Tesla confirms "Autopilot" crash in Montana - <AUTHOR> http://www.ktvq.com/story/32427989/tesla-confirms-autopilot-crash-in-montana <comment><USER2> With three accidents on "autopilot" in a short period, the defects in Tesla's design are becoming clear.

1\. Tesla's "hands on wheel" enforcement is much weaker than their competitors. BMW, Volvo, and Mercedes have similar systems, but after a few seconds of hands-off-wheel, the vehicle will start to slow. Tesla allows minutes of hands-off time; one customer reports driving 50 miles without touching the wheel. Tesla is operating in what I've called the "deadly valley" \- enough automation that the driver can zone out, but not enough to stay out of trouble.

The fundamental assumption that the driver can take over in an emergency may be bogus. Google's head of automatic driving recently announced that they tested with 140 drivers and rejected semi-automatic driving as unsafe. It takes seconds, not milliseconds, for the driver to recover situational awareness and take over.

2\. Tesla's sensor suite is inadequate. They have one radar, at bumper height, one camera at windshield-top height, and some sonar sensors useful only during parking. Google's latest self-driving car has five 3D LIDAR scanners, plus radars and cameras. Volvo has multiple radars, one at windshield height, plus vision. A high-mounted radar would have prevented the collision with the semitrailer, and also would have prevented the parking accident where a Tesla in auto park hit beams projecting beyond the back of a truck.

Tesla is getting depth from motion vision, which is cheap but flaky. It cannot range a uniform surface.

3\. Tesla's autopilot behavior after a crash is terrible. It doesn't stop. In the semitrailer crash, the vehicle continued under power for several hundred feet after sheering off the top of the Tesla driving under the semitrailer. Only when it hit a telephone pole did the car stop.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike crash is disturbing, because it's the case the "autopilot" is supposed to handle - divided limited-access highway under good conditions. The vehicle hit a guard rail on the side of the road. That may have been an system failure. Too soon to tell.

The NTSB, the air crash investigation people, have a team investigating Tesla. They're not an enforcement agency; they do intensive technical analysis. Tesla's design decisions are about to go under the microscope used on air crashes.

Tesla's spin control is backfiring. They tried to blame the driver. They're being sued by the family of the dead driver, and being investigated by the NHTSA (the recall people), and the NTSB. In comparison, when a Google self- driving car bumped a bus at 2mph, Google admitted fault, took the blame, and Urmson gave a talk at SXSW showing the data from the sensors and discussing how the self-driving car misjudged the likely behavior of the bus.

<comment><USER3> >Tesla allows minutes of hands-off time; one customer reports driving 50 miles without touching the wheel.

>They tried to blame the driver.

In this incident, the driver was using autopilot in a fashion that it should not be; twisting road at high speed. The driver IS at fault.

>They're being sued by the family of the dead driver

This is no proof of anything. You can find a lawyer to sue anybody over anything.

>and being investigated by the NHTSA (the recall people), and the NTSB

Well, of course they are. They're supposed to. Again, no proof of anything Tesla did wrong.

I'm not saying there isn't a problem with this. I'm saying your reasoning is wrong.

I'm also curious as to how many autopilot sessions take place every day. If there have been three crashes, such as this where the driver is at fault, out of a million then that's one thing not considered so far.

<comment><USER4> >In this incident, the driver was using autopilot in a fashion that it should not be; twisting road at high speed. The driver IS at fault.

I disagree on this point. In any system that's supposed to be sophisticated enough to drive the car and but also carries a giant caveat like "except in these common driving situations..." failure is not instantly down to "user error." Such a system should gracefully refuse to take over if it's not running on an interstate or another "simple enough" situation; otherwise, as many have noted, the threshold for "is the driver paying sufficient attention" should be set much, much lower.

That the system is lulling the users into bad decisions is not automatically the fault of said user. Some blame, maybe most of the blame, has to fall on the autopilot implementation. When lives are on the line, design should err on the side of overly-restrictive, not "we trust the user will know when not to use this feature and if they are wrong it is their fault."

<comment><USER5> It's not lulling anybody into anything! The guy was given multiple warnings by the car that what he was doing was unsafe. The last of which was extremely pertinent to the crash. To quote the article, "As road conditions became increasingly uncertain, the vehicle _again_ alerted the driver to put his hands on the wheel". This is after the initial alerts telling him that he needs to remain vigilant while using this feature. This isn't some burden of knowledge on when to use and when not to use the system, it's plenty capable of knowing when it's not operating at peak performance and lets you know. At _that_ point, I'm willing to shift blame to the driver.

<comment><USER4> I just want to see "the vehicle again alerted the driver to put his hands on the wheel" followed by "and Autopilot then pulled to the side of the road, turned on the hazard lights, and _required_ the driver to take over."

<comment><USER6> so far we have been lucky the accidents have only impacted the driver. is it going to take the first accident where an autopilot car kills another innocent driver before people see the problem?

<comment><USER7> When autopilot kills more innocent drivers than other drivers you can point me to a problem. Time will tell if it is better or worse and the track record up until May/June was going pretty well.

I'd rather 10 innocent people die to freak autopilot incidents than 1,000 innocent people die because people in general are terrible at operating a 2,000-3,500lb death machine. Especially because everyone thinks of themselves as a good driver. It's fairly obvious not everyone is a good driver - and that there are more bad drivers than good.

Maybe I only see things that way because there have been four deaths in my family due to unaware drivers which could have easily been avoided by self- driving vehicles. All of them happened during the daytime, at speeds slower than 40mph, and with direct line of sight. Something sensors would have detected and braked to avoid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wrote this on a previously buried thread:

Naming their system "autopilot" goes beyond the marketing dept overstepping and into the territory of irresponsibility.

The "average" definition of autopilot per Wikipedia is "autopilot is a system used. . . WITHOUT CONSTANT 'HANDS-ON' control by a human operator being required."

And yet Tesla's disclaimer states:

"Tesla requires drivers to remain engaged and aware when Autosteer is enabled. Drivers must keep their hands on the steering wheel."(2)

The disconnect between the name and the actual function is needlessly confusing and probably irresponsible.

They should change the name to "driver assist" or something more accurate given that mis-interpreting the system's function can lead to death of the driver or others.

(1) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot)

(2) [https://www.teslamotors.com/presskit/autopilot](https://www.teslamotors.com/presskit/autopilot)

<comment><USER9> If it's a good enough name for airplanes, it's a good enough names for cars. Both require users to be ready to take control at any moment.

<comment><USER10> Pilots (require certification and extensive training) are different from car drivers.

<comment><USER11> Flying a plane is more difficult, therefore requires more training. But driving a car requires licensing (certification) and training.

<comment><USER12> I had to pass a 20 question multiple choice test, drive at 15mph on a short course and parallel park to get my license at 17 years old. That was my only certification process. Unless laws change, I will never have to go through a training or certification process again in my life.

Comparing pilot certification to that of a driver's is disingenuous.

<comment><USER11> Thankfully, it's not that easy in all countries. For my test, 3 failures in any category was an instant fail. It's fairly hard to pass the first time.

Although if US drivers are so untrained, perhaps auto-pilot is even more relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's sad. I am a big fan of Tesla and had/still have very high hopes from them, but it's decreasing. It seems Tesla is hell-bent on committing suicide. This way, they don't need the fossil-fuel car lobby to destroy them. The BMW, Volkswgen and the likes of _dirty-gas-guzzlers-producers_ would be chuckling now.

Why the hell are they so bullish on auto-pilot? I cannot see any sense in it. They must just concentrate more on the battery, charging-stations and efficiency/performance part of the equation. Instead, I am seeing more efforts are being thrown in not-so-relevant areas and that too aggressively.

Semi-automatic auto-pilot is the idea rejected even by Google. Tesla should learn fast and get back to its core business: battery powered electric cars, period and not the battery powered _automatic_ electric cars.

I'd be happy if they prove this wrong.

edit: many typos and grammatical mistakes, sorry.

<comment><USER14> > The BMW, Volkswgen and the likes of dirty-gas-guzzlers-producers would be > chuckling now.

Why? Autonomous cars =/= electric cars

<comment><USER13> With Tesla in the picture, there is a lot of pressure on the BMW, Volkswagen etc to invest in the EV technology. So they would be chuckling now because with Tesla getting out of the competition (or with Tesla becoming weaker), they would have an easier task pushing their _dirty-gas-guzzlers_ and of getting loads of _easy profits_.

With Tesla out, they can even squash the entire electric car efforts altogether and will plunder the money thus "saved" in the form of _fat bonuses_ to the higher-ups (ala Volkswagen style), which they would have to invest in EV research otherwise.

