The U.S. government’s road safety agency is again investigating Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” system, this time after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says in documents that it opened the probe on Thursday with the company reporting four crashes after Teslas entered areas of low visibility, including sun glare, fog and airborne dust.
In addition to the pedestrian’s death, another crash involved an injury, the agency said.
Investigators will look into the ability of “Full Self-Driving” to “detect and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions, and if so, the contributing circumstances for these crashes.”
Eyes can’t see in low visibility.
musk “we drive with our eyes, cameras are eyes. we dont need LiDAR”
FSD kills someone because of low visibility just like with eyes
musk reaction -
It’s worse than that, though. Our eyes are significantly better than cameras (with some exceptions at the high end) at adapting to varied lighting conditions than cameras are. Especially rapid changes.
Not only that, when we have trouble seeing things, we can adjust our speed to compensate (though tbf, not all human drivers do, but I don’t think FSD should be modelled after the worst of human drivers). Does Tesla’s FSD go into a “drive slower” mode when it gets less certain about what it sees? Or does its algorithms always treat its best guess with high confidence?
Hard to credit without a source, modern cameras have way more dynamic range than the human eye.
Not in one exposure. Human eyes are much better with dealing with extremely high contrasts.
Cameras can be much more sensitive, but at the cost of overexposing brighter regions in an image.
They’re also pretty noisy in low light and generally take long exposures (a problem with a camera at high speeds) to get sufficient input to see anything in the dark. Especially if you aren’t spending thousands of dollars with massive sensors per camera.
I dunno what cameras you are using but a standard full frame sensor and an F/4 lens sees way better in low light than the human eye. If I take a raw image off my camera, there is so much more dynamic range than I can see or a monitor can even represent, you can double the brightness at least four times (ie 16x brighter) and parts of the image that looked pure black to the eye become perfectly usable images. There is so so so much more dynamic range than the human eye.
Do you know what the depth of field at f/4 looks like? It’s not anywhere in the neighborhood of suitable for a car, and it still takes a meaningful exposure length in low light conditions to get a picture at all, which is not suitable for driving at 30mph, let alone actually driving fast.
That full frame sensor is also on a camera that’s several thousand dollars.
if he was truthful: “the cost of adding lidar cuts in my profits”
Correction - Older Teslas had lidar, Musk demanded they be removed because they cut into his profits. Not a huge difference but it does show how much of a shitbag he is.
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He really is a fucking idiot. But so few people can actually call him out… So he just never gets put in his place.
Imagine your life with unlimited redos. That’s how he lives.
The cars used to have RADAR. But they got rid of that and even disabled it on older models when updating because they “only need cameras.”
Cameras and RADAR would have been good enough for most all conditions…
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now definitely on Musk’s list of departments to cut if Trump makes him a high-ranking swamp monster
Why do you think musk dumping so much cash to boost Trump? The plan all along is to get kickbacks like stopping investigation, lawsuits, and regulations against him. Plus subsidies.
Rich assholes don’t spend money without expectation of ROI
He knows Democrats will crack down on shady practices so Trump is his best bet.
He’s not hoping for a kickback, he is offered a position as secretary of cost-cutting.
He will be able to directly shut down everything he doesn’t like under the pretense of saving money.
Trump is literally campaigning on the fact that government positions are up for sale under his admin.
“I’m going to have Elon Musk — he is dying to do this… We’ll have a new position: secretary of cost-cutting, OK? Elon wants to do that,” the former president said"
Alongside the EPA for constantly getting in the way of the FAA trying to slip his SpaceX flight licenses through with a wink and a nudge instead of properly following regulations, and the FAA for trying to keep a semblance of legality through the whole process.
This is legitimately one of the real reasons Musk is pushing for Trump so hard. NHTSA (and all the other regulatory agencies) were effectively gutted completely by the Trump admin and it’s basically the entire reason Elon could grift his way to where he is today. The moment Biden got into office, basically every single agency in existence began investigating him and pushing blocks out of the proverbial Jenga tower of the various Musk companies. He’s praying that Trump will get elected and allow him to keep grifting, because otherwise he’s almost definitely going to jail, or at a minimum losing the vast majority of his empire.
Tesla: Why would we need lidar? Just use visual cameras.
TeslaMusk: Why would we need lidar? Just use visual camerasFTFY
Musk has said that humans drive with only eyesight, so cars should be able to drive with just cameras.
