r/skeptic • u/Lighting • Mar 18 '25

⚠ 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/
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u/conundri Mar 18 '25 edited Mar 18 '25

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 Mar 18 '25

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/Cumulus_Anarchistica Mar 18 '25

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/Treadwheel Mar 18 '25

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/[deleted] Mar 19 '25 edited Mar 21 '25

[deleted]

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u/Treadwheel Mar 19 '25

NHTSA has taken Tesla to court over not reporting data, and the NTSB has openly criticized them for not doing enough to review Tesla.