Another driver says Tesla’s autopilot failed to brake; Tesla says otherwise | Hacker News Reader

Another driver says Tesla’s autopilot failed to brake; Tesla says otherwise

arstechnica.com

10 pointsmbrubeck7 comments

I'd call that a fundamental fail - hitting the brakes has to be a more nuanced event than simply disabling autopilot.

Then they go one to essentially disavow autopilot - "...but it does not turn a Tesla into an autonomous vehicle and does not allow the driver to abdicate responsibility."

There are air incidents in which the pilots were unclear about whether their autopilot was in charge or they were. That's extremely dangerous.

I agree with you. Touching the brakes should not completely disable autopilot. The aviation industry has a term for this sort of error, a Mode Error. If it is unclear what mode the vehicle is in (semi-autonomous mode, or full manual mode) there will be times when the user assumes they are in one mode when in fact they are in the other. Having the change in modes be as subtle as tapping the brakes makes this type of user error very likely.

I think Tesla needs to impose some very clear indicators when they are in autopilot mode vs manual mode (lights on the A pillars, etc.). They also need to revisit what exactly disables autopilot mode. Tapping the brakes should not disengage auto braking for example, only accelerating should do that.

Touching controls should disable autopilot - what's not reasonable is the car failing to apply the emergency brakes to avoid an upcoming collision, regardless of whether autopilot is enabled or not.

Disabling autopilot can also be dangerous. Perhaps someone in the future puts the autopilot in a highway at 100mph, and few minutes later one kids plays with the manual brake ...

There was a similar accident in Aeroflot Flight 593 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_593

> With the autopilot active, Kudrinsky, against regulations, let the children sit at the controls. First his daughter Yana took the pilot's left front seat. Kudrinsky adjusted the autopilot's heading to give her the impression that she was turning the plane, though she actually had no control of the aircraft. Shortly thereafter Eldar occupied the pilot's seat.[4] Unlike his sister, Eldar applied enough force to the control column to contradict the autopilot for 30 seconds. This caused the flight computer to switch the plane's ailerons to manual control while maintaining control over the other flight systems. A silent indicator light came on to alert the pilots to this partial disengagement. The pilots, who had previously flown Russian-designed planes which had audible warning signals, apparently failed to notice it.

Aeroflot Flight 593 Crash Animation + CVR : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrttTR8e8-4

Planes make an annoying horn blast when it goes out of autopilot. Maybe that's necessary.

Sensor data will have an interesting effect on insurance claims. There's always an unbiased witness who may not have the full information, but has much more than anyone else.

That's just the interim period before full autonomy. Does anyone know how insurance claims are handled in collisions between fully autonomous cars?

Sensor data will have an interesting effect on insurance claims. There's always an unbiased witness who may not have the full information, but has much more than anyone else.

What's "unbiased" information? For example if the user (driver) had the wrong model of the new cruise control she may have done what she considered correct. And if she didn't understand, was it her problem for lack of consulting the manual in detail, or the company's for not explaining it properly?

> That's just the interim period before full autonomy. Does anyone know how insurance claims are handled in collisions between fully autonomous cars?

As soon as full autonomy is better than humans, the insurance companies will really push for it. In this context it makes sense for the liability to go with the manufacturer / software developer in the case of an unmodified vehicle, both because it aligns incentives correctly and because any patch can be immediately rolled out to the entire fleet.

(I presume individuals won't buy cars at all)

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