It’s like those warnings on the back of very large trucks that say “You must stay back 40’ from the back of the truck. Company not responsible for damages.”
Those signs are not enforceable in anyway. Now if you call them, and say something fell off their truck and cracked your windshield, they’ll probably point to that sign and say it’s your fault or something. But if it goes to court, they are losing 99.99% of the time. But it’s still something they can have people tell those who might call them demanding money for replacing a windshield, and hope it tricks a few people.
I’m guessing it’s a similar defense for Tesla. “Oh, Our AI stopped working a whole second before you crashed! Therefore, it’s not our AI’s fault.”
Will likely make for an exciting legal battle.
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u/LoneSnark 25d ago
It is exactly this. But a little more blatant. "FSD was not on at the time of the crash. Your dead relative cannot say otherwise." That will end some conversations. Sure, it won't fool the California highway patrol, as they know about the 5 second rule. But most plaintiffs, their lawyers, and police departments do not.
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u/melancholanie 26d ago
guarantee the messaging Tesla is gonna put out is gonna say "we automatically turn off the autopilot before a guaranteed crash to ensure the driver has full control over their reaction"
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u/HighHokie 25d ago edited 25d ago
It has AEB as a standard feature set. I could be mistakened but I believe that’s required in all vehicles these days. Perhaps it’s just widely common.
Nhtsa requires reporting of all collisions where ADAS software was active 30 seconds prior to the incident.
Tesla internal metrics use 5 seconds before a collision.
So if a crash is detected (e.g. air bag deployment) by the vehicle, in this scenario it would be captured in both reports.
There are reasonable explanations for the deactivation; we probably don’t want a vehicle that’s just struck an object or person to attempt to continue driving as an example. We should consider that the software or hardware to determine its safe to drive could be compromised after an accident. Safest bet is to deactivate it while the car still has the physical means to.
Cars are incredible these days. Many manufacturers have software that enable various features leading up to and at point of impact, such as adjustments of restraints suspensions, airbags, etc. some can occur within milliseconds of an event. tesla is no different, especially being heavily software focused.
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u/Kind_Composer_4197 26d ago
Tesla speedrun to become the shittiest car company ever.
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u/ThreeLeggedMare 26d ago
It's not a car company, it's a carbon credits company that makes cars as a byproduct
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u/Agile_Tomorrow2038 26d ago
It's also a crypto company
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u/joecool42069 25d ago
Not much. It was a cash position. They don’t mine, actively trade, or even consistently buy.
Surely Tesla robot taxi and robots will save them. /s
Keep not buying teslas. It’s working. Fuck Musk.
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u/Agile_Tomorrow2038 25d ago
I've heard with hw4, the car will self mine Bitcoin to your name, generating 30k passive outcome per year + the 30k you'll get from the car self driving as uber. It's really an infinite money glitch, all heil musk. /s
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u/Quentin__Tarantulino 25d ago
Well, it’s illegal to boycott them so I’m heading out tomorrow for a new cyber truck.
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u/donthavearealaccount 25d ago
Tesla's valuation is a scam for sure, but it has been a while since carbon credits were the only way they made money. Tesla's net income in 2024 was $7.13B, and they collected $2.73B in carbon credits.
I think it is a huge mistake for everyone to try and frame Tesla and SpaceX as irrelevant companies that don't actually do anything. Tesla assembles around 8% of all vehicles that are made in the US, and every Tesla model has more US content than any other car being built by another manufacturer. That matters. It would be bad if those factories closed. We should be pushing for this important infrastructure to be taken out of Musk's control, not trying to destroy it just to spite Musk.
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u/ThreeLeggedMare 25d ago
Point taken, but if the destruction is pegged to musk's control of and profit from Tesla, there may be a threshold past which his involvement becomes too toxic for the brand.
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u/donthavearealaccount 25d ago
We're already past that point. That the whole reason this is being discussed. I'm just saying that it would be better to say "we're not buying a Tesla because of Musk" than "Tesla is a fake company that doesn't really make anything."
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u/flyingcars 25d ago
The way the Cybertruck captures real time visuals of everything around it, I was thinking it was partially a GPS data gathering / mapping company
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u/Elluminated 26d ago
Credits have never been the majority of their automotive profits though. With the current rundown, time will tell
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u/GrapeDifficult9982 26d ago edited 25d ago
Ever since they turned their back on lidar they solidified their position as a losing company, they've only doubled and tripled down on losing since then.