I may seem exaggerating, but with the recent Volkswagen _pollution scandal_ , many will agree with this. Tesla is better, Elon Musk is better in terms of innovation and their direction seems more promising for the public good. They are disrupting the fossil fuel giants who are hellbent in garnering as much money as they can at whatever costs.

I know I may (turn out to) be a foolish naive believing too much in Tesla and Musk, but I find myself helpless here.

<comment><USER14> > Tesla is better, Elon Musk is better

Perhaps you live in a bubble, as most car makers barely raise an eyebrow over tesla as a competitor so far. Making tonloads of batteries is not necessarily better than making efficient, safe and less polluting "gas guzzlers".

From the outside, it seems there is a push to revive the american car industry through EV, supported by lenient and eager to see results US regulators. Of course, time will tell, and in the process hopefully we will all have safer and eco-friendly cars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't understand why Tesla is allowed to release a safety critical system on to the roads when it requires buyers to acknowledge its not-finishedness. They're putting beta systems into an uncontrolled environment. No driver in the nearby lanes has been given that choice.

<comment><USER16> Am I the only one that thinks people should be held responsible for their own choices?

This argument is completely bogus. No driver in the nearby lanes is aware the other driver is drunk, a bad driver or emotionally unstable.

The entire idea of beta testing is to have your system on an "uncontrolled environment". The system has bugs, as any beta system does, and whoever uses it should be fully responsible for it. Yes, fully responsible.

Tell me what's the difference between using a beta system and not caring (leaving hands off the wheel, etc) and drunk driving? On both situations the driver is choosing to put everyone at risk, nobody knows about the fact until after an incident and if there is an incident, who's fault is that? The beer company? The car company?

If the driver assistance made cars crash because it ignored a command from the driver or something like that, then sure... it's 100% Tesla's fault. But clearly on all of these accidents the drivers were careless to the extreme by leaving hands off the wheel for several minutes.

We can discuss if they should try to improve how they handle people that remove their hands from the wheel, but that doesn't change the fact that ultimately the choice to be careless was made by the driver, not the car manufacturer.

<comment><USER17> "Tell me what's the difference between using a beta system and not caring (leaving hands off the wheel, etc) and drunk driving?"

The latter is a clearly defined criminal offence whereas the former is currently unclear. While the driver is certainly liable for reckless driving, that the marketing seems to have suggested that the feature is usable, is a fact.

<comment><USER16> And does that remove the driver's responsibility?

<comment><USER18> Does it remove Tesla's responsibility?

You're literally now comparing Autopilot to criminal offenses and asking if it should be allowed, seems like you're suggesting Autopilot should be illegal.

Sure, drivers suck, this is a known bug in humans. I'd like to see Autopilot changed to counteract the human limitation rather than acting like humans should be perfect for a system to work.

This is how you get into bad UI design ("it is NOT my UI that sucks, the users just don't understand it! Read the manual!"). Except in this case people can literally die.

<comment><USER17> What's criminal is abuse of autopilot, not itself. Just like with alcohol, drink whatever you like, just don't get behind the wheel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > "As road conditions became increasingly uncertain, the vehicle again alerted > the driver to put his hands on the wheel," said Tesla. "He did not do so and > shortly thereafter the vehicle collided with a post on the edge of the > roadway."

If the autopilot's confidence was dropping that rapidly, why did it not slow the vehicle? If it hits zero confidence it should halt completely until the driver restarts the car in manual mode, and possibly disable itself until checked out.

<comment><USER20> I think you'll find suddenly braking in the middle of the road poses its own dangers.

<comment><USER21> The "Autopilot" (aka Lane Assist) of my VW does that. If you don't get your hands on the wheel after it wants you to do (which is about 10-15s) and after a first warning it will hit the brakes with a lot of power for the fraction of a second.

So it's not actually stopping but giving you a clear signal that you should do something and would wake you up if you fell asleep. I don't know if it will come to a stop if you also ignore this warning, because it's not something you want to test with other participants on the road behind you.

I think that's the important difference: This system actively disencourages the driver from fully relying on the system while Teslas implementation does not seem to do it.

<comment><USER22> Apologize for not googling this myself: what mechanisms do autopilot programs have for detecting traffic conditions behind them, in terms of camera/radar/algorithms? Are they less robust than the mechanisms governing detection in front of the vehicle?

<comment><USER21> I guess the current lane-assisting and adaptive cruise control systems don't do anything at all. Most cars only have ultrasonic parking sensors in the back and probably a parking camera which both don't have any range. They probably rely on the fact that vehicles behind them should drive in the normal safety distance and that following cars are responsible for avoiding rear end collisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is going to keep happening until Tesla change their approach from a move- fast-and-break-things startup philosophy to sound engineering one that puts safety in design front-and-centre.

Traditional real-world enigneers have been drilled in this for longer than living memory. When the software guys decide to bring their software appraoches to the real world, this is what happens.

From 12 days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12013713](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12013713)

<comment><USER24> You do know Tesla has the highest safety rating of any car ever rated in history right? [https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/tesla-model-s-achieves- best...](https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/tesla-model-s-achieves-best-safety- rating-any-car-ever-tested)

<comment><USER25> Er - that is wrong.

2014 Model S got 5-star/82%[0] (where 100% is best) adult occupant protection on EuroNCAP. For comparison, the smaller, lighter, cheaper 2015 Honda Jazz got 5-star/93%[1]

Other cars are significantly better than this [2]. E.g. 2016 Alfa Romeo Giulia 5-star/98%, 2016 Toyota Prius 5-star/92%, 2015 Volvo XC90 5-star/97%, 2014 Porsche Macan 5-star/88%. I could go on, but the Model S is not the safest car ever tested - it has approximately the same level of crashworthiess as the 2014 Smart Fortwo (4-star/82%) [3] according to EuroNCAP when looking at adult occupant safety.

Cars have come a long way in the past decade or two though - its amazing to see "small" cars like the Jazz where they dont even get a cracked windscreen when basically driving into a wall at 40mph. For comparison check out the 2000 Citroen Saxo fold up like a tin can... [http://www.euroncap.com/en/ratings- rewards/latest-safety-rat...](http://www.euroncap.com/en/ratings- rewards/latest-safety-ratings/en/results/citro%C3%ABn/saxo/15511)

[0] - [http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/tesla/model-s/7897](http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/tesla/model-s/7897)

[1] - [http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/honda/jazz/21484](http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/honda/jazz/21484)

[2] - [http://www.euroncap.com/](http://www.euroncap.com/)

[3] - [http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/smart/fortwo/7894](http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/smart/fortwo/7894)

<comment><USER26> The differences between the Tesla and the Jazz are a bit strange. The main difference in score between the two appears to be the side impact from a pole - which is all 'good' for the Jazz, but it was 'weak' for the Tesla in the body section. But if you look at the two videos of the cars, after the pole crash, Tesla is almost completely intact (29 kph) [1] and the Jazz is half destroyed (32 kph) [2]. The Jazz impact was 10% faster - but the difference in damage is remarkable.

It's also worth noting that where as this child rating is higher for the Jazz - the actual 'Crash Test Performance' was rated as Good for the Tesla but Adequate for the Jazz. The lower test score for the Tesla is because they don't have Isofix installed.

      [1]: https://youtu.be/7uhhYKJWEBw?t=1m4s
      [2]: https://youtu.be/PHptsZglju8?t=2m18s

<comment><USER27> The point of a crash test is not to show that the vehicle is super rigid and impervious to damage. It is to show that a human inside the car is safe. To that end, the car _should_ "crumple." It shouldn't remain 100% rigid, and it should fall apart like tissue paper. It should absorb as much kinetic energy as possible so that the human doesn't have to.

The Jazz is doing the right thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Nobody reads manuals and follows instructions . I feel Tesla is going to learn this lesson that hard way.

From the article:

"We specifically advise against its use at high speeds on undivided roads," it said. Tesla states clearly in its owner's manual that drivers should stay alert and keep their hands on the wheel to avoid accidents when the Autopilot feature is engaged.

<comment><USER29> > drivers should stay alert and keep their hands on the wheel

What is then the point of having an autopilot?

<comment><USER30> And this is why I don't think they should call it "autopilot". The name is misleading, imo

<comment><USER31> How about"copilot"?

<comment><USER32> CoPilot? Someone who can completely take over for you when you're feeling tired. Compared to an Autopilot which requires pilot or skipper supervision I think copilot would be a far worse term if it weren't for the fact that the name doesn't really matter too much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Tesla needs (or is going to be forced) to issue a recall soon. Putting "beta" technology in a car isn't OK when it puts drivers and others on the road in danger. This is especially problematic because people have a preconceived notion of what "auto pilot" means and just because Tesla says it's not ready for prime time so therefore you should "keep your hands on the wheel" doesn't make it OK to put into production.

