Self-Driving Cars

Oh at the more dangerous end “self-driving car convention overloads small-town telephone infrastructure, cars crash as they loose signal, drivers are unable to contact emergency services for help due to network outage”.

Synchronising “self-driving cars loose capability” and “people have additional difficulty contact emergency services” is begging for a disaster.

Well, hopefully loss of signal would mean "don't know where to go", not "suddenly unaware there is a car two feet in front of self, speed up".

Sure, but “don’t know where to go” is the kind of circumstance that increase the likelihood of an accident. It could be something as simple as 20 self-driving cars all trying to pull over at once and somebody hitting someone.

Guess what, folks? Missy Cummings, a senior NHTSA adviser, published a paper (since removed) on Duke University's website critical of Tesla's approach to self-driving. In this paper, she did not disclose a board position she holds with Veoneer, a company that invests in lidar solutions for autonomous vehicles. (Twitter thread with links)

Cummings has blocked several members of the Tesla community on Twitter without ever having interacted with them, suggesting that she may be subscribed to one of the blocklists maintained by TSLAQ, a group of fanatics dedicated to short-selling the company and spreading misinformation about it. She seems particularly concerned about Tesla as she tries to make lidar mandatory in self-driving cars.

I generally support President Biden, but he's listening to the wrong people here.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 19th 2021 at 7:51:33 AM

Well, that ending comes out of nowhere.

That Twitter thread says that the paper simply got moved (and edited), not removed.

Even ignoring the anti-Tesla bias, Biden really shouldn’t be tapping people with a vested economic interest in self-driving as senior advisor on safety, such people should be bought in only to provide the business perspective.

This is true. If Cummings is going to try to force the NHTSA to adopt a lidar standard for self-driving, it will restrain competition to her personal benefit.

Oh, and she retweets TeslaCharts, a source of malicious disinformation. She also doesn't seem to know the difference between Autopilot and FSD, although I will give her the benefit of the doubt in acknowledging that FSD in 2020 was nowhere near as capable as it is now.

This administration is going to hand EV and self-driving dominance to China on a silver platter.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 19th 2021 at 11:46:30 AM

As opposed to leaving US corporate interests unaccountable! Such an exciting difference.

Even ignoring the anti-Tesla bias, Biden really shouldn’t be tapping people with a vested economic interest in self-driving as senior advisor on safety, such people should be bought in only to provide the business perspective.

My understanding is that this kind of appointment is typically justified with "experience" reasons, same as to how bankers keep playing a major role in bank regulation.

I am actually a little bit sceptical because I am not sure that society has properly evaluated whether the conflict of interest outweighs the experience or not.

Really? Play that violin. We could have even less accountable Chinese interests dominating our electric and self-driving vehicles. What an improvement!

This whole conversation seems like a textbook exercise in letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Nobody has demanded that Tesla or any other automaker be exempt from regulatory scrutiny, just that regulators be reasonably free from bias and conflicts of interest.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 20th 2021 at 9:25:49 AM

You really could have fooled me on the latter, since I can't think of a single regulatory action in any country that hasn't been objected to.

There is some natural bias in terms of which things get discussed. When a regulatory decision is favorable or perceived as reasonable, nobody complains about it. Most discussion will be about unfavorable decisions or perceived bias. That's just human nature.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 20th 2021 at 11:43:47 AM

Teslarati: Tesla is enforcing strict FSD Beta rules for inattentive drivers

Some drivers who qualified for or were given access to the Tesla FSD Beta program have apparently received emails warning them that misuse of the system will get it taken away from them. This was stated in advance to be a possible consequence of misuse and now enforcement is happening. It's good to see.

Over the past day, Missy Cummings deleted her old tweets, restricted her Twitter account, and has now deleted it. I wish we could get over the rampant toxicity of online conversation; even if you agree with a point there are people on that side who will make you look bad. That said, it was her choice to join TSLAQ. I don't feel that bad for cult members.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 21st 2021 at 9:01:46 AM

What? Online harassment is less bad when someone opposes a fucking car company? Seriously?

Imagine someone is a member of Qanon. They get harassed and driven offline. I feel a lot less sympathy than if they were a member of a community that I respect. Obviously the harassment itself is not acceptable under any circumstances.

TSLAQ is a fanatical hate cult, and they don't have the "excuse" of being low-information or captured by the right-wing media bubble. They stalk and dox Tesla supporters, seed disinformation into the media, fly drones over parking lots to "prove" that no cars are actually being sold, dupe people into losing money by short-selling, etc.

By joining that cult and concealing her conflict of interest, she opened herself to legitimate criticism and does not seem to have been able to take it.

Edit: Let me be clear: this is going to reduce the quality of the conversation and may end up making things more difficult for Tesla in the long run. I'm not celebrating it.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 21st 2021 at 9:29:24 AM

Apparently, Missy Cummings has resigned her position on Veoneer's board. (I'm looking for a reliable source on this.) There is no word on whether she has divested her stock. This is a step towards establishing a degree of trust that she will not have an explicit conflict of interest in regulating self-driving.