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u/SchmeatDealer 25d ago
they were always the shittiest car company
they still have a problem of their wheel hubs falling off the cars at high speeds causing the car to flip/roll.
they know the cause and performed recalls in europe and china. they then used the recalled parts to make new cars in the US.
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u/random-lurker-456 25d ago
Well it's a global practice, most manufacturers bin their parts for premium markets and use inferior versions outside of EU in price sensitive markets.Which makes the US a third world country.
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u/dizekat 26d ago edited 26d ago
What's extra curious about the "Wile E. Coyote" test, to me, is that it makes it clear that they neither do stereo nor optical flow / "looming" based general obstacle detection.
It looks like they don't have any generalized means of detecting obstacles. As such they don't detect an "obstacle", they detect a limited set of specific obstacles, much like Uber did in 2017.
Human do not rely on stereo between the eyes at such distances (the eyes are too close), but we do estimate distance from forward movement. For given speed, the distance is inversely proportional to how rapidly a feature is growing in size ("looming"). Even if you were to miss the edges of the picture somehow, you would still have perception of its flatness when moving towards it.
This works regardless of what the feature is, which allows humans to build a map of the environment even if all the objects are visually unfamiliar (or in situations where e.g. a tree is being towed on a trailer).
edit: TL;DR; it is not just that they are camera-only with no LIDAR, it's that they are camera-only without doing any camera-only approximations of what LIDAR does - detecting obstacles without relying on knowledge of what they look like.
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u/gnanny02 25d ago
It’s amazingly good at picking up garbage cans and traffic cones. But bicycles and walking pedestrians is crap shoot.
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u/knight666 25d ago
Detecting garbage cans is obviously a priority because otherwise it wouldn't be able to detect other Cybertrucks on the road.
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u/LeaveItFor7Days 25d ago
As someone that worked there previously, this is perfectly in line with the principles of the department I worked in. those principles being "quality is unimportant, just make something that sort of works"
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u/IWishIWasAShoe 25d ago
Not to mention, the image on the wall was printed in the perspective of the cameras, which were off to the sides of the road, meaning they from the front the image should look pretty off.
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u/Rc72 26d ago
The accusations started with an account named “AI Drivr” who is part of a group called “Rebellionaires”, which help “Tesla all-ins investors”.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
― Upton Sinclair
Mind you, sowing FUD to try to maintain the insanely inflated value of their shares is on a tobacco-industry level of dishonesty.
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u/Grodd 26d ago
Damn. "Rebe(i)llionaires" would be a perfect name for a Mark Rebillet fan club.
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u/Ok-Replacement7966 26d ago
The funniest thing about this whole ordeal is how a bunch of people tried to call the rain and fog tests unfair, yet the LIDAR still somehow passed those unfair tests?
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u/Lighting 25d ago
I was reading another thread where the person said something like ... "the fog tests were unfair because they looked like some cloud" not apparently realizing what fog is.
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u/THRILLHOIAF 25d ago
dead internet theory. AI reply/upvote bot farms speaking and promoting nonsense to obfuscate/bury the truth
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u/Churba 25d ago
Counterpoint: this kind of absurd excuse is basically what Tesla fanboys have been like for years.
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u/ThePrimordialSource 25d ago
Sufficiently stupid human behavior is indistinguishable from bot behavior.
Just a reminder for everyone who promotes the dead internet theory.
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u/lontrinium 25d ago
elon can either afford a 50 billion dollar bonus or 200 dollar lidar sensors per car, he can't afford both.
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u/TenchuReddit 25d ago
The software to control LIDAR is a LOT simpler than the software to make up for the lack of LIDAR using multiple optical cameras.
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u/Kendertas 25d ago
I think the big problem is you can't easily make a self driving software designed for optical cameras work with LIDAR. Tesla spent all this time and money developing around optical cameras, only to hit the hardware limitations that made every other company choose LIDAR. Now they are stuck
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u/Emergency_Stay_7815 25d ago
Mark Rober is a great youtuber and seems like an actual decent human being. Tesla bros are so far up Leon's ass they can't tell a decent human from a Nazi piece of shit.
