The car came to rest more than 70 metres away, on the opposite side of the road, leaving a trail of wreckage. According to witnesses, the Model S burst into flames while still airborne. Several passersby tried to open the doors and rescue the driver, but they couldn’t unlock the car. When they heard explosions and saw flames through the windows, they retreated. Even the firefighters, who arrived 20 minutes later, could do nothing but watch the Tesla burn.

At that moment, Rita Meier was unaware of the crash. She tried calling her husband, but he didn’t pick up. When he still hadn’t returned her call hours later – highly unusual for this devoted father – she attempted to track his car using Tesla’s app. It no longer worked. By the time police officers rang her doorbell late that night, Meier was already bracing for the worst.

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[–] 169 points 1 year ago (54 children)

If we lived in any sort of reasonable or responsible world then these cars would be banned from public roads all over the globe.

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  • [–] 75 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    And Tesla would be fined and sued into oblivion.

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  • [–] 36 points 1 year ago (47 children)

    Call me a Luddite but I won't ride in a "self driving" car. I don't even trust lane assist although I've never had a car with that feature.

    I think my sweet spot is 2014 for vehicles. It's about 50/50 with the tracking garbage and the "advanced features" on those models but anything past 2015 seems to be fully fly-by-wire and that doesn't sit right with me.

    I'm old though and honestly if I bought a 2014 right now and babied it as my non commuter car I could probably keep it until I should give up my keys. You younger people are going to have to work around all this crap.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I liked lane assist. It's kind of like the Playstation triggers haptic feedback. It just makes the wheel slightly stiff as you near a line, but it's very passive.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    I think Ford does a good job of offering the features and tech, but not making them required. Even their EVs have settings that can mimic a gas driving experience. Be a Luddite trust what you trust. But don’t pigeon hole your acceptable years of manufacture.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    My wife had a rental for a trip she and my daughter were going on for a gymnastics event and I got to drive it back from the rental place and it had lane assist.

    Every time another car passed in the opposite lane the damn thing would try and jerk in the opposite direction of that car, sometimes almost running itself off the road into the ditch in the process.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Drove a few cars with "lane hold" and it's infuriating to have to suddenly correct the car's trajectory at every curve because it misjudges the road line. Some cars are worse than others but it was literally the first thing I disabled every time. I wonder how truck drivers feel about it. Do modern trucks even have this?

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (15 children)

    I've never had any issue with the lane assist in my Mitsubishi. It's absolutely built as an "assist" and not something that will actually try to take control from you. It's trivial to "overpower" it manually and turn out of your lane without signaling if that's what you want to do, but does a perfectly reasonable job of steering on its own when left to its own devices.

    That said, I wouldn't be driving a vehicle new enough to have the feature yet either if I hadn't been rear ended a couple of years ago and had my 2012 Lancer written off. :(

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago*

    I quite like lane assist in the 2019 Honda I drive, even though it gets it wrong occasionally. It will not function unless it detects that you're providing some steering input of your own, and it's easy to override just by steering the way you want to go. That and cruise control are handy on the highway and have worked well for 6 years with no problems. But it's very far from either functioning or being advertised as "full self driving."

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (13 children)

    So it does move the wheel under your hands? That's just gross to me. I guess maybe I should rent a car with it and give it a shot but I don't think I'll like it.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago* (9 children)

    I rented a Hyundai Elantra. Yes, the wheel will move under your hand. Yes, it has hand detection, which is probably trivial to spoof. When I used it, winter had just ended and lines on the road weren't always clear, so it would occasionally disable itself. Trying to change lanes without signals isn't terrible, but certainly won't happen by accident.

    I would by no means rely on this, or recommend relying on it, just like I wouldn't recommend relying on blind spot detection, but they can be handy aids to improve your overall driving, and can help catch your mistakes.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Does it pull the wheel when you're trying to change lanes?

    I see the blind spot detection on other people's mirrors when I pass them and that looks cool as fuck but what happens the instant it fails? If I'm reliant on it and it breaks one day am I going to mistakenly merge into another driver's right of way?

