[Dprglist] Tesla crash

Wed Apr 4 10:49:37 PDT 2018

Ezra,

Thank you for correcting my reading of Tesla's statistics. The numbers Tesla showed for this year's fatality are much higher than the numbers for the 2016 fatality, and I thought they had cooked the numbers. My mistake.

Tesla's appeal to statistics bothers me because the numbers are not yet significant, and the numbers are like saying the Shuttle System was successful because it failed with the predicted loss of two orbiters.

But that's not my point. I muddied my point with the stat stuff.

There is no excuse for running an autonomous vehicle into a fixed obstacle. Allowing such behavior does not improve safety. It makes no sense. That's my only point.

Thanks for pointing out my error on the stats.

John Swindle

The following is just a summary of Tesla's quotations about the statistics:

>From Tesla's June 30, 2016 release:

"This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles."

>From a Dow Jones report on July 1, 2016:

"Tesla contends its system is safer than conventional automobiles, noting the crash was the first fatality in over 130 million miles driven with Autopilot and that the feature "results in a statistically significant improvement in safety when compared to purely manual driving.""

>From Tesla's March 30, 2018 release about their most recent fatality:

"In the US, there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers. For Tesla, there is one fatality, including known pedestrian fatalities, every 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware. If you are driving a Tesla equipped with Autopilot hardware, you are 3.7 times less likely to be involved in a fatal accident."

-----Original Message-----
From: Ezra Christensen <ezracc at gmail.com>
To: John Swindle <swindle at compuserve.com>; davida <davida at smu.edu>; dprglist <dprglist at dprg.org>
Sent: Sat, Mar 31, 2018 6:59 pm
Subject: Re[2]: [Dprglist] Tesla crash

"This time, they upped the statistic by about 10 times over the stat they used in their previous fatality, when in fact the stats are at least twice as bad as before."

How do you figure?

The statistics used in car deaths; autonomous, tech-assisted, or no-tech; are fatalities per 100 million miles driven. This is the 2nd fatality in a Tesla. That doesn't mean "twice as bad". You have to calculate the total number of miles driven with the tech-assist on. 

There was less time between customers having access to auto-pilot and the first fatality than between the 1st and 2nd fatality. With technology adoption curves and other actual maths, 10x safer is possible.

But let's stick with the bad math, start nose planting people into their dash boards, and cause rear-ends - just to be safe - because this one person, who was given repeated warnings and plenty of time to take control, didn't.

------ Original Message ------
From: "John Swindle via DPRGlist" <dprglist at lists.dprg.org>
To: davida at smu.edu; dprglist at dprg.org
Sent: 3/31/2018 12:22:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Dprglist] Tesla crash

Why didn't the car nose-plant the driver on the windshield with a rib-crushing panic stop? Brakes are always far, far more powerful than engines, and those cars can accelerate wonderfully, so they can stop even better. Even if it began a panic stop and could not avoid the obstacle, the energy would be far less, and it's better to chance being rear-ended than to definitely hit something.

A friend's Toyota truck nose-plants me when someone crosses our lane half a block away. Makes no sense for Uber and Tesla to not force panic stops. 

Makes no sense.

Also, Tesla is once again touting their safety record. This time, they upped the statistic by about 10 times over the stat they used in their previous fatality, when in fact the stats are at least twice as bad as before.

Makes no sense.

Just don't hit anything. Anything. Learn to stop. No need to special-case tens of thousands of conditions. Just don't hit anything.

John Swindle

-----Original Message-----
From: David Anderson via DPRGlist <dprglist at lists.dprg.org>
To: dprglist <dprglist at dprg.org>
Sent: Sat, Mar 31, 2018 11:56 am
Subject: [Dprglist] Tesla crash

New statement from Tesla about last week's fatal crash:

<https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week%E2%80%99s-accident>

TL;DR summary: Autopilot was engaged but did not respond, three hands on 
wheel warnings were given to driver.

-dpa

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