This of course assumes 1) that cameras are just as good as eyes (they’re not) and 2) that the processing of visual data that the human brain does can be replicated by a machine, which seems highly dubious given that we only partially understand how humans process visual data to make decisions.
Finally, it assumes that the current rate of human-caused crashes is acceptable. Which it isn’t. We tolerate crashes because we can’t improve people without unrealistic expense. In an automated system, if a bit of additional hardware can significantly reduce crashes it’s irrational not to do it.
This is directly a result of Elon’s edict that Tesla cars don’t use lidar. If you aren’t aware Elon set that as a requirement at the beginning of Tesla’s self driving project because he didn’t want to spend the money on lidar for all Tesla cars.
His “first principles” logic is that humans don’t use lidar therefore self driving should be able to be accomplished without (expensive) enhanced vision tools. While this statement has some modicum of truth, it’s obviously going to trade off safely in situations where vision is compromised. Think fog or sunlight shining in your cameras / eyes or a person running across the street at night wearing all black. There are obvious scenarios where lidar is a massive safety advantage, but Elon made a decision for $$ to not have that. This sounds like a direct and obvious outcome of that edict.
His “first principles” logic is that humans don’t use lidar therefore self driving should be able to be accomplished without (expensive) enhanced vision tools.
This kind of idiocy is why people tried to build airplanes with flapping wings. Way too many people thought that the best way to create a plane was to just copy what nature did with birds. Nature showed it was possible, so just copy nature.
Regarding point number 2, I have no doubt we’ll be able to develop systems that process visual/video data as well as or better than people. I just know we aren’t there yet, and Tesla certainly isn’t.
I like to come at the argument from the other direction though; humans drive with eyesight because that’s all we have. If I could be equipped with sonar or radar or lidar, of fucking course I’d use it, wouldn’t you?
Full Self Driving shipping
202520262027309844841e+156^ You are hereMakes you wonder if removing the lidar and using fucking cameras isn’t part of the problem… cheap bastards.
Was that cause of the cost? Didnt Elon come out claiming lidar was a “crutch” or something?
It’s an extra 60k.
Really fucking stupid that we as a society intentionally choose to fuck around and find out rather than find out before we fuck around.
You got one part wrong. The people fucking around aren’t the ones having to do the “finding out” part.
By refusing to vote in competent regulatory bodies, the ones finding out are a part of the problem with the societal ails. I don’t want specific people punished with prejudice, I want a rule of law that holds all people accountable as equals and averts all harm before it can happen.
Are you victim blaming the
killedmurdered pedestrians?I am speaking about societal problems in context of society as a whole, as I have been the entire time.
Charge the stupid fuck Tesla chain of decision making with murder. This bullshit “self driving” advertising is premeditated, that’s no longer manslaughter.
And charge the driver(s) with manslaughter under aggravating circumstances.
But oh no, muh profts, hurr-durrr…
The worst way to die would be getting hit by a shitbox Tesla. RIP.
I thought it was illegal to call it full self driving? So I thought Tesla had something new.
Apprently it’s the moronic ASSISTED full self driving the article is about. So nothing new.
Tesla does not have a legal full self driving system, so why do articles keep pushing the false narrative, even after it’s deemed illegal?It was called that name at the time when the kills happened.
so why do articles keep pushing the false narrative, even after it’s deemed illegal?
The same reason that simple quadcopters have been deemed by the press to be called “drones”. You can’t manufacture panic and outrage with a innocuous name.
Calling it a drone has nothing to do with how many propellers it has, some drones are Jet driven. some are boats and some are vehicles.
A Drone is simply an unmanned craft, controlled remotely or by automation.https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drone
an uncrewed aircraft or vessel guided by remote control or onboard computers:
It sure doesn’t say when that was updated, but for a long period of time the use of drone when discussing unmanned aircraft was reserved for military craft that were usually armed and used to kill people. In the attempt to demonize hobby rc use, the press started calling simple quadcopters (and other propeller configurations if we are being pedantic) drones and not what they were normally called by the people using and making them in the hobby. My point still stands, the press likes to change the wording of things, and will perpetuate their narrative in order to garner views. Manufacturing fear is part of their tactic, and is why I replied what I replied to the question of why the press continues to push the false narrative of these cars being “self driving”.
