
Tesla owner recreates fatal Autopilot crash, nearly crashes as well - salqadri
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-fatal-crash-autopilot-recreation/
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danso
Discussion thread when the video was posted here the other day (109 comments):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16732436](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16732436)

~~~
simion314
I wanted to post same link, the post was gone from first page much faster then
other less interesting posts IMO so I am suspecting that maybe Tesla fans are
downvoting discussions about this crashes.

In this case someone reproduced the bug, the blinking lights are a timed
warning not related to what is on the road.

~~~
merricksb
People tend to flag copycat posts about topics that have already been
posted/discussed extensively.

It's less about "Telsa fans" and more about "HN fans" who prefer the site to
be focused on discussions about new, interesting things rather than repetitive
outrage-inducing things.

None of this is to say the topic isn't important, but a topic's importance is
separate to how much value there is in discussing it repeatedly here,
particularly when it stirs such heated emotions in some people.

~~~
simion314
This video was the first timeThat topic was first time when it appeared, no
one commented that it was here before and linked to that page, it was an
actual video so not an opinion blog or media spin.

The video was very clear and it showed a real problem, the system followed the
wrong line on the roads and the comments were answering explaing what they
thing it happened, what the capabilities and limitation of Tesla radar are( I
learned that Tesla has a radar) and of course there were the skeptic comments
that I think are the cause of those dislikes, I don't think is good for the
community to disaprove of well thought skeptic comments, some of the readers
here studied AI in universities and worked with AI and know about it's
limitations and they can express the skepticism that the self driving hardware
and software is not ready yet.

~~~
DanBC
But, as has been pointed out above, the video has been posted here, and has
been discussed here. There are over 200 comments about the video.

The link you posted contains no new information.

~~~
simion314
You do not understand, I did not post this article, I commented that the
posted video was gone suspiciously fast from first page, where other much less
interesting topic were one the first page much more time that day, and I was
sharing my conclusion(that could be wrong) that some Tesla fans (hopefully not
the company PR) was involved

~~~
merricksb
If you notice "suspicious" voting activity or stories dropping off the front
page faster than you believe is warranted, you should contact the mods via
email (hn@ycombinator.com) rather than speculating in the comments, as the
guidelines request [1].

This specific story might have been new, but the broader topic of the safety
and functionality of assisted and autonomous driving systems has been
extensively discussed over multiple articles in the past couple of weeks, and
it's inevitable that members of the community will start to tire of any topic
that has had extensive coverage for a sustained period of time.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
simion314
It would help to have some data to check my suspicions(I will check if there
are some sites that track the stories and the votes patterns but not today ),
anyway let's see what happens with the new video that reproduces the
bug([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16742391#16742956](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16742391#16742956))...
now since this is similar to the other one I can see why won't be that
engaging, most of what was said was already said on the first video posting.

Edit: 15 minutes later , all Tesla posts are gone from the first page

~~~
danso
I don't think there's a huge conspiracy. The Tesla crash had 2 different
stories (the official blog post, plus separate news stories), 3 days ago:

[http://archive.is/4uQSR](http://archive.is/4uQSR) (snapshot of /best)

And then yesterday, the Youtube video got 205 upvotes with 109 comments, which
is pretty good exposure on the same topic:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16732436](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16732436)

Yesterday, there was also this side story with NTSB that got 90 upvotes and 98
comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16730286](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16730286)

So Tesla stories today might be getting flagged because users feel they are
incremental updates.

~~~
simion314
The first video that got 200 comments, some of the comments were made when the
story was on first page, the rest were replies that also happened after the
story was gone from the first page(the time coincides with US people starting
getting up).

It is just a felling/instinct I have and I don't want us both spend our energy
on trying to figure it out, if the community votes in this way then we can't
do anything about it, maybe having a page that pulls this kind of topics easy
accessible would be interesting,.

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EngineerBetter
Autopilot is following the strong white line to the left, which is what the
simple system is designed to do.

It (currently) follows road markings, and/or the car in front. That's it, and
that's why you don't leave it unattended - spoken as a Model X owner.

As a Brit, I'm astounded at the US road design. You'd never see something like
that over here, and I've never seen motorway (freeway) lane markers so worn
away.

Autopilot did what it is designed to do, which in this case was the wrong
thing. The driver was not paying attention, which is easy to do when you have
no physical buttons in the car and often operate a touchscreen. The poor state
of the road also contributed, both with the lack of steel barrier and the
worn-out markings.

Will road markings be kept in better condition for the sake of self-driving
cars, I wonder?

Would LIDAR have helped, or would the presented surface area of the concrete
block be too small to act upon?

~~~
simion314
What will happen if it stars snowing? The self driving cars will be stuck on
the roads?(I mean in the future where the passenger can't drive the car back
home)

Following the line is too basic for a self driving car, I remember some
students having small toys programmed to drive toy roads by following the
lines, and that was more then 10 years ago.

Tesla should have detailed maps of this big roads, so maybe when the maps and
what the car detects do not match it should be less confident, the collision
detection should be extra sensitive, the driver should be alarmed, the car
should slow down, if they have problems on this big roads then they need a new
kind of hardware and software to navigate any medium road.

~~~
EngineerBetter
> Tesla should have detailed maps of this big roads

Their imminent software update adds exactly that. They took their navigation
data in house because the atuff they used before wasn't detailed enough.

~~~
simion314
I mean the maps data they collect from the other Tesla cars and not the GPS
navigation, they said that in that accident a big number of Tesla cars pass
that point daily and they also collected this navigation data for training, so
I assumed they have this detailed maps and the car should know what to
expect(I am sure this is a hard problem ) but maybe they need to be more
cautious when there is a mismatch(like if 2000 cars used this side of the road
but now it appears some line appeared that does not match, lets safely slow
down and ask the driver to take over and analyze what is wrong)

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nopriorarrests
This article is about old video, already discussed here in detail. I thought
it could be about a new one.

So, couple of hours ago another video surfaced on /r/teslamotors, filmed at
original location of Model X crash, with very detailed slow-motion.

And autopilot acts (presumably) the same way as on Model X, trying to drive
the car into solid obstacle.

Video: [https://youtu.be/VVJSjeHDvfY](https://youtu.be/VVJSjeHDvfY) Thread:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/899i1w/my_mode...](https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/899i1w/my_model_s_failing_in_autopilot_where_the_model_x/)

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EngineerBetter
I'm danged if I'd let it get so close to disaster if I was recreating this.
One tug of the steering wheel in the wrong direction is enough for me to
assert myself and get the car to cancel Autopilot.

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programmer_dude
Can you mount the camera properly and repeat this experiment?