<comment><USER34> I thought the entire autopilot could be replaced with an over-the-air software update?

<comment><USER35> See the comments above, if the sensor suite is insufficient, over-the-air software updates won't help.

<comment><USER36> But OTA updates can disable the feature, which is the essential safety response right now. Even if they _wanted_ to recall and add sensors, I don't think that would make this system safe enough - the bigger issue is the human factor involved in a not-quite-good-enough autonomous vehicle.

<comment><USER35> With the PS/Linux decision, not sure they can just 'disable' the feature.

<comment><USER36> Not sure exactly to what you're referring, but if it involves hacking your Tesla to re-enable it,

a) that will vastly reduce the level of usage, and b) the OTA update could very well completely remove the code from storage, making the job of hacking a much more involved process than just enabling a flag.

<comment><USER37> Sony is settling a class-action suit with people who bought PS3s while relying on the "Other OS" feature. So, it's not about technical ability to re-enable the Autopilot feature; it's about being liable to their customers who relied on the feature being present when they shelled out $70k+.

<comment><USER36> Ah. Indeed. I suspect that if they do disable this, though, it'll be my NTSB mandate, so they won't have much of a choice - similar to the VW thing. They might _then_ have to deal with the resulting lawsuits, but I can see many scenarios where they don't have a chance to avoid them. Tesla _did_ , after all, sell a product with an advertised feature that isn't ready for prime- time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Musk is losing its mind. Blaming the user won't work long with life critical systems. Unless he expects backing from the NRA, putting complex and dangerous devices that can't escape dangers themselves in the hands of the average joe will create incidents. And even if he's legally not to blame I don't think he's gonna sale cars long with such images in the public mind.

I hope he's not putting too much hubrys in the AutoPilot thing and try to enforce it at any cost. Soon there'll be so many corner cases, AP will only "best used while parked with nobody inside nor outside the car, preferably with engine stopped too".

The reason I liked Tesla/Musk before is that he pushed quality and safety Unconditionally. I'm starting to think it was mostly nerd honeymoon phase. Either revamp the logic (sensors-recall and software) or disable it.

</comment><comment><USER39> > "As road conditions became increasingly uncertain, the vehicle again alerted > the driver to put his hands on the wheel," said Tesla. "He did not do so and > shortly thereafter the vehicle collided with a post on the edge of the > roadway."

This is the real danger of autopilot: not that it is unreliable but that humans are lazy and don't think rare events (like dangerous situations that result in a crash without intervention) don't happen to them.

I'm not sure autopilot is a good middle ground between assistance and full automation exactly because of what these accidents show. It basically makes the typical ride so uneventful and mind-numbingly boring drivers stop paying attention and become unable to react appropriately when a dangerous situation does occur.

Cruise control had similar problems: it reduces speeding-related accidents (because drivers are less likely to micro-optimize their speed) but it increases the risk of rear-ending because drivers don't have to stay as alert for the majority of the driving (and then miss those situations in which they need to react quickly).

Humans are not good at staying attentive for extended periods of timing, especially when nothing ever happens. Self-driving cars can fix this by removing the need for human intervention, but autopilot seems like one of those technologies that should be safer in theory but ultimately fails to consider the human factor.

</comment><comment><USER40> > "No force was detected on the steering wheel for over two minutes after > autosteer was engaged," said Tesla, which added that it can detect even a > very small amount of force, such as one hand resting on the wheel."

Why doesn't the "autopilot" turn off if no hands are detected on the wheel?

<comment><USER41> Well the whole autopilot feature is silly if you need to keep your hands on the wheel. Then you might as well steer yourself, or am I missing something? (I don't know details about this feature, I just know it steers automatically on highways.)

Until full driver attention is no longer needed, enabling "autopilot" and saying in the manual "PS. you still need to stay as alert as you normally would _and_ keep your hands on the wheel" (i.e. no benefits from having this feature) is just asking for accidents.

Imagine, as you suggest, it does turn off when there's no hand on the wheel. People are just going to rest a hand on it and still not pay attention. What's the next step, tracking people's eyes? Or shall we just not enable autopilot in the first place, if it can't do its only job?

<comment><USER42> I think the value of "autopilot" for me would come in increased awareness when my attention is fading. When I'm coming home at 2AM from a gig and the road is long, straight, flat, and boring, my attention wanders. Sure, I start out strong, but soon my eyes just don't focus correctly anymore. I roll down the windows and turn up the radio to stay awake but sometimes I don't realize how I got from here to there.

That 30 minute trip could end in disaster or, using something like "autopilot", it could end with me pulling into my garage without issue. I tend to think that it will be _very_ useful in these types of situations.

<comment><USER43> > Sure, I start out strong, but soon my eyes just don't focus correctly > anymore. I roll down the windows and turn up the radio to stay awake but > sometimes I don't realize how I got from here to there.

I understand what you're saying, and that it is unlikely that something will happen, but Tesla still recommends full attention in this scenario. You need to be fully attentive at all times when driving, even with an assisted driving system. Tesla states this clearly in their manual. If something were to come across the road that the car were not prepared for, it may beep at you, or it may not.

This seems to be what happened to the Florida driver. He likely did not think he was abusing the system. He probably crossed that road hundreds of times before on autopilot as part of a commute. And, neither the driver nor the system pushed the brake.

If I were you and got into an accident, I know afterwards my brain would search for a reason why this happened and how I can help it not happen again both to me and to others. The solution is to not drive when tired, and to use the system as designed. An additional thing we can do is put in a few measures to check that the driver is still alert, like requiring hands on the wheel at more frequent intervals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Autonomous vehicles will require engineering that's more like NASA and less like weekend hackathon. Given Musk's association with SpaceX, I was hopeful we'd get the former, but it's starting to look like an autopilot solution was released half-baked.

The current SV engineering climate -- youth beats experience, move fast and break things, release early and often -- works great for photo sharing apps but not great when lives are at stake.

<comment><USER27> Actually I think SpaceX and NASA do think quite differently about things. NASA has to engineer toward maintaining their national mandate. Every launch is a PR game targeting the American public and congress. SpaceX instead has to worry about keeping customers happy. I think SpaceX has a simpler job there. Sourcing, manufacturing, deployment, insurance, etc. all seem simpler for a private company. They're shown that they're not shy about breaking their toys once the customers payload is off if they think they have a good chance of learning something.

SpaceX hasn't had people in their vehicles yet. Maybe they're be more careful when they do. Or maybe not. I can't find the quote right now but I think it was Sagan who said that part of what makes exploration so captivating is that it is dangerous, maybe we shouldn't make safety the number one priority because it might slacken our awe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> From the Article:

 _> The driver in Montana was headed from Seattle to Yellowstone National Park when he crashed on a two-lane highway near Cardwell. ..."It's a winding road going through a canyon, with no shoulder"_

From the Tesla Owners Manual:

 _> Traffic-Aware Cruise Control is primarily intended for driving on dry, straight roads, such as highways and freeways._

...

 _> Autosteer is particularly unlikely to operate as intended in the following situations:

• When driving on hills.

• The road has sharp curves or is excessively rough._

<comment><USER46> Can autopilot not tell a straight road from a curvy road? If it can, why does it apply throttle when it detects that it is driving in a type of road it cannot handle?

<comment><USER47> A driver is still supposed to remain alert and have their hands on the wheel, this allows Tesla to collect telemetry on autopilot so it _CAN_ work on improving the software to handle these conditions better. I think the flaw here is the hands-on requirement is much more lenient than it should be, if it allowed the driver to keep their hands off for two full minutes (it _is_ supposed to slow down if a driver isn't keeping their hands on the wheel) then I'd say that's a very poor design choice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I can't even use my car's (Mazda) built in GPS without the car being in park. And yet Tesla allows autopilot without hands on the wheel? Insane.

<comment><USER43> You have to call your product "disruptive" to get the free pass

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Hindsight is 20/20, no pun intended. Why was this shipped at all? I mean the self-driving features. This has now done way too much long-term damage and impacted all self-driving initiatives across the board. Just like they opened up their patents to benefit everyone everywhere by ushering the age of low/zero-emission vehicles they should have done the same for the self-driving features. This should have baked in the lab for another 3-5 years.

</comment><comment><USER50> "It's a winding road going through a canyon, with no shoulder," Shope told CNNMoney. The driver told Shope the car was in Autopilot mode, traveling between 55 and 60 mph"

Wow, really?

This is not the Autosteer's fault, it's pure negligence

<comment><USER51> If the autopilot couldn't safely handle going 55-60mph, it should have slowed down to speeds that it could handle. If it couldn't safely handle those conditions, it should have safely slowed to a stop. Failing ungracefully is completely autopilot's (and Tesla's) fault.