Tesla released FSD Beta 10.3 over the weekend, expanding the program to drivers with a 99 or higher Safety Score at the same time. However, shortly thereafter, the update was rolled back — not because of a problem with FSD, but because of an unexpected interaction with the vehicles' power-saving mode that could cause the entire FSD system to stop working.

To be clear, this would only happen for customers who parked their cars and let them go to sleep; it wasn't something that would occur on the roads. Elon Musk tweeted an apology, explaining that their test vehicles rarely go to sleep so did not encounter the bug, and promising that they would add this scenario to testing going forward. 10.3.1 is rolling out today with the bugfix.

Edit: Apparently there was a bug with automatic emergency braking that was also rolled back and then patched.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 25th 2021 at 7:04:10 AM

Remember that big argument we were having about whether a software update should be classified as a recall?. Well, it looks like NHTSA got its way. Reuters: Tesla recalls nearly 12,000 U.S. vehicles over software communication error

This had to do with incorrect activation of automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning features in Tesla FSD Beta 10.3. Notably, Tesla has already patched the issue with an over-the-air update, so the "recall" is a formality. As predicted, Reuters is publishing it as one anyway.

I feel like we need new regulatory language to distinguish a recall that requires that vehicles be physically serviced versus one that is deployed via remote software update.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 2nd 2021 at 8:52:32 AM

Teslarati: Tesla accident trial will call CEO Musk, NHTSA advisor Cummings as witnesses

This is a civil trial, of course, not a criminal one. At issue will be the question of whether Tesla is at fault because its Autopilot software failed to prevent the crash. Tesla maintains that users are responsible for everything their vehicle does while on Autopilot and that active supervision is required at all times, as does every other auto manufacturer whose cars are equipped with ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems). Taking one's hands off the wheel after engaging Autopilot is expressly forbidden.

Tesla's attorneys are likely to try to get Musk removed from the witness list. Cummings, newly hired NHTSA safety adviser, has been accused by Tesla supporters of bias against the company based on her past tweets and public statements as well as her involvement with a competing self-driving hardware vendor.

Teslarati: Tesla Autopilot’s emergency vehicle response feature is addressing a deadly problem no one wants to talk about

Much fuss was raised recently about the NHTSA's investigation into Tesla vehicles striking emergency responders who were parked on the roadside with their lights on. So called "struck-by incidents", or SBIs, occur with enormous frequency on US roads, with an average of 8,000 injuries reported per year and 57 deaths in 2021 alone. In fact, these crashes are the leading cause of death and permanent injury for safety personnel (police, firefighters, paramedics) by a factor of two.

All fifty states have so-called "slow down, move over" (SDMO) laws that mandate that drivers approaching a parked emergency vehicle slow down and/or change lanes to avoid striking them. While 90 percent of struck-by deaths (SBDs) are the result of driver behavior, only 31 percent of those are because of inattention or impairment. In 69 percent, the driver intentionally disregarded the law.

One first responder, who has been involved in four SBIs, notes in an interview that he welcomes the ability of Teslas on Autopilot to recognize and change lanes for traffic cones, and even counts on it. Tesla has recently added emergency vehicle recognition to Autopilot's capabilities: it will automatically slow down and alert the driver when it detects emergency lights on a roadside object.

The NHTSA has no regulatory requirement that vehicles with driver-assist systems implement any sort of emergency vehicle avoidance, preferring to leave it up to manufacturers to implement the best possible solutions without excessive interference. This makes its treatment of Tesla seem a little hypocritical.

If we are serious about preventing road injuries and deaths, we should be trying to reach full autonomy as rapidly as possible.

Reuters: U.S. NTSB closes probe into fatal Tesla 2020 California crash

So yep. The Tesla was doing everything it could to save the man's life but he overrode the safety features, crashed, and died.

If nothing else the investigations are useful so as to build an independent evidence base for such features being safe.

Ooh look, more drama. [sigh] I wish I could just report on nice things.

A Tesla owner who is in the FSD Beta program lent their car to a CNN reporter who had no experience with Teslas. CNN then reported on the drive, calling out many interventions and errors that the car made.

A Twitter influencer claims to have contacted the owner in question and, guess what, they say that they were told the story would be positive and the drive was selectively edited to make it look bad. They claim to have video from the back seat that will show this.

This whole thing smells. The reason Tesla limits who can access the FSD Beta is because those drivers are required to be familiar with the software and exercise a high level of supervision. It's not something that any random person can be expected to do. It's called "beta" for a reason.

So was the owner tricked by CNN, or are they trying to cover by claiming they were tricked? It wouldn't be the first time a major media outlet has deceptively covered Tesla.

At best, the driver is a complete idiot because apparently they don't understand the concept of "you are allowed into this beta program because of your driving".

Yeah, promises of positive coverage or not the owner still broke their agreement with Tesla by lending it out, hopefully their beta membership has now been revoked. It looks like somebody took it upon themselves to roll ay as Tesla’s PR department.

Also, scummy on CNN’s part even if the footage is valid. It’s wholly unnecessary to get people to breach contracts to get access to the beta, there are easy enough legitimate ways to get that access.

Edited by Silasw on Nov 21st 2021 at 9:24:17 AM