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It didn't so much as pull as get stiffer to turn out of the lane. Again, that doesn't happen if your signals are on, so it's a good reminder to use your signals, too.

    Like I said, relying on these assists as replacements for proper driving isn't something I would recommend. You should still be shoulder checking and using your mirrors. My wife's vehicle has blind spot detection, which turns on an amber light by the mirror. If you're changing lanes, it's an obvious indicator that it may not be safe. A more thorough shoulder check can identify if the vehicle is actually at risk for collision. For example, if you just passed a vehicle and are pulling away, the detection light may still be on, but you aren't at risk of collision. Alternatively, if I thought the lane was clear and decide to change lanes, the light may be on due to a speeding driver who is approaching to pass me in the adjacent lane. The light will be on even though he isn't in the way yet, and changing lanes could result in an accident. Or maybe someone has been sitting in your blind spot for a few minutes and you decide to change lanes. A quick mirror check indicates you're safe, but that amber light says maybe not. If your shoulder check doesn't catch the problem, you probably haven't done it well enough.

    Again, can be good assistance tools, I don't think they're good enough to be replacements yet.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It didn’t so much as pull as get stiffer to turn out of the lane. Again, that doesn’t happen if your signals are on

    woah, that's pretty cool actually.

    The amber light in the mirror is what I've seen in other people's blind spot assistance. It's really cool but I'd hate to get used to it and depend on it the day it stops working.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (4 children)

    I have a Toyota with lane assist and it doesn't. The "lane assist" is part of cruise control. It's off by default.

    I love it because it removes a little of the mental load giving me more time to scan the road for potential problems.

    Off by default should be the default.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    OK yeah, if I have the cruise control on I can see having lane assist. Can you use the CC independently of lane assist?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I drive a BYD Han, and I get to choose if lane keep or lane assist are enabled when using cruise control.

    In all honesty, in 2 and a half years with the car, it's been flawless with lane keep and lane assist. However, I only use them in the freeway. Don't trust the tech enough to not crash me sideways in the city.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    When cruise control is on, yes, but it's extremely gentle. The slightest bit of resistance from the driver will overpower it.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I should try this stuff and then see which of those cars I can disable the tracking antennas

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I can't speak for other manufacturers, or even in other countries, but Mitsubishi Canada at least has an opt-out for data collection. You need to call their customer care number and they will remotely disable it.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (18 children)

    I have a Sprinter van with lane assist for cross country travel. As obnoxious as it is 99% of the time, it has come in clutch a few times when I started to get drowsy and drifted off my lane.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    I hear you, but a 99% chance of being obnoxious isn't a great review.

    I think I'll just stick to not driving when tired.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    That's easier said than done. You can't judge your own behavior when impaired because you are impaired. By the time you are aware you are that tired, you've already been impaired for a long time.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    You absolutely can judge your own behavior when you are impaired, I have done that plenty of times and decided that I needed a break when driving plenty of times.

    The issue is that you are a worse judge of your own behavior when impaired, so you need to take that into account

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    You absolutely can judge your own behavior when you are impaired

    By the time you realized it you were already impaired. That's why professional drivers have a schedule. It's not up to them to decide for themselves that they could go longer.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    For sure, but when you are driving cross-country you sometimes do not have a choice because there is nowhere to stop.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Unless there's a safety concern, there's always the side of the road. I drive 2 lane backwoods roads periodically, and it's not uncommon to see a car pulled a bit off the road with no visible driver's seat.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Driving when tired enough to drift out of your lane multiple times?

    You shouldn't have a license.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I suddenly got very tired today when driving, and noticed my car drifting out of lane as I was unfocused, I was far from home, didn't have any snacks or anything.

    Luckily I found a place to park soon after, pulled over, and rested for 20 min or so.

    Tiredness can come sudden, it doesn't mean you should loose your license as long as you can deal with it in a safe manner.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    I've had tiredness come around everytime I try to drive West around 3:30-5:00 when the sun is around setting is the perfect time where it just hits me and the traffic slows to a crawl were the last 10 miles are just hitting myself until I get to class and then Im suddenly fully awake.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    If it happens to someone multiple times and they treat lane assist as a crutch then they are not safe to drive on the road.