<comment><USER52> 55-60 may be too fast for some of the curves in this area. There are curves with an advisory speed of 45-mph. From the description of road and the area, I would guess it is MT-2 between Cardwell and Three Forks (I live in this area).

[https://email@example.com,-111.9106714,3a,75y,...](https://email@example.com,-111.9106714,3a,75y,26.62h,80.69t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1snmhJ6A_zvKFmo2QkBLsViQ!2e0!7i3328!8i1664)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> > "We specifically advise against its use at high speeds on undivided roads," > it said. Tesla states clearly in its owner's manual that drivers should stay > alert and keep their hands on the wheel to avoid accidents when the > Autopilot feature is engaged.

Most people don't read the manual unless what they're doing actively doesn't work. Especially with press surrounding Autopilot saying it's basically the best self driving car and is completely trustworthy (even if they don't explicitly state that, it's still implied), it's not unthinkable that someone would completely trust the car and not worry about sensors. The car should be much more proactive at getting the user's attention, either by actively slowing the car down to some safe speed with cautions on and/or significantly lowering the time limit of taking their hand off the wheel before any indicators appear. I'm not sure about the former, but the latter is done in every other car that has this kind of technology (e.g. cars with Lane Assist) and the time is very low, around 10 seconds.

</comment><comment><USER54> The most glaring flaw here is the name - Autopilot. It gives the driver the impression this is a true self-driving system. I have seen videos of people sleeping in their Tesla while Autopilot is engaged. A more appropriate name might be "co-pilot"

</comment><comment><USER55> Ironically Tesla, a company willing to invest long-term in its products, chose short term revenue in the form of their Marketing team boasting of "autopilot" in their vehicles, in exchange for violating long-term public trust and responsibility.

</comment><comment><USER56> Tesla is getting hundreds of millions of miles logged for R&D on their autopilot feature. It makes a lot sense business wise to launch this tech when they did.

It's clear from their PR response with the semi-truck accident that they see fatalities as an acceptable consequence as long as they can say they have fewer accidents per mile than 'un-assisted' drivers.

The question is: do we share their belief that this is ethical?

</comment><comment><USER57> If the auto pilot calls for the driver to be on alert and place their hands on the wheel and the driver doesn't, surely the auto pilot should stop the car

</comment><comment><USER47> I really think Tesla needs to make autopilot's "hands-on" requirement less lenient, the driver had their hands off the wheel for a full two minutes and the car didn't bark at him? I think (maybe I'm wrong and the other non-fatal one did) this is the first incident where autopilot was involved with an inattentive driver, and probably the one that is going to put the screws to Tesla, unfortunately.

<comment><USER58> > this is the first incident where autopilot was involved with an inattentive > driver

The other (fatal) crash involved an inattentive driver watching a Harry Potter movie:

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla- dri...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla-driver- killed-autopilot-self-driving-car-harry-potter)

<comment><USER59> The latest data is that he was not watching anything.

The claim claim from the truck driver hoping to avoid responsibility for crossing a highway in an unsafe manner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> The real issue is whether or not "Autopilot" is safer than a human or not. If the number of deaths for similar road conditions per distance travelled are less then Tesla should be allowed to continue the way that they are doing things. It's obvious to me the way other systems do this (by slowing down if the user doesn't put his or her hands on the wheel frequently) leads to people not using the feature because it is less useful which may, paradoxically, leads people to have a worse driver at the wheel.

Just the stats, ma'am. Are they safer or not? If so, then it's fine by me. What we gain from self-driving cars in terms of real world usage data is extremely valuable.

<comment><USER61> instead of aiming for "the same number or slightly less" accidents than a human, why not have humans give oversight to prevent autopilot errors, and autopilot assist where humans might make a mistake?

actually try to let both computers and people excel where they do best, and massively decrease road accidents?

<comment><USER27> That sounds good to. I think 3pt14159's implicit question was, "should Tesla be allowed to continue doing this the way they want?" not "Is tesla take the best of all possible approaches to car automation?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Tesla should contact the design team which creates the manuals for Ikea to create a purely graphical "owners manual" clearly describing what the autopilot can and cannot do. Admittedly, a lot of the Tesla marketing seems to indicate otherwise, but the autopilot is just a very sophisticated lane and distance/speed assistant. It seems to handle the typical _freeway_ very well, but does not promise to handle most other driving situation.

For example, it does not handle any crossing traffic, nor stationary obstacles as well as debris on the road. Off the freeway it is entirely the responsibility of the driver to keep the car safe, the autopilot cannot (by design) handle most of the situations.

The discussion of having the hands on the wheel is a bit a red herring. Having the hands on the wheel limits the amount of distracting things you can do while driving, but the key point is paying attention to what is going on. Hands off on an empty highway, why not? But when a truck appears on the horizon with some potential to cross - better be prepared to take action. The same applies to small country roads, and especially when the autopilot starts to warn the driver.

</comment><comment><USER63> >"It's a winding road going through a canyon, with no shoulder," Shope told CNNMoney. The driver told Shope the car was in Autopilot mode, traveling between 55 and 60 mph ...

in SUV (Model X)... are people trying to win Darwin award?

<comment><USER64> Agree. I was shocked to read the actual speed it was going at. However, the insurance companies might be starting to worry.

</comment></comment><comment> obj-g I just _really_ don't understand the whole self-driving car craze. What is so attractive about it? Why do people want it so badly? Personally, I like driving, rarely even use cruise control. I would _never_ fully trust these auto-pilots. Ever. So what's the point? If I can't crawl into the backseat and take a nap and wake up at my destination, then what's the use?

<comment><USER65> I agree with these sentiments, but for slightly different reasons.

One of the main selling points is that commuters can save time (the focus on self driving cars, not trucks/rail). However, long commutes are mostly a constraint imposed by suburban sprawl and associated planning failures. The same applies to automated delivery mechanisms from shops, again of limited use in sufficiently dense communities. In such a scenario, this feels a lot like optimizing 1% of execution time in a program.

For large scale transport of goods or people, the same situation applies for the economics - the labor of the driver should be a small fraction of the operating costs. There could be some safety benefits, but this remains uncertain. I found [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-05-28/cars- will...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-05-28/cars-will-drive- themselves-before-freight-trains-do) quite interesting in this respect.

Seeing what happened with the invention of the automobile, I won't be surprised if self driving cars become the norm somehow. In the most extreme case there might be an outright ban on non autonomous cars at some point in the future. This is something I certainly don't look forward to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> IMHO, autopilot means "vehicle drives by itself without my involvement"...it's not autopilot if my hands have to be on the wheel. It seems that this technology is Cruise Control v2.

Having the hands on the wheel only gives the car manufacturers leverage in denying there is any problem on their end.

</comment><comment><USER67> What the hell is happening in this comment thread? Do we not all realize that, per-mile-driven, Tesla's auto pilot is _much_ safer than human driving?

I thought we were prepared to deal with the _inevitable_ crashes, but based on the chicken littles here, maybe I was wrong.

<comment><USER43> > Do we not all realize that, per-mile-driven, Tesla's auto pilot is much > safer than human driving?

Good question. It's not safer. Tesla's quoted statistic of one death per 94 million miles driven in the US is not as useful as it could be. That includes motorcycle deaths and roads and conditions in which the Tesla AP is not likely to be engaged. When you limit it to divided roads, the rate is more like 1 death per 150 million miles driven [1], which makes the Tesla less safe than your average American vehicle, and that still includes motorcycles.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4sgxv1/while_te...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4sgxv1/while_tesla_appears_surprised_over_criticism_of/d59eazl)

<comment><USER68> > Good question. It's not safer.

I think it is. Given the number of Autopilot miles driven, you'd only expect one death so far, so that we have one doesn't really tell us anything.

However, _injuries_ from car crashes are (fortunately!) much more common - roughly 60 times as likely. So you'd expect to have about 60 Autopilot incidents resulting in injury by now. I don't really keep up with Tesla news but, based on the reaction to this story (where the guy wasn't even injured), I'm going to assume the actual number of injuries is tiny.

What do you think?

<comment><USER43> > What do you think?

I think it's not safer based on existing data. Musk was pretty quick to tout that autopilot is safer over 100 million miles driven. It turns out his statistic was not as useful as it could have been. There was no mention of conditions in which autopilot is not likely to be engaged such as adverse weather or non-divided roads. Plus some deaths are from motorcycles, which, it seems, should somehow be excluded from the comparison.

On top of that, it might make more sense to compare the Tesla models' safety records to cars in a similar pricing class. Comparing a Tesla to a beater from 1990 isn't so useful. So there are different degrees of comparison. Tesla's headline-ready numbers do not tell the full story.

