[msb-alumni] Investigators say Tesla on Autopilot sped up, didn't turn before crash
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2018 18:47:18 -0400
BlankInvestigators say Tesla on Autopilot sped up, didn't turn before crash .
Michael Laris.
A Tesla running on the Autopilot system that hit a highway safety barrier in
March didn't try to turn away, didn't brake and accelerated significantly three
seconds before the deadly impact, federal investigators said
Thursday. The car went from 62 mph to 70.8 mph, then hit the highway barrier in
California with such force that the front of the vehicle was ripped apart,
according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The driver's hands were
not detected on the wheel in the six seconds before the collision, investigators
said. Walter Huang, 38, who was wearing a seat belt, was pulled from the blue
Tesla by bystanders before the car was engulfed in flames. He died at a
hospital.
Tesla has said it makes "extremely clear that Autopilot requires the driver to
be alert and have hands on the wheel. The NTSB's preliminary report on the
crash adds to questions about the safety of Tesla's Autopilot technology. It is
not a driverless system but is often treated as one by drivers. Tesla executives
- who have been locked in a clash with the NTSB that has left them outside the
federal investigation - did not immediately comment on the findings, instead
pointing to a blog post from March that notes the safety benefits of the
company's technology. In that earlier statement, the company said that "the
driver
had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view . . . but the
vehicle
logs show that no action was taken. Federal investigators did not provide
a probable cause of the crash, and the inquiry is ongoing. But the NTSB said
Huang was relying on Autopilot's advanced driver-assistance features at the
time of the accident: "traffic-aware cruise control," which was set at 75 mph
and is meant to keep the vehicle a safe distance from other cars, and "autosteer
lane-keeping assistance," which is intended to help guide the car safely down
the highway. Autopilot was used continuously for the 18 minutes and 55 seconds
before the crash, investigators said. Toward the beginning of that period, the
car "provided two visual alerts and one auditory alert" for Huang to put
his hands on the wheel, according to the NTSB. "These alerts were made more
than
15 minutes prior to the crash," according to the report. It is unclear
why the alerts did not continue. In the minute before impact, Huang's hands
were
detected on the wheel three separate times, totaling 34 seconds. But they
weren't detected on the wheel during the last six seconds, the NTSB said.
Experts in human behavior and auto safety have warned about the dangers of
drivers
becoming overly reliant on semi-automated features. That has led some
developers
to focus on fully driverless technology, which requires nothing from passengers.
Tesla has defended its iterative approach, arguing that its features, in
conjunction with attentive humans, are already providing for significantly safer
cars. Driverless testing, which is not regulated by federal officials and is
done widely on public roads, has also had problems. The NTSB found last month
that one of ride-hailing giant Uber's driverless cars misidentified a
pedestrian
before it hit and killed her in Tempe, Ariz., in March. Uber had deliberately
disabled the emergency braking system on the vehicle, the NTSB found. In the
Tesla incident, in the southbound lanes of U.S. Highway 101 on March 23, Huang
was traveling in the second lane from the left, a high-oc'cup'ancy-vehicle
lane.
Eight seconds before the crash, "the Tesla was following a lead vehicle
and was traveling about 65 mph," the speed limit, according to the NTSB. Seven
seconds before the crash, the Tesla, still following the car ahead, "began
a left steering movement. At that point, it entered a "triangular-shaped
boundary" between the main travel lane and an exit lane. Four seconds before the
crash, the Tesla "was no longer following a lead vehicle. A second later, the
car sped up to almost 71 mph, then smashed into a safety device called an
attenuator, which is supposed to act as a "smart cushion" reducing the severity
of a high-speed impact. But the safety device had been damaged 11 days
before by a Toyota Prius. Tesla said earlier that "the reason this crash was so
severe is because the crash attenuator, a highway safety barrier which
is designed to reduce the impact into a concrete lane divider, had been crushed
in a prior accident without being replaced. We have never seen this level
of damage to a Model X in any other crash. In April, Tesla and the NTSB took
the
unusual step of parting ways, and the company is no longer a party to
the investigation. They differ on whether Tesla was pushed from the inquiry.
The
NTSB had objected to Tesla making statements concerning the cause of the
crash before the investigation was complete, while Tesla accused the agency of
releasing incomplete information and "trying to prevent us from telling
all the facts. In one of the disputed statements, Tesla said that "the crash
happened on a clear day with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, which
means that the only way for this accident to have occurred is if Mr. Huang was
not paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings
to do so. The company said it empathizes with the family's grief, "but the
false
impression that Autopilot is unsafe will cause harm to others on the road.
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