    The best part is they followed up with this gem so I know they didn't pull over like you did:

    For sure, but when you are driving cross-country you sometimes do not have a choice because there is nowhere to stop.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I've got a 2008 manual. It doesn't even have cruise control. It's perfect. I'm keeping it as long as I possibly can.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    '96 and '05 pickup trucks I keep flogging along for work, '05 SUV that's owned by my wife. They aren't going to last forever but I'm going to try.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    I'm helping by using it as little as possible.

    I like electric cars well enough for their simplicity and acceleration. It's all the other computerised gubbins they hang off them that I dislike, and Teslas are the worst for that.

    I saw an old VW Beetle that had been converted to electric on the road recently. I wonder how hard/expensive it would be to do that with my 2 when the engine dies.

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  • [–] 43 points 1 year ago

    Wait, I might know the answer. Is it because they don't use LIDAR and they're made by a company headed by some piece of shit who likes to cut costs? Haha, I was just guessing, but ok.

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  • [–] 36 points 1 year ago

    You can choose not to drive bleeding edge technology, but sadly you have no choice in whether to share the road with it.

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  • [–] 35 points 1 year ago

    I drive a BMW i4 and one of the reasons I prefer it is because it still uses a number of mechanical options like physical buttons and an actual door handle. I never trusted that flush handle from Tesla, even back when I liked Tesla.

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  • [–] 122 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

    Article does not actually answer why Tesla vehicles crash as much as they do or how their crash frequency compares to other vehicles. Its more about how scummy tesla is as a company and how it witholds data from the public when it could incriminate them.

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  • [–] 65 points 1 year ago

    In some ways that is the answer. Crashes keep happening because they are not being held accountable to regulators because they are not reporting these incidents and no one is exercising oversight to be sure the reporting matches reality.

    I think over the years, accurate reporting by manufacturers has been done because they generally do not want to be known as that car company that killed a child and it could have been prevented with a 50 cent bolt. As a result, regulators have been less hawkish. Of course there are probably political donations in the US to help keep the wheels turning.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    just scanning the article, it seems to sum it up as - No one knows why yet, not even Tesla '

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    With a dash of - Tesla might know and be withholding information

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    It's much more likely that they don't know. Look at the DOGE staffers hand picked by musk, they are completely incompetent but hyper confident. If they're indicative of the software engineers working at Tesla, then they most likely assumed their code was perfect. Keep in mind it's all running on LLM code now.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Bad code. Guinea pig owners. Cars not communicating with each other. Relying on just the car’s vision and location is stupid.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Also, not only do they rely on "just vision", crucially they rely on real-time processing without any memory or persistent mapping.

    This, more than anything else is what bewilders me most.

    They could map an area, and when observing a construction hazard save that data and share it with other vehicles so they know when route setting or anticipate the object. Not they don't. If it drives past a hazard and goes around the block it has to figure out how to navigate the hazard again with no familiarity. That's so foolish.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    and what’s even more ridiculous than that (imo) is that if every tesla mapped the area, you’d get it from loads of different angles: no more “oops 1 off computer vision edge case”

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  • [–] 63 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    This is the kind of shit that makes me worried even seeing someone else driving one of these deathtraps near me while I am driving. They could explode or decide to turn into me on the highway or something. I think I about this more than Final Destination when seeing a logging truck these days.

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  • [–] 31 points 1 year ago

    It's one of those rules you make for yourself when you drive...

    Like no driving next to people with dents...

    Or

    Stay away from trucks with random shit in the back not strapped down ...

    No driving near New cars, they are new and or it's because they got into an accident so best just be safe...

    So

    No driving near a Tesla...

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    the truth? Because Elon is the CEO errrr Teknoking.

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  • [–] 68 points 1 year ago (27 children)

    Tesla tried to do it all at once instead of perfecting the electric tech first and then incrementally adding on advances. They also made change for change’s sake. There’s absolutely no reason mechanical door locks could not have been engineered to work on this car as the default method of opening and closing the door. It’s killing people.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago (14 children)

    Also, the fact that they removed Lidar sensors and just base their self driving on cameras is plainly stupid.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    Technical debt.