I don't feel badly about drawing different conclusions from the same data Tesla used in its response to the incident. I think they overlooked a few things. You're certainly free to intuit what you like.

> I don't really keep up with Tesla news but, based on the reaction to this > story (where the guy wasn't even injured), I'm going to assume the actual > number of injuries is tiny.

Tesla does not make this information available, so I don't think it is worth speculating. Effort would be better spent encouraging regulators to demand more detailed reports from companies that sell vehicles equipped with driver- assistance systems. Until all companies are required to report such information, Tesla is unlikely to do so. We can turn the screws on Tesla too, and I think they would be served by lobbying for tighter regulations to create a level and safe playing field for car companies and drivers alike, but I wouldn't count on them to spend much extra effort on holding themselves accountable in such a fashion. They're already having a tough time meeting their production demands, and Musk is still setting aggressive targets for complete autonomy that no other car company, including Google, is even close to. I think Musk has said full autonomy is 2 years out, whereas Google says it's between 3 and 30 years. Mobile Eye has a 5-10 year plan.

<comment><USER67> It sounds like you're willing to speculate/entertain assumptions (e.g. regarding miles of "relatable" road usage) when it harms Tesla, but not when it might help them.

<comment><USER43> Must every critical argument I make be balanced with something positive in order to demonstrate I'm not 100% against Tesla?

Tesla definitely done great things. They're just not front and center in the news at the moment.

I think it's best to look at the data or issues being discussed rather than some hidden motive. When I discuss politics, I don't just say "I'm voting for Billy", I try to say, "I like Billy's position on X because Y". Same thing here.

<comment><USER67> It's not about balance, it's about you willing to make guesses regarding the _bad_ things Tesla has done, and not make guesses about the potential _good_ things.

This isn't a "let's give 50% time to the creationists" kind of thing, this is a "let's not stretch only one side of the truth" kind of thing.

You said the equivalent of, "I'm voting for X because of my speculation about Y but I refuse to speculate about Z as it does not fit my current argument."

<comment><USER43> > It's not about balance, it's about you willing to make guesses regarding the > bad things Tesla has done, and not make guesses about the potential good > things.

You're being pedantic. I can wager guesses about good things too. They're just not pertinent to the focus of this article. Constructive criticism, for me, is a positive thing.

> You said the equivalent of, "I'm voting for X because of my speculation > about Y but I refuse to speculate about Z as it does not fit my current > argument."

I gave some raw analysis of the statistics drawn, further here [1], and all you can do is complain that I am somehow voting against Tesla. I never said any such thing. I said we should demand more transparency from them about accident data. I made some further speculation about Tesla's likelihood to do this on their own because it supports the argument that _we_ should be part of this conversation.

To expand on that, I think we should ask this of all companies that enable driver-assist. Currently, California requires monthly reports on accidents involving fully autonomous vehicles. I think it makes sense to do that for every car [2].

If you think Tesla and other companies will become more transparent and you don't feel the need to do anything, great, that's your prerogative.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12087603](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12087603)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12084226](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12084226)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I think lawsuits and government intervention will kill self driving cars for the next decade or two. Even if autonoumous are 10x better, thats still hundreds of deaths per year that will be attributed to a half dozen autonomous car maker's software.

<comment><USER43> Tesla's not the only one at this. Google still has a good program that nobody seems upset about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> For folks apologizing for Tesla: people ignore instructions and prompts from their computers or gadgets. That's not driver fault: it's a part of the design problem that engineers have to deal with. As an engineer, you take the world as you find it.

I had a professor in college who specialized in airplane cockpit design. Her philosophy was that everything is a design failure. If the pilot pushes the wrong button, the design must be fixed to keep that from happening. It would seem to me that principle applies with even more force when we're talking about consumer products operated by random people rather than trained pilots.

</comment><comment><USER71> I'd be interested to see how Google sees this.

Paving the way for autonomous driving by making crashes something that people expect sometimes?

Or putting people off autonomous driving by making people think crashes are not acceptable at all, ever?

<comment><USER43> Google has a completely different strategy. They're aiming for 100% automation via a more gradual testing process before making any sort of automation available to consumers.

I believe their thought is that the closer we get to complete automation, the less likely a driver is to remain aware. We're only at roughly 10% automation right now and drivers are already taking their eyes off the road. When we get to 90%, humans will have an even tougher time retaining attentiveness. Watch their talks to be sure.

Google's self driving car group gives some awesome transparency reports every month, including details about every accident [1]. It's like they're ready to become their own company.

Fortune had a good article critiquing Tesla's strategy vs. Google's and other car companies' [2]. The author says Tesla is being defensive and resistant to public critique. Other companies expect pushback from the public and incorporate that into their product offerings.

[1] [https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/](https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/)

[2] [http://fortune.com/2016/07/11/elon-musk-tesla-self- driving-c...](http://fortune.com/2016/07/11/elon-musk-tesla-self-driving- cars/)

<comment><USER72> > _Google 's self driving car group gives some awesome transparency reports > every month, including details about every accident_

Google isn't doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They have always been required by law to send autonomous vehicle accident reports to the DMV, which are made available to the public on the DMV's website.

[https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testi...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testing)

So _the transparency itself_ is mandatory. Google merely chose to control the message and get free PR by publishing an abbreviated summary on their website too. Judging by this comment, it's working!

For example, here's the full report on Google's accident in February, the first one where the autonomous car was the vehicle at fault: [https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/3946fbb8-e04e-4d52...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/3946fbb8-e04e-4d52-8f80-b33948df34b2/Google+Auto+LLC+02.14.16.pdf?MOD=AJPERES)

<comment><USER43> > So the transparency itself is mandatory. Google merely chose to control the > message and get free PR by publishing an abbreviated summary on their > website too. Judging by your comment, it's working!

Hahaha I guess so! :-D

There should be a similar requirement for transparency of driver-assist vehicles. Clearly, the companies are not giving this up themselves until they're all forced to do it at once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> "It's a winding road going through a canyon, with no shoulder"

Doesn't sound like the recommended use case for autopilot? I thought you were only supposed to use it on a limited-access throughway?

Anyway, good to hear no one died this time, but both of these accidents do sound like there's a lot of user culpability involved. It seems like it would be reasonable on Tesla's end, since all Teslas know where they are, to limit autopilot to only roadways where it is reasonable to use it.

</comment><comment><USER74> Can someone who has a Tesla answer this for me:

Does the autopilot routinely alert for short duration events where it's confused but the situation passes quickly and it's not a problem or is there a very low false positive rate and an alert is pretty much a guarantee that you'll need to take over?

Basically, does the system train you to ignore most alerts because of a high false positive ratio?

</comment><comment><USER75> _" It's a winding road going through a canyon, with no shoulder," Shope told CNNMoney. The driver told Shope the car was in Autopilot mode, traveling between 55 and 60 mph when it veered to the right and hit a series of wooden stakes on the side of the road._

Thank goodness no one was hurt.

But I have to ask, what was the driver thinking? Autopilot late at night on a winding mountain road with no shoulder?

A question for Tesla: Why isn't Autopilot disabled when it detects dangerous conditions? TFA said it alerted the driver to put hands on wheel. If there is no response, what is the protocol? At what point will the vehicle attempt to pull over and stop (for instance, in the event of a medical emergency or conditions are simply too dangerous)?

</comment><comment><USER41> What I don't understand is why Tesla doesn't whitelist roads where this feature can be used, since the manual sets very specific conditions. Especially given that the feature is currently enabled, they must know which roads work with high confidence values.

Or assume they wanted to do the right thing from the start, and they don't have this dataset. It's not as if we don't have OpenStreetMap (or as if they couldn't buy a commercial dataset) in which you can easily filter out straight highways.

With this it could probably even work without being attentive as a driver, which would be a killer feature over the current state of affairs (currently it has no benefits whatsoever, if you follow the instructions, which is why probably almost nobody does).

<comment><USER43> > What I don't understand is why Tesla doesn't whitelist roads where this > feature can be used, since the manual sets very specific conditions

I think they want the data of drivers attempting to drive with autopilot on these roads.

Tesla does, I've read, restrict how fast autopilot can drive on unapproved roads, so it appears they already have them mapped out.

They're using customers as guinea pigs for their tech.

<comment><USER76> Why not have Autopilot running and monitoring the sensors to learn the road, but not have it actually take control of the vehicle? Even if the driver is manually in control the Autopilot system could still be learning.

<comment><USER43> Tesla may have begun by doing that. Recall that last October autopilot was introduced "over the air", so, customers who already had vehicles could use it immediately. Presumably, Tesla was collecting data up until that point.

I imagine Tesla is generating more sales with a usable autopilot. It generated quite a bit of media hype and they are having trouble keeping up with production demands.