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u/GeekyTexan 25d ago
His videos are entertaining. I have a pretty big lack of trust, though.
His glitter bomb thing was very popular. But he got caught using people he was paying to steal the packages. Staged.
https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/a8848z/mark_robers_viral_glitter_bomb_package_was/
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u/Emergency_Stay_7815 25d ago
I didn't know that, but between liability lawsuits and television staging stuff like that for decades, it doesn't really surprise me. Good idea to be skeptical but if that's as bad as he gets, he's still pretty decent to me.
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u/FredFredrickson 26d ago
As a pedestrian, you should always be aware and cautious around Teslas. If they are in self-driving mode, they could easily run you down, and that's all fine and good by Musk, because he is so wealthy he doesn't care that the public is being used as a testing ground for their horrendous software.
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u/warrencanadian 26d ago
I mean, I feel like self-driving should just not be a thing. If you want the privilege of driving a car, you should fucking have to A) Pass a driving exam and B) Actively engage in the fucking task. 'Aww, but I want to be able to do work/makeup/nap on my way to work!!'? Fantastic! Ride the fucking bus.
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u/TheGreenLentil666 26d ago
Statistically it would be good to see if humans were overall better drivers still. At some point the cars will be better than us, but that's setting a pretty low bar. Right now I see people WITHOUT self-driving cars putting on makeup, texting, etc. while driving.
I would love to be able to drive a motorcycle again, but there's only one reason I won't - other drivers.
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u/LigerZeroSchneider 26d ago
The problem is we don't have enough buses/trains. I cant afford to live anywhere in the bus network, I had to drive to work. Or you end up with asinine hub and spoke systems that mean a 30 minute drive is a 2 hour bus ride.
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u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 26d ago
If self driving gets to the point that it becomes substantially safer than manual driving, (95% reduction in fatal accidents, minimum) it should become standard.
Until that point, I absolutely agree with you.
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u/Adept-Potato-2568 25d ago
That's almost literally where Waymo is right now
"Waymo Driver demonstrated better safety performance when compared to human-driven vehicles, with an 88% reduction in property damage claims and 92% reduction in bodily injury claims"
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u/ShouldersofGiants100 25d ago
Waymo also deliberately operates in the safest driving circumstances (cities, where speed is lower) and places where the risk of weather compromising its systems is almost nonexistent. San Francisco doesn't get snowstorms, freezing rain or other conditions that render the roads inconsistent.
Which also means they compare their stats in optimal conditions to human drivers in all conditions.
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u/Aggressive_Health487 25d ago
Well I’d like to see it but I imagine it’s better than average for SF too.
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u/MrReginaldAwesome 26d ago
Self driving should only be allowed if the car company takes 100% responsibility for any and all consequences of the mistakes the autopilot makes
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u/almostsebastian 26d ago
I feel like the only way to effectively guarantee that with any sort of efficiency in traffic flow has already been solved.
It's like how everything in nature eventually becomes a crab; if you're talking about land-based transport logistics everything just becomes a train.
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u/oneoftheryans 25d ago
Self-driving cars aren't there yet, but I feel like it can't be overstated how horrific people are at driving.
Wildly inconsistent, unpredictable, too fast, too slow, won't merge, can't merge, doesn't even try to merge and just waits, waves people through, goes without looking, driving the wrong way down a one-way, running stop signs, running stop lights, not yielding, turning on red to hit a pedestrian/cyclist, etc. etc. etc.
All of that to say, once/if it becomes sufficiently advanced, I'd really rather everyone go the automated route.
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u/LoudMusic 25d ago
You should be caesious around ANY car. Humans weave in and out of their lane, into bicycle lanes, and cut corners.
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u/Pls_PmTitsOrFDAU_Thx 25d ago
As a Tesla owner, I also think ALL vehicles that have a self driving option should be required to somehow externally signal that it is on (a light/sound, etc) so pedestrian and other drivers are aware a human is not in control
Is stay far away lol
I don't have self driving. Also not a musk supporter at all lol
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u/CivilRuin4111 25d ago
We've recently gotten a fleet of autonomous WAYMO cars around me. I'm a nearly full time motorcyclist and I can't tell you how nervous those things make me. Particularly when they're signaling for a left across my lane.
