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posted by janrinok on Monday April 02 2018, @01:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'll-wait-until-the-bugs-are-ironed-out dept.

Tesla Model X driver dies in Mountain View crash

Submitted via IRC for Fnord666

The driver of a Tesla Model X has died following a highway crash in Mountain View, leaving a number of safety questions.

Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/24/tesla-model-x-driver-dies-in-mountain-view-crash/

Tesla Crash: Model X Was In Autopilot Mode, Firm Says

In a post on its website, the electric-car maker said computer logs retrieved from the wrecked SUV show that Tesla's driver-assisting Autopilot technology was engaged and that the driver doesn't appear to have grabbed the steering wheel in the seconds before the crash.

The car's 38-year-old driver died after the vehicle hit a concrete lane divider on a Northern California freeway and caught fire. The accident happened March 23.

[...] In its Friday post, Tesla said the crashed Model X's computer logs show that the driver's hands weren't detected on the steering wheel for 6 seconds prior to the accident. It said they also show the driver had "about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider" before the crash but that "no action was taken."

The company cited various statistics in defending Autopilot in the post and said there's no doubt the technology makes vehicles safer than traditional cars.

"Over a year ago," the post said, "our first iteration of Autopilot was found by the US government to reduce crash rates by as much as 40 percent. Internal data confirms that recent updates to Autopilot have improved system reliability."

"Tesla Autopilot does not prevent all accidents -- such a standard would be impossible -- but it makes them much less likely to occur," the post reads. "It unequivocally makes the world safer for the vehicle occupants, pedestrians and cyclists."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @08:02AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @08:02AM (#661856)

    and mostly with test drivers aboard being more alert than the "average" driver would be

    Even the Uber test driver in the car that killed a pedestrian recently looked up from the phone about as often as alert as an average cell phone using driver in a *non self driving* car.

    Just wait until they start putting people who are used to texting and driving into self driving cars... They won't be looking up in time to realize they are about to hit someone and it's too late to brake, like in that Uber video. They will be looking in the mirror thinking "what was that bump".