So, Tesla chose to introduce this feature to increase sales and get more data on how drivers interact with the system. It seems excessively risky to me. I'm not building a self-driving system myself, nor running a huge company, so I can't say much about what it takes to do that. I can say I would not like to drive on the road next to a vehicle that can unexpectedly make the wheel turn, forcing its driver to be corrective at a moment's notice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> If your design fails one user, blame the user. If it keeps failing, blame the design.

</comment><comment><USER78> Tesla is trying to solve too many problems at once. That's a risky strategy.

</comment><comment><USER79> TIL: car crashes happen. but because it's Tesla it gets 100x the attention

<comment><USER48> That's not really why this is getting attention. The core issue here is that Tesla is shipping a product called "autopilot", which gives the expectation that it is in fact an autopilot. In the background, people are hearing that autonomous cars are "3 years away!!!" so the expectation is that the Tesla Autopilot feature is the real deal.

Thus you have people watching movies, falling asleep, or driving on dangerous roads using a technology that nowhere near delivers what the name promises. The result is people are dying and getting hurt by an immature technology being pushed too hard by an irresponsible company.

<comment><USER80> > The core issue here is that Tesla is shipping a product called "autopilot", > which gives the expectation that it is in fact an autopilot.

An autopilot system is defined as a system that assists, but does not replace, the human operator of a vehicle. Therefore Tesla's system is, in fact, an autopilot.

<comment><USER81> From wiki: _" An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of a vehicle without constant 'hands-on' control by a human operator being required."_

That's the clear opposite of what Tesla's manual suggest. If it required hands-on wheel and constant attention, call it what it is -- a driver assistance system, not autopilot.

<comment><USER80> The actual implementation only requires periodic, not constant, hands-on- wheel. Although it's in the driver's interest to pay attention constantly, as evident from this accident.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> The autopilot feature seems like one that should be taken through rigorous testing approved by the appropriate regulatory structure before being allowed out on the roads. The fact that Tesla has been able to simply update firmware to include this experimental new feature on their vehicles as they please feels very "wild west" and as much as I don't tend to prefer regulation, this feels like the proper place for it. By the way, this has been my feeling on the matter before any autopilot crashes were reported.

<comment><USER83> The real problem is, how do you actually design a test that will catch these issues. If you have 3 crashes in millions of miles, you are pretty unlikely to find those errors during testing.

I wish Tesla was more open about the way the actually test their Autopilot software.

<comment><USER22> While automated driving is a relatively new field, the science and data of traffic conditions and accidents is quite deep. You don't have to blindly wait until your beta users get into accidents. In the case of the first fatality, how is it possible that Tesla engineers were unaware of a situation in which a lightly-colored vehicle might show up on days in which the sky is bright?

Of course they were aware of that situation. They chose to deprioritize that to reduce the incidence of false positives that came from overhead highway signs. Nothing wrong with attempting to squash false positives, which can lead to deadly situations themselves. But there was nothing preventing Tesla from doing adequate testing to determine what unintended consequences their software modifications would entail. They don't have to wait for someone to get decapitated to realize that there's a trade off in reducing false positives from overhead signs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> We'll just have to see how liability laws and juries treat these technologies. We may well see a situation where thousands of lives could be saved from automation, but any accident leads to millions in lawsuits and the technology is killed. Hopefully this isn't the outcome.

Airbags occasionally kill or injure people also despite on balance saving lives. So there is precedent for this sort of math, but this is a very different kind of technology and not an ordinary engineering tradeoff.

<comment><USER84> Takata airbags have been in the news the last several years because at least two people have died and more than a hundred have been injured.

I've heard commenters opine that this "could mean the end of Takata as a company." But I haven't heard anyone say this "could mean the end of airbags as a feature in cars."

I guess what the Tesla autopilot needs is a lot of _good_ publicity every time it _avoids_ an accident which a human driver would otherwise have actually caused.

But where would anyone get the counterfactual for those cases? Does anyone even have information about that?

<comment><USER85> > I guess what the Tesla autopilot needs is a lot of good publicity every time > it avoids an accident which a human driver would otherwise have actually > caused.

Sounds like a plan! Let's start right now. Here's an example of the autopilot dodging a reckless driver and avoiding a collision that many human drivers wouldn't have avoided: [https://youtu.be/9I5rraWJq6E](https://youtu.be/9I5rraWJq6E)

<comment><USER43> That's a video by the guy who died.. Some have argued he could've been more aware of the incoming truck due to its short amount of time to make its desired transition from left to right. Also the camera was positioned farther forward than the driver's eyes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> When is Tesla going to stop blaming the drivers? Whether it's their fault or not, it looks bad.

To be honest I don't feel comfortable with that kind of data collection anyway. I'll never even think about getting a Tesla until they give us an option to turn their tracking systems off. It's creepy and unnecessary.

</comment><comment><USER87> Looking at the recent crash reports (driver watching Harry Potter, driver refusing to take over in winding road), it seems that it is just a matter of time for a news headline about a Tesla crash report with nobody on the front seats and a couple making out on the back seats.

</comment><comment><USER88> I think the next software update needs to place limitations on where auto pilot can be deployed.

Heck, mine the data from streetview and disable activation on roads where it can't work 100%

</comment><comment><USER89> What I find just as disturbing is the highly conflicted M&A scam he is running using SolarCity. The SolarCity scam exposes him as a dishonest scamster.

<comment><USER43> That one is crazy. No way that goes through. His job as CEO of SolarCity is to shop around for the best price from other acquirers. Michael Dell did this when he combined two of his companies and still got fined for it.

Maybe I'm drinking the Fortune coolaid. Their article seemed logical to me [1]

[1] [http://fortune.com/2016/06/22/tesla-elon-musk- solarcity/](http://fortune.com/2016/06/22/tesla-elon-musk-solarcity/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> This feels like the beginning of air travel again. Each new rule and system update has a tombstone behind it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Great, more data points.

<comment><USER53> That's kind of tone deaf, don't you think? Just because the crash might provide some useful data, doesn't mean it's something to look positively upon.

<comment><USER14> Sorry, i was being sarcastic. I consider what Tesla is doing at this stage is outright criminal behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> [http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/2012/07/29](http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/2012/07/29)

</comment><comment><USER92> What the hell is there to hit in Montana?

</comment><comment><USER93> Really irresponsible of Tesla to name it autopilot.

My wife calls me crazy for not even using cruise control on our car.

<comment><USER59> Cruise control is to keep the car at an even speed when going up/down hills. What does that have to do with safety?

<comment><USER11> Feet aren't on the peddles. Which is slight more dangerous than feet on the peddles. Kinda like hands on the wheel is less dangerous than hands off the wheel (at least until automation becomes better at driving than humans).

<comment><USER59> It's not like your foot is on the brake anyway - it's on the gas.

So keep your foot "active" and ready for use, even with cruise control.

Personally I lightly rest it on the gas. (Not hard enough to actually do anything, but in the right position to react to things.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> Being carless with Autopilot on Tesla qualifies one for a Darwin award, right?

</comment><comment><USER95> I hate to say it, but there are going to be some deaths on the road to full autonomous cars. (no pun intended)

The problem I see is, Tesla is the only one actively testing autonomous driving.

The fact that over 100 million miles driven, and we're finally starting to see accidents, is a good sign.

<comment><USER96> Or you can test the cars the way Google does, without involving the public and having deaths on your hand from overhyping your product.

[https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/](https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/)

<comment><USER97> There are tens of thousands of people either walking or driving the streets of Mountain View and Sunnyvale where Google is testing its self-driving cars. So, the members of the public are at risk.

But, I understand that you mean behind the wheel. Which is fun because the Google cars do not have a wheel. As I'm sure you may know, instead of a traditional steering wheel they have horizontally mounted, valve wheel with a handle. It looks a little bizarre when you first see it, but I would imagine it could be a safer, smoother alternative to the current standards steering wheel.

Unfortunately, I couldn't quickly provide an image; I've seen it multiple times on my walk to and from work.

<comment><USER43> > There are tens of thousands of people either walking or driving the streets > of Mountain View and Sunnyvale where Google is testing its self-driving > cars. So, the members of the public are at risk.

There is a _huge_ difference between Google operating a handful of cars in certain areas and Tesla selling 10-20 thousand vehicles per month that can be operated by untrained consumers anywhere in the US.

Tesla is using its customers as data-generating guinea pigs. In return, Tesla may become a guinea pig itself by showing other companies how not to progress towards autonomous vehicles.

<comment><USER98> >untrained consumers

 _Licensed drivers._ Drivers who have a license that indicates that they will take responsibility for the actions of any vehicle they control and understand how to operate any features which may put themselves or others at risk.

