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US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

(www.reuters.com)
410 points jjulius | 3 comments | 18 Oct 24 16:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.607s | source
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bastawhiz ◴[19 Oct 24 17:33 UTC] No.41889192[source]▶
Lots of people are asking how good the self driving has to be before we tolerate it. I got a one month free trial of FSD and turned it off after two weeks. Quite simply: it's dangerous.

- It failed with a cryptic system error while driving

- It started making a left turn far too early that would have scraped the left side of the car on a sign. I had to manually intervene.

- In my opinion, the default setting accelerates way too aggressively. I'd call myself a fairly aggressive driver and it is too aggressive for my taste.

- It tried to make way too many right turns on red when it wasn't safe to. It would creep into the road, almost into the path of oncoming vehicles.

- It didn't merge left to make room for vehicles merging onto the highway. The vehicles then tried to cut in. The system should have avoided an unsafe situation like this in the first place.

- It would switch lanes to go faster on the highway, but then missed an exit on at least one occasion because it couldn't make it back into the right lane in time. Stupid.

After the system error, I lost all trust in FSD from Tesla. Until I ride in one and feel safe, I can't have any faith that this is a reasonable system. Hell, even autopilot does dumb shit on a regular basis. I'm grateful to be getting a car from another manufacturer this year.

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frabjoused ◴[19 Oct 24 17:35 UTC] No.41889213[source]▶
The thing that doesn't make sense is the numbers. If it is dangerous in your anecdotes, why don't the reported numbers show more accidents when FSD is on?

When I did the trial on my Tesla, I also noted these kinds of things and felt like I had to take control.

But at the end of the day, only the numbers matter.

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rvnx ◴[19 Oct 24 17:52 UTC] No.41889339[source]▶
There is an easy way to know what is really behind the numbers: look who is paying in case of accident.

You have a Mercedes, Mercedes takes responsibility.

You have a Tesla, you take the responsibility.

Says a lot.

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tensor ◴[19 Oct 24 19:39 UTC] No.41890160[source]▶
You have a Mercedes, and you have a system that works virtually nowhere.
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therouwboat ◴[19 Oct 24 20:38 UTC] No.41890605[source]▶
Better that way than "Oh it tried to run red light, but otherwise it's great."
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1. tensor ◴[19 Oct 24 21:54 UTC] No.41891047[source]▶
"Oh we tried to build it but no one bought it! So we gave up." - Mercedes before Tesla.

Perhaps FSD isn't ready for city streets yet, but it's great on the highways and I'd 1000x prefer we make progress rather than settle for the status quo garbage that the legacy makers put out. Also, human drivers are the most dangerous, by far, we need to make progress to eventual phase them out.

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2. meibo ◴[19 Oct 24 23:26 UTC] No.41891619[source]▶
2-ton blocks of metal that go 80mph next to me on the highway is not the place I would want people to go "fuck it let's just do it" with their new tech. Human drivers might be dangerous but adding more danger and unpredictability on top just because we can skip a few steps in the engineering process is crazy.

Maybe you have a deathwish, but I definitely don't. Your choices affect other humans in traffic.

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3. tensor ◴[20 Oct 24 20:48 UTC] No.41898339[source]▶
It sounds like you are the one with a deathwish, because objectively by the numbers Autopilot on the highway has greatly reduced death. So you are literally advocating for more death.

You have two imperfect systems for highway driving: Autopilot with human oversight, and humans. The first has far far less death. Yet you are choosing the second.