It sure doesn’t say when that was updated,
This meaning probably dates back before you were born, as it’s use can be tracked back to at least early 19 hundreds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_unmanned_aerial_vehicles
I’m pretty sure I remember the word used in SciFi novels from the 70’s. where drones are mindless automatons a kind of primitive robots, very much in line with this description point 3:
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/droneMy point still stands
I don’t see that. it just seems you were ignorant of the actual meaning and use of the word.
Did they change it again? It was FSD Beta, then Supervised, now you’re telling me it’s ASSISTED? Since that’s not in TFA…
IDK I heard assisted, maybe they decided on supervised? The central point is that it’s illegal in some states to call it full self driving, because it’s false advertising.
Every time I hear something about pedestrian being killed by something self-driving, it begins to irk me as to why are we pushing for such and such technology.
Because it is generally proven to save lifes. You’ll never hear of “thanks for the auto-brake system no one got injured and everything was boring as usual” but it happened a lot (also to me in first person).
I don’t like Musk but in general its a good thing to push self driving cars IMO. I drive 2 hours per day and the amount of time where I see retarded people doing retarded stuff at the wheel is crazy.
This is the thing. Musk and everything his company does in terms of labour and marketing, and just their whole ethos is unethical as fuck, and I can’t stand that as a society we are celebrating Tesla.
But self driving cars are not inherently bad or dangerous to persue as a technological advancement.
Self driving cars will kill people, they’ll will hit pedestrians and crash into things.
So do cars driven by humans.
Human driven cars kill a lot of people.
Self driving cars need to be safer than human driven cars to even consider letting them on the the road, but we can’t truly expect a 0% accident rate on self driving cars in the early days of the technology when we don’t expect that of the humanity driven cars.
Air travel is generally safer than driving too, but every accident is studied thoroughly. Self-driving is fine, but anyone trying to implement it should be held to a high standard. Boeing slacked off and they’re facing some backlash.
No, it is not generally proven to save lives, you are listening to lies somewhere. Its not a good thing to push self-driving cars and Musk is the one being retarded. Plus he supports Trump and not Harris.
The technology behind it is proven to save lifes. The reaction time of a full brake to stop a car crash i had the “luck” of experiencing on a Volkswagen was outstanding.
Same thing for the lane assist function if you are sleepy
Same thing for the lane assist function if you are sleepy
If you are sleepy behind the wheel, you need to pull over, get off the road, and take a rest.
Thanks mom. I brought cases to prove my point I’m not saying you should go on a road trip while sleepy.
Because self-driving cars are safer than human drivers, when implemented properly. A proper one is absolutely loaded with sensors, radar, laser, sonar; not just some cameras like Tesla’s system.
If you ever get the chance to, hop in a Waymo and you’ll become a believer too (currently available only in Cali and AZ). These little robotaxis see everything at all times, not just what’s in front of them like humans. I trust them more than I’d trust any human driver. They can avoid accidents that you and I would never see coming. Witnessed this first-hand.
There is no proof they are safe, and we should stop trying to replace people.
Again, ride in one yourself when you get the chance and I promise you you’ll change your mind immediately.
Again, not only no valid proof they are safe, but they are being used to put people out of work like Taxi and Uber drivers.
It’s for the better. They will find other jobs. You sound like the people crying about coal mines being closed down.
In five years guys!!
I purchased FSD when it was 8k. What a crock of shit. When I sold the car, that was this only gave the car value after 110k miles and it was only $1500 at most.
Maybe have a safety feature that refuses to engage self drive if it’s too foggy/rainy/snowy.
Inb4 someone on TikTok shows how to bypass that sensor by jamming an orange in it -__-
Preventing engaging something in bad conditions is a lot easier than what do you do if the conditions suddenly happen.
If it’s suddenly foggy it needs to be able to handle the situation well.
Cameras/Lidar don’t work well in fog. Radar does, but it isn’t a primary sensor and can’t be driven on safely alone in any circumstance.
So now you need to slow down (which humans will do) but also since the sensors are failing or insufficient, safely get out of the way of what might be other incoming vehicles behind you, or slow/stopped vehicles ahead of you.
You could restrict hours the system can be engaged which will reduce the likely hood of certain events (e.g morning fog, or sunrise/sunset head on sun) but there’s still unpredictability.
They need to just ban this technolgy from cars and semis entirely.
Investigators will look into the ability of “Full Self-Driving” to “detect and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions
They will have to look long and hard…