<comment><USER43> > Drivers who have a license that indicates that they will take responsibility

The fact that customers are licensed does not mean the seller is free from any and all regulation. Gun owners are licensed, and guns are required to have safety switches. Cars have a long history of being regulated [1]

Basically, anything that can contribute to deaths is going to monitored closely by consumer protection bureaus, and will probably be heavily regulated.

[1] [http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/g-m-ralph- nader1965-1971...](http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/g-m-ralph- nader1965-1971/)

<comment><USER98> I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Tesla probably could do a much better job informing it's customers what they are getting into, because they certainly aren't in a position to figure it out themselves. And they definitely can make their software better.

What I'm saying is, if your car injures someone while you sit in the driver seat, and you could have easily taken an easily foreseeable action to prevent it, then you are at least partially responsible.

<comment><USER43> > What I'm saying is, if your car injures someone while you sit in the driver > seat, and you could have easily taken an easily foreseeable action to > prevent it, then you are at least partially responsible.

Oh absolutely. No question there for me at this time.

There may yet be some class action or something that reveals some unjust action by the driver-assist companies. I agree that right now, all other things being perfect, if a driver of one of these cars is in an accident, then some person is responsible.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


EpubPress: A Chrome extension for turning web content into ebooks - <AUTHOR> http://epub.press <comment><USER2> Unfortunately it appears to do this by sending all the content back to a server which does the work. Privacy? Not even a privacy statement.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback dsr_!

All data is anonymous. What's posted back is some URLs. Individual books can be requested with an email.

I do agree this be more secure though. I'll look for ways of encrypting things and add a privacy statement. Any other suggestions for what would make you more comfortable are welcome.

Thanks again!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Now on the Chrome Store!

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/epubpress/pnhdnpnn...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/epubpress/pnhdnpnnffpijjbnhnipkehhibchdeok)

</comment><comment><USER3> I like it. But today I got the message that the chrome has disabled it and that I should contact you and ask for extension to be published in the chrome web store.

<comment><AUTHOR> I said end of week, but it became end of day :).

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/epubpress/pnhdnpnn...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/epubpress/pnhdnpnnffpijjbnhnipkehhibchdeok)

Hope that helps!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How is it going with photos? I see smaller ones are inserted, bigger not. Perhaps implement photo resizing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Photos should be working. Once the content is extracted the DOM is scanned for images to be downloaded. Images are then size to be 100% width of the screen.

It's looked fine for all the sites, I've used but results can really vary depending where the content comes from.

If you find any sites that aren't displaying correctly, send the urls to firstname.lastname@example.com and I'll happily dig a little deeper.

Thanks for the feedback!</comment></comment>


What If Airlines Claim Extraordinary Circumstances - <AUTHOR> https://www.claimair.com/blog/what-if-airlines-claim-extraordinary-circumstances/ <comment><AUTHOR> Excellent write-up of what does and does not constitute "extraordinary circumstances" for the purposes of passenger compensation for delays and cancellations. The post even refers to specific legal precedents in each situation, and contains advice on how to approach the airline about getting your money.</comment>


The Future is PHP - <AUTHOR> http://phpimpact.wordpress.com/2007/04/06/the-future-is-php/ <comment><USER2> The future of April 6, 2007 is the past of May 22, 2008.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's the future as much as VB is the future.

</comment><comment><USER4> the future is today</comment>


Ask HN: Which Bookmarking software do you use? - <AUTHOR> Since HN, has the feature to submit via bookmarklet,let's hear how you all manage your bookmarks and history?
https://news.ycombinator.com/bookmarklet.html
https://del.icio.us/ is now deactivated for new users. https://youtu.be/VFWtH_3749o
What are some good bookmarking providers? <comment><USER2> Email to myself with a tag: [bookmark]

Example:

Subject: [bookmark] Some cool link that I found online Body: URL + some notes on what makes this worth bookmarking.

Sometimes I find a link to a product but I don't care about the product, I care about the landing page design so I add notes specifically about the design.

If I want to revisit previous links related to design I'll do a search in my inbox for the [bookmark] tag + any specific words I'm likely to have used concerning design.

It's not an instantaneous process but that means I don't bookmark everything I see. I'm picky.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm using a mix of browser bookmarks (everything that I'm using daily + a bookmark "inbox" folder) and StaticMarks [1], a tool I have written to manage all my long-term bookmarks. I store the bookmarks in yaml files within a git repository, which automatically generates the web app on every push. I've added the app as a browser search engine, so I just need to type "sm <query>" in my browser bar to search for a specific bookmark.

Other people prefer just putting thousands of links into one place and tagging them instead (like Pinboard).

[1] [https://darekkay.com/static-marks/](https://darekkay.com/static-marks/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I use Reminiscence [0], self-hosted bookmark and archive manager. I chose this software because it's open source, easy to install, and self-hosted. It works like other bookmarking software, but it has automatic tagging and summarization which is plus.

When I bookmark a link from the internet, I just submit the link. Reminiscence will crawl the link later (asynchronous communication). You can also use browser to bookmark. Currently, browser extension is available for Firefox (experimental not official).

This software has been discussed on HN [1] a few months ago.

[0]: [https://github.com/kanishka- linux/reminiscence](https://github.com/kanishka-linux/reminiscence)

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17942032](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17942032)

</comment><comment><USER5> No mention that Pinboard archiving has been flakey for a while. As well as the service in general? Lots of bookmarked links with random status code issues. When the sites are fine.

I have 20K+ bookmarks and bookmark a decent amount so maybe the worts appear more for me.

<comment><USER6> This should be fixed as of early March. If it's not, and you still see issues, please drop me a line at email@example.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've found that I don't bookmark for the sake of bookmarking -- What I'm really trying to do is to build a knowledge bank on something; like a blog post formed by snippets of articles I've found over time.

Realizing this, I now have a bunch of documents related to topics of interest. Whenever I come across a site of interest, I'll add to the relevant document. I haven't quite figured out the right software to manage those documents. Right now, I use Asana a lot in my personal life so those documents are Asana tasks.

Weird or what?

<comment><USER8> you might want to check out [https://pinplz.com/](https://pinplz.com/) , which has a blog-like view. Select some text, click on the bookmarklet and your bookmark is auto-added along with the snippet. It also saves the referrer (if available) which comes handy when trying to figure out where you found that page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I mostly use the Mozilla Bookmarks menu. For anythink more complicated, and notes on programming i use my CatWiki wiki software, see [https://github.com/cabalamat/catwiki](https://github.com/cabalamat/catwiki)

</comment><comment><USER10> I use Pocket (getpocket.com). I can access my bookmarks from anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER11> I store my bookmarks as a flat file, under revision control. That way I can sync to multiple (desktop) systems.

There's a bit of javascript magic to allow tag-views, filtering, or even showing 20 random bookmarks:

[https://github.com/skx/bookmarks.public](https://github.com/skx/bookmarks.public)

</comment><comment><USER12> I have used few different bookmarking tools including delicious, pocket etc and gave up on those after a while. I use Chrome as my default browser and I am comfortable using Chrome Bookmarks. My bookmarks are synced across all devices.

When bookmarking, I try to add #tags to the title field and it helps in finding the information quickly.

e.g #Careers #Profile #AskHN #ReadLater

</comment><comment><USER13> I created [https://www.homepagr.com](https://www.homepagr.com)

It is meant to replace the "new tab" page in the browser.

Nobody seems to feel it's worth $1/month, but myself and my wife use it and we open scores is tabs a day.

(If anyone has suggestions to make this more interesting it profitable then I'm all ears!)

<comment> frosted-flakes What does Homepagr offer over the browser's native bookmarks and the ever- present bookmark bar? It's not obvious from the website, and there's not even a registration link. I figured out that the "login" input emails me a magic link, but most people wouldn't.

Also, it's not responsive, so works rather poorly on mobile, and doesn't look very appealing.

Despite my critique, I love the idea, but I think it needs more polish and functionality before people are willing to pay for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm using chrome bookmarks but i've collected over the years/decades more than 10k links (well categorized, can't say if this is a lot or not) making them a bit hard to search/use. I wonder what is the average size of the collection of those who use one of these online services.

</comment><comment><USER15> Big fan of [https://pinboard.in](https://pinboard.in)

<comment><USER16> It's not close, this is the right answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For all note taking, rss reading and bookmarking AND webarchiving:

DevonThink Pro. -> [https://www.devontechnologies.com/apps/devonthink](https://www.devontechnologies.com/apps/devonthink)

</comment><comment><USER8> [https://pinplz.com](https://pinplz.com)

</comment><comment><USER18> I just clip the webpage using Evernote's Web Clipper addon for Chrome. I can save this to a particular notebook and also tag it.

This way I get to have an offline copy of all my bookmarks, fully searchable!