    If you promise self driving on all cars, but cars already on the road don't have lidar then no car has lidar.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    That's not really the case, as Elon's already admitted that there are at least about a half a million Teslas with old HW3 self driving computers that need to have them upgraded to HW4 for them to have the chance at eventually get the FSD the buyers were promised. That's not even mentioning the upgraded cameras the HW4 vehicles have gotten. The reason for Musk not wanting lidar on Teslas is very simple: cost. He thinks it's too expensive and unnecessary, unlike every single other manufacturer working on the same problem.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    I mean it’s all true:

    • humans drive based on vision alone
    • moving to one type of sensor simplifies the ai
    • lidar has been much bulkier, much more expensive than other sensors.

    Most importantly, since no one has self driving yet, it’s premature to talk about that as a mistake. Let it fail or succeed on its merits. Let other self-driving attempts fail or succeed on their merits.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    "humans drive based on vision alone"

    Not quite. We use our sense of touch and direction to feel our momentum, like how hard a turn or acceleration is. We can feel steering traction changes like when tires begin to slip under acceleration/deceleration. We feel when we're starting to hydroplane. Cars are a cornucipia of touch feedback that drivers respond to.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    Sure but if you make that argument, even relatively dumb cars have that as well. At least antilock brakes have been mandatory for a few years (in the US) and traction control might be as well. Both lead to immediate adjustments in driving, more quickly than any human can react.

    More automated cars must have some equivalent feedback on balance, sharpness of turns. I don’t know what it is, but they generally execute smooth comfortable turns.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    "Both lead to immediate adjustments in driving, more quickly than any human can react. "

    Again, sort of. ABS isn't quicker than humans react, it's a stopgap measure for divers without sufficient skill. It only turns on after you have fucked up and locked your breaks.

    "I don’t know what it is, but they generally execute smooth comfortable turns."

    Likely a combination of software that defines comfortable zones, including adhering to speed limits and paired with an accelerometer.

    I think we are still a very long way off from autodrive. Being able to handle changing conditions like freezing rain and black ice or a flooded road will take time.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Do you have an example of another serious company working on the problem that also has concluded that lidar is unnecessary? Because I don't.

    I'm not an expert, but as I understand it, the consensus (excluding Musk of course) seems to be that lidar is necessary for proper functioning and safety in poor visibility situations, like in rain, fog or general darkness. I think the odds are good that the judgment of an overwhelming majority of companies is more correct than the judgment of Musk alone. Particularly considering Musk's proven track record of cost cutting that puts users' lives in danger, for example not being able to manually open the doors of burning Teslas.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Lidar has strengths that complement where video has weaknesses. That seems like a good thing. However it is bulky and expensive, and not yet produced at scale. Those are bad things. Whether it really makes a difference in simplifying the machine learning, only those developers know. You have to balance the pluses and minuses, and just because one company came up with something different, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

    Maybe it won’t work without lidar but maybe it will - in the meantime Tesla has saved like $1,000/car times however many million they produce. If they succeed, then they have a solid cost and scalability advantage

    The deciding point is if someone does develop general self-driving. Will those who are behind be able to swallow their pride and modify their approach?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago*
    • When the sun shines in your eyes, do you not put on sunglasses? Cameras can't do that.

    • When you have dirt in your eyes, do you not rub it out? Cameras can't do that.

    • When something is obstructing your view, do you not move you head to the side until it is not? Cameras can't do that.

    Humans are much more than cameras and a brain.

    And even if they were, shouldn't we aim for something better than we currently have?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Waymo runs a taxi service at scale.

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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    They don’t though. Waymo runs a few pilots in a few specific geolocked locations with essentially hand built cars at a huge loss. They also have human remote supervisions. They do seem fairly successful and maybe their slow careful rollout will eventually be at scale in the areas that need it most. Hopefully it will work.

    While it’s easy to argue Tesla