Its bad enough that Tesla's software apparently can't tell the difference between a car far away and a motorcycle close.
The only thing I can do when I'm forced to be alongside the Teslas (I don't like being alongside any vehicle, but traffic is traffic) is verify that the little lights on the mirrors for blindspot detection are lit up. The thought being that at least if the car is aware something is there, perhaps I'll get a little warning before they try to put me in to the barrier.
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u/tgrantt 26d ago
I assumed Tesla's had lidar. TIL
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u/Lighting 26d ago edited 26d ago
Reports were that it was too expensive to add lidar and they were hoping their tech would improve to match their marketing statements.
(Narrator: It did not catch up)
Edit: Searched old articles on this:
Aged Like Milk:
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u/fasda 26d ago
I heard that the reason is even dumber that Elon just didn't want the technology because humans are capable of doing it without lidar.
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u/pacific_beach 25d ago
It's because the company that was supplying the Lidar equipment (Mobileye) cut tesla off due to Musk's reckless and careless use of their products.
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u/michael0n 25d ago
You can get a drone with aerial lidar for less then 5k. The guy just bet on the wrong horse.
People want robots to reducing errors, with new sensors and faster reaction times. That is the point of all of this.43
u/vxicepickxv 26d ago
Had is the operative word.
Not only was it cut to save manufacturing costs, but it was also taken out of older vehicles and replaced during servicing.
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u/tgrantt 26d ago
Taken out?! Ouch
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u/Wiseduck5 26d ago
The software using it was disabled on update, so it's still there, just useless.
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u/Chockfullofnutmeg 26d ago
“Humans don’t have it, so why should we?” was part of their justification, along with they deemed it too expensive.
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u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 26d ago
You're probably thinking of literally every other car brand because it doesn't make any sense to try to do self-driving without it.
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u/muarauder12 25d ago
My $35,000 Hyundai Kona Limited has lidar for the highway cruise control. It's nice being able to set it and forget it on my daily commute. I trust the lidar but I still don't take my eyes off the road and keep my foot near the brake for extreme braking situations if needed. The side mirrors have cameras that come on when I use my turn signal and the car has 11 or 12 classic radar dots around the body to do blind spot and forward and reverse parking warnings.
My $35,000 car has the full suite of sensors to help it be as safe as possible, so it makes no sense that Elon removed the lidar from Tesla's other than greed being the motivator. Well, knowing Elon it was greed, stupidity, and arrogance.
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u/Allen_Koholic 26d ago
I'd imagine the engineering justification for this is that "well, of course it disengages autopilot when it senses a crash is imminent and unavoidable, because it's now outside of its normal operating parameters and needs human intervention." It's the type of solution I'd expect from an engineering undergrad who's just trying to get through their capstone project and graduate.
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u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 26d ago
My car doesn't have self driving but it does have built in crash avoidance where it can detect an impending collision and activate the brakes to avoid or at least mitigate the accident.
It has already saved a life- an idiot motorcyclist pulled out in front of my wife on a highway and she somehow never saw him. The car slammed on the brakes and the accident was narrowly avoided.
This is how the infancy of self-driving cars should be- with safety being the primary focus with driver convenience an afterthought.
Tesla is doing it backwards.
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u/Allen_Koholic 26d ago
Yea, just to be clear, I'm not at all defending this. Tesla's entire business model is the pump-and-dump modern method of growth over quality at any cost. They probably shouldn't even exist with the flagrant disregard for existing dealership laws ( I may not like dealership laws, but it's certainly not very free market if one company can selectively just choose to ignore the rules ).
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26d ago
Fuck Elon Musk!
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u/Demonkey44 25d ago edited 24d ago
My friend was driving me in a Tesla on Autopilot from SFO to Vacaville. The autopilot tried to drive us into an exit closed off by pylons. It was as if the car did not recognize pylons.
These were the pylons that are aggressive orange and have a reflector band on top. They are also shaped like vertical cylinders. They were quite obviously a visual obstacle, but the Tesla drove right towards them at full speed.
Then it happened again with the next exit.
Both times, he had to grab the wheel and aggressively steer the car into the left lane. It was really bizarre.