<comment><USER18> I forgot to add --- the biggest benefit for me is I continue to have a copy of the webpage exactly as I see it, and the copy will remain with me even if the original page goes 404.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> [https://larder.io](https://larder.io)

The dev team are very open about their business, the roadmap, etc, and the personal touch on support is great.

<comment><USER5> Do you use Larder for everything?

<comment><USER19> I have a lifetime subscription to Pinboard. But ... it irritates me sometimes, and so I tried a Larder trial for 3 months.

In the end, I went back to Pinboard. Not that there was really anything really wrong with Larder, and I liked the GitHub stars integration, but ... it wasn't enough to switch.

I had only one issue: it didn't cope with tags that weren't URL-safe (eg. I had a bunch of stuff tagged with 'c++' in Pinboard, and it couldn't import them until I munged my import file to change it to 'cxx').

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> [http://handlr.sapico.me](http://handlr.sapico.me) ( self made) and has a personal mode ( that needs some performance improvements)

</comment><comment><USER21> I create a page in Microsoft Onenote and add the name hyperlinked and export it as PDF or Single File Web Page. I just open this page in any browser.

</comment><comment><USER22> I use a combination of google bookmarks and the HN favorite but I find its hard to find stuff later on.

I have a few ideas on how I would improve it.

</comment><comment><USER23> [https://www.are.na](https://www.are.na)

</comment><comment><USER24> Any arguments against storing your bookmarks in your browser of choice?

</comment><comment><USER25> pinboard.in

well worth the $25/year.

</comment><comment><USER26> A text file. Viewed in Emacs with goto-address-mode.

</comment><comment><USER27> Http://www.curabase.com

</comment><comment><USER28> Pinboard and it's bookmarklet

</comment><comment><USER29> xBrowserSync, I use it everywhere in chrome at home and office, and on my mobile

</comment><comment><USER30> Firefox

<comment><USER31> exactly, have folders for each type of bookmark I'm interested in and categorize them

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Pocket is pretty legit.</comment>


Trex: A package manager for Deno - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/crewdevio/Trex <comment><USER2> Why write the executable with an upper-first letter? Looks quite silly and not professional imo.

<comment><AUTHOR> it's really a problem that the first letter is upper?

<comment><USER3> Not really for people who have their shells configured to auto-(de)capitalize the name of a command or binary, but for those that don't, it's a departure from what's normal. It's easily solved through an alias or similar, but still: why introduce the impedance?

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I'm a heavy CLI user and I can't remember a single one being upper- case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, to me, this just looks to wrap the import map functionality with a nicer cli.

For the same number of times as in days I'm torn on wether this is good.

On one hand, it's a bridge for node people and adds some nice comfort tooling.

On the other, it means you don't get to really understand how packages and bundling are supposed to work.

I may just end up writing a post on this tonight.

<comment><USER6> It also reintroduces one of the main problems of node back into deno. [https://youtu.be/M3BM9TB-8yA?t=581](https://youtu.be/M3BM9TB-8yA?t=581)

<comment><AUTHOR> not really since it is around imports map something native to deno, the purpose is to make it something familiar like npm

<comment><USER6> npm should not be a model to be imitated. npm modules make security audits impossible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Trex currently uses deno.land/std, deno.land/x, nest.land and any repository. nest.land provides a blockchain-based service, we just take the way npm is used for our CLI. Trex doesn't try to look for the same npm issues, we just take the import maps and create a tool to manipulate them in a friendly way for those who already know the nodejs ecosystem

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Was not one of the main motivations for deno to not use a package manager?

<comment><USER7> I believe so. I always wondered why `go mod` existed until we had dependencies break fairly frequently from a certain domain and were forced to vend the dependency.

<comment><USER8> Indeed, this is a massive issue with any url based imports. Because Trex supports nest.land, this is not an issue. nest.land is actually a first-of- its-kind blockchain module registry and CDN. Because we use the blockchain for storing modules, they can never be deleted or altered in any way. This also means that they are permanently and indefinitely resolvable from the web. Because of this, module vendoring is no longer an issue!

</comment></comment></comment><comment> kalium-xyz I don't understand the point of this. The Deno runtime is its dependency manager, so having an external one is redundant.

</comment><comment><USER9> Don't make me type shift on the command line. It makes my pinky finger hurt after a long day.

<comment><USER10> How often are you installing packages?

<comment><USER11> I do it a ton. I don't write production code much anymore; it tends to be quick scripts or little one-off apps. So I probably type `npm i ...` a few times a day.

Plus things like `npm install` on pull requests, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What is Trex?

is a Package management for deno similar to npm but maintaining the deno philosophy. packages are cached and only one import_map.json file is generated.

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't know how trademarking naming works, or if they would even care, but Trex is already a big Composite Decking manufacturer. They have trex.com.

<comment><USER13> IANAL but from my little bit of research on trademarks it's not the same industry, so not likely a confusion... Don't think anyone would think a company that creates Deck and Software were the same. Kinda like they have Docker containers and Dockers pants.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best way to learn Git for a version control (mostly) newbie? - <AUTHOR>

I find myself laid up with a broken ankle/leg and I've been meaning to learn Git for a while, so I figured this would be the best opportunity.  I last used version control back with Visual SourceSafe (I know, I know) in the late 90s while I was working corporate.  Now, I hack on PortableApps.com which uses a combination of Hg, Git and SVN for various sub-projects, though my stuff often only gets dumped in once per release.  I'd like to get them all better organized and standardize on one system, and it looks like Git will be it (possibly at Github).
On my end, I know enough to re-read a manual and poke a button on the various SCMs here and there to get some code out and maybe get a change in.  But overall, assume I'm starting from scratch.  I need to learn from the basics through the theory (branches and merging and collisions, oh my) through some more advanced bits.  I'm more comfortable with a GUI but can use the command line in a pinch.  And I'll be using it in Windows exclusively for now.  I may branch out to Linux later, but all my work is on Windows apps at present.
I've done the usual Google searches and know about things like try.github.io, codeschool, etc, but figured that some of the more experienced folks here... maybe even some of the github folks here... could point me in the best direction.
Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> How I am learning Git on Windows:

I have a free account on Github and use the Windows app. The interface has a Metro look, but it's not a Metro app. The downside of Github is that all free account repositories on Github are public, and I have a use case, coursework for Coursera classes, that make public repositories inappropriate.

For that I have a free account on Bitbucket because it allows private repositories. I access that using Atlassian's free version of SourceTree. What I like about SourceTree is that it exposes more of the guts of version control. If command line Git is C, it's Java, and the Github app is...well, it's an app.

The mention of the command line is not accidental. Once I start wanting to do something a little advanced, the step by step descriptions for implementation will invariably use the command line because at it's core Git is not an app; it is a system with a command language, and the command language maps directly onto Gits underlying concepts in a specific way versus the generic language of click here, select that, type this, click there...etc. of app usage.

As a twenty odd year user of Windows, it feels very unnatural to say this, but learning the command line is something to be embraced.

Lastly, my thanks to Eric Sink for the free! [hard!] copy of his book _Version Control by Example_ which he graciously provided as an "Offer HN:" a couple of years ago. It provides consistent examples which cover the general issues across different types of version control systems. When I finally got around to using version control, I reread it more thoroughly than when I was merely interested in the topic.

[http://www.amazon.com/Version-Control-Example-Eric- Sink/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Version-Control-Example-Eric- Sink/dp/0983507902/ref=sr_sp- atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389190392&sr=8-1&keywords=version+control+by+example)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://try.github.io/levels/1/challenges/1](http://try.github.io/levels/1/challenges/1)

</comment><comment><USER4> A good place to start is by reading through the Pro Git book, available for free at [http://git-scm.com/book](http://git-scm.com/book). Try out the commands as you read about them in a small sandbox environment you set up for yourself. Even if you don't learn everything at once, you will have a great reference to go back to when needed.

</comment><comment><USER5> Check out Git tutorials from Atlassian, the company behind BitBucket:

[https://www.atlassian.com/git/](https://www.atlassian.com/git/)

I suggest reading it from cover-to-cover as they go from basic stuff to more advanced topics.

<comment><USER6> Atlassian is also the owner of SourceTree, which as a visual gui, I found really helped in learning some of the flow of using GIT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have found this to be very useful and go back to it every now and then for research and information.

[http://gitimmersion.com/index.html](http://gitimmersion.com/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> A fun, excellent, interactive place to learn git:

[http://k.swd.cc/learnGitBranching-ja](http://k.swd.cc/learnGitBranching-ja)

It is hosted in GitHub pages (so in git itself).

</comment><comment><USER9> [http://rogerdudler.github.io/git-guide/](http://rogerdudler.github.io/git- guide/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Lynda.com has a good videotutorial on all Git basics.</comment>