April 6, 2018
Tesla car that crashed and killed driver was running on Autopilot, firm says 0
Company says driver took no action despite systems warnings in latest accident involving self-driving technology
Tesla has said a car that crashed in California last week, killing its driver, was operating on Autopilot.
The 23 March crash on highway 101 in Mountain View is the latest accident to involve self-driving technology. Earlier this month, a self-driving Volvo SUV that was being tested by the ride-hailing service Uber struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona.
Federal investigators are looking into the California crash, as well a crash in January of a Tesla Model S that may have been operating under the Autopilot system.
In a blogpost, Tesla said the driver of the sport-utility Model X that crashed in Mountain View, 38-year-old Apple software engineer Wei Huang, had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the drivers hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision.
The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken.
Tesla also said the concrete highway divider had previously been damaged, increasing its impact on the car. The vehicle also caught fire, though Tesla said no one was in the vehicle when that happened.
The company said its Autopilot feature can keep speed, change lanes and self-park but requires drivers to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel, in order to be able to take control and avoid accidents.
Autopilot does not prevent all accidents, Tesla said, but it does make them less likely.
No one knows about the accidents that didnt happen, Tesla said, only the ones that did. The consequences of the public not using Autopilot, because of an inaccurate belief that it is less safe, would be extremely severe.
There are about 1.25 million automotive deaths worldwide. If the current safety level of a Tesla vehicle were to be applied, it would mean about 900,000 lives saved per year.
The company added that it care[s] deeply for and feel[s] indebted to those who chose to put their trust in us. However, we must also care about people now and in the future whose lives may be saved if they know that Autopilot improves safety.
None of this changes how devastating an event like this is or how much we feel for our customers family and friends. We are incredibly sorry for their loss.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/31/tesla-car-crash-autopilot-mountain-view
April 7, 2018
Elon Musk just took charge of Model 3 production, saying its his most critical job right now 0
by MeDaryl • Cars • Tags: elon musk, tesla
You can probably argue over whether it’s a good or a bad sign, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed on Twitter today a report in The Information that he has taken over direct control of the division that’s producing Tesla’s Model 3 electric sedan after the company failed to meet the delivery goals it had set.
Specifically, Tesla had intended to produce 500 Model 3 cars per day, or 2,500 per week, by the end of last month. But according to a company-wide email to employees that was sent today and obtained by Jalopnik, Musk said Tesla has been making closer to 2,000 of the cars per week. (Musk estimated last July that Tesla would be making 20,000 of the cars per month by December.)
In his email — fired off at 3 am. PDT — Musk added that if “things go as planned today, we will comfortably exceed that number over a seven day period!”
Musk may have been referring in part to the reorganization. But while The Information reported that Musk had seemingly “pushed aside the company’s senior vice president of engineering, Doug Field, who had been overseeing manufacturing in recent months,” Musk quickly took issue with that characterization of events.
He complained on Twitter to Information reporter Amir Efrati, “Can’t believe you’re even writing about this. My job as CEO is to focus on what’s most critical, which is currently Model 3 production. Doug, who I regard as one of the world’s most talented engineering execs, is focused on vehicle engineering.”
Musk continued, tweeting: “About a year ago, I asked Doug to manage both engineering & production. He agreed that Tesla needed [engineering and production to be] better aligned, so we don’t design cars that are crazy hard to build. Right now, tho, better to divide & conquer, so I’m back to sleeping at factory. Car biz is hell …”
That Musk is feeling sensitive to press reports right now won’t come as a surprise to anyone who follows the company, given the string of negative publicity that Tesla has received in recent weeks.
In addition to a voluntary recall of 123,000 Model S vehicles that owes to a problem with the power-steer component of some of the cars, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last week launched an investigation into the role of Tesla’s Autopilot in a fatal crash.
In fact, in a series of separate tweets today, Musk responded to the National Transportation Safety Board, a safety agency that said it was “unhappy” with Tesla’s decision on Friday to publish a blog post about the accident, given that investigations are ongoing.
In that post, Tesla said the driver, since identified as an Apple engineer, “had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision.” The company also noted that a highway safety barrier that might have lessened the impact of the collision had been “crushed in a prior accident without being replaced.”
The suggestion was plainly that Tesla can’t be blamed, at least not entirely, for the fatality.
In response to the NTSB’s newly public frustration over the release of these details by Tesla, Musk wrote on Twitter today, “Lot of respect for NTSB, but NHTSA regulates cars, not NTSB, which is an advisory body. Tesla releases critical crash data affecting public safety immediately & always will. To do otherwise would be unsafe.”
Tesla closed down 5.1 percent at $252.48 in trading today.
Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/02/elon-musk-just-took-charge-of-model-3-production-saying-its-his-most-critical-job-right-now/