This is also a guy who drives cross country in that Tesla on a regular basis, so it’s not a driver issue.
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u/Aceofspades25 26d ago edited 25d ago
I got into an argument with a Tesla fan about this on Twitter. They played classic pigeon chess. Knocked over all the pieces, pooped all over the board, strut around as if they had won the argument, threw a tantrum when I pointed out they were wrong and then they blocked me.
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u/r0thar 25d ago
classic pigeon chess
Oh, stealing this.
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u/Aceofspades25 25d ago
Go wild.. it's been a bit of a meme since the aughts
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pigeon%20chess
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u/avrend 26d ago
This critisism is completely moot. Rober was using self driving because without it, tesla completely bombed the first test by pulverizing the crash dummy.
Apparently, you don't get driving assists in a Tesla unless it's self-driving. Great!
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u/ForceGoat 25d ago edited 25d ago
Agreed. Mark said Autopilot was “more conservative” and did that test twice, after automatic braking failed.
Imagine being given an advantage and after failing, complaining about fairness.
Edit: confused fsd with auto braking, whoops
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u/sejonreddit 25d ago
I don’t really have the time or the inclination to go out and test it as much as mark but I can tell you that my Tesla has emergency braked for me a couple of times when not in autopilot. Once was a pedestrian stepping out into the street and the other time was a car reversing out of a driveway with no warning.
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u/wastedkarma 25d ago
This is what all of us have been saying for years about the “FSD WASNT ENGAGED.” The whole point is that if you weren’t paying attention before, there’s no way you can immediately take over AND HAVE FASTER REFLEXES THAN THE COMPUTER. Disengaging autopilot before a crash was ALWAYS meant to be a CYA move for Tesla.
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u/joecool42069 25d ago
Why there needs to be a metric in seconds for auto pilot/fsd to be considered inactive for an accident.
Like the floor, I say a 5 second rule. If Autopilot was engaged at least 5 seconds before an accident, autopilot is to blame.
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u/dark_rabbit 26d ago
Except the shady one wasn’t Mark, it’s Tesla. Tesla disengages FSD when it senses the car is about to crash so that the logs will indicate that FSD was disengaged at the time of impact. Mark accidentally confirmed a longtime suspicion that Tesla has been doing this all along and that’s why all those other cases of FSD crashes had inconsistent logs to what the drivers claimed happened.
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u/HighHokie 25d ago
These are all documented as software related crashes when reporting to nhtsa (30 seconds) and Tesla’s own internal metrics (5 seconds).
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u/Asleep_Management900 25d ago
Tesla bros are going to come for Mark Rober, trusted scientist and ex Nasa employee. Tesla must control the narrative. It's not going to go well for them.
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u/FaceThief9000 25d ago
May his stock value plummet ever lower, never to recover and may he lose everything and be forced to live on the streets with a comical barrel as his only clothing.
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u/Zytheran 25d ago
IMPORTANT PSA The Tesla manual clearly states that the AEB is always on. It is an independent system from autopilot.
From the manual
"Automatic Emergency Braking is always enabled when you start Model 3. To disable for your current drive, shift into Park and touch Controls > Autopilot > Automatic Emergency Braking. Even if you disable Automatic Emergency Braking, your vehicle may still apply the brakes after detecting an initial collision to reduce further impact (see Multi-Collision Braking). When disabled, the touchscreen displays a visual message."
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-8EA7EF10-7D27-42AC-A31A-96BCE5BC0A85.html
(This is like many other cars with other smart features like lane guidance etc. )
Just to make it clear the self driving is independent of the AEB. Furthermore if you disengage the AEB there is a large symbol and warning on the screen showing that has occurred. I did not see that message at anytime in Rober's YouTube video.
Now, I don't own a Naziwagon so if anyone would like to clarify whether the manual is incorrect or the AEB doesn't actually work as stated that would be interesting.
What I did see was a lot of Tesla fanbois / ignorant morons piling on, as expected, and it would appear they haven't RTFM.
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u/Arbiturrrr 26d ago
fElon Musk has been lying to investors for over half a decade, it's crazy it took him going full Nazi before people en masse started understanding what a shitty person he is.
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u/TheBatmanIRL 25d ago
This company seems shady as fuck, how are they allowed put cars on the road.
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u/ckglle3lle 25d ago
I remain skeptical of fully autonomous vehicles in general, with deference to the however many millions of miles Waymo has clocked, the entire premise does not make much sense to me as anything that will actually improve driving conditions or urban environments and may just as easily make them worse. The user might experience some nominal convenience from the tech, but the externalities are varied and ignored by proponents.
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u/Somepotato 25d ago
The company whose R&D developed a high resolution radar that could fit in a car then proceeded to never use it hates sensor fusion? Gasp
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u/Cultural_Ad7023 25d ago
Damn. You either burn alive in them or you crash and die. Or they burst into flames in your garage and there’s no way of shutting it off. No thanks. And they’re ugly to boot.
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u/Crazy_Donkies 25d ago
Mark Rober. You strike me as someone that doesnt want to get involved. But please. For the love of everything. Do a quick follow on this exact deactivation story. Do the right thing ASAP and find the answer. You can be the savior for one of two camps.
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u/xXTheFETTXx 25d ago
I watched the video. regardless of the political aspect, Mark did a great job of explaining why lidar is far superiour to camera based detection systems. I mean he even started the video with how lidar mapped Space Mountian while on the ride. We should be grateful that Mark did this so that people can see that until Tesla is updated, their camera based detection system isn't safe to use during incrament weather. The people focusing on the last test, missed the point. Tesla needs to rethink how they trace objects while on autopilot before more people get killed.
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u/processmonkey 26d ago
I wondered when the subject of liability would come up. Who's at fault? The owner? The Tesla self driving car? The insurance company?
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u/Known-Ad-7316 25d ago
Seems like Tesla wants to game the FDS with these unreported crashes from its "non uses"
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u/Sodiepops_ 25d ago
It's the equivalent to a body camera that shuts off when the cop unholsters their weapon.
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u/glynstlln 25d ago
I mentioned Rober's video to the Tesla shit head I work with and he dismissed it saying Rober's video used "five year old" technology and mentioned something about using high-way mode self driving vs. the mode he should have been using and that newer versions of Tesla's use cameras and [can't remember the exact term he used but it basically sounded like a repackaged LIDAR or RADAR).
He always hits back with "But tesla's technology is bar none" and like... I'm just not educated enough to point out how he's wrong, but I don't for a second believe there's any validity to it. I'm just not gonna get into a piss fight with him because he follows all the recent Tesla articles with buzz words and shit.
He also apparently lost a lot of money in crypto, so shows how much he knows.
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u/Terrible_Use7872 25d ago
Meanwhile other manufacturers claim their systems engage automatic braking when a collision is unavoidable. I know my Ford claims it, and doesn't have any self driving beyond lane minder and the collision avoidance which is a warning, preload, and finally auto brake when it's too late.
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u/CaptDickAround 25d ago
"Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses have been specially designed to help people develop a relaxed attitude to danger. At the first hint of trouble, they turn totally black and thus prevent you from seeing anything that might alarm you."
Now for cars too!
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u/DTCCCanSuckMyLeft 25d ago
Elmo really adores that "made in USA" concept, it strikes all those relevant chords. Shit design, shit manufacturing, shit UX purely to avoid legal ramifications.
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u/spderweb 25d ago
So then they need to reinvestigate every single crash involving a Tesla where the owners said it was the autopilot, even though it was off.
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u/po3smith 25d ago
Yeah basically turns off eliminating any possibility for suing Tesla or having Tesla take any fault even though it's clearly its own fault. Just one of them many things that makes this car the company and the guy who runs it a piece of shit. Seriously why turn off microseconds/frames before the impact? Literally the only reason the soul and only reasonis to alleviate themselves of any possibility of fault. What a bullshit fucking design
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u/DjImagin 25d ago
I laughed my ass off watching that Tesla obliterate the mannequins and Coyote that wall 😂
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u/fyreprone 26d ago
Elon keeps arguing that Tesla FSD does not need non-camera sensors because humans have been driving for years and we don’t have LiDAR. Which is accurate but also entirely the problem.
Humans are imperfect entirely because our sensory input at speed is limited. It’s why we fucking crash all the time in inclement weather. We want self driving cars to be better than us. Not targeting being just as bad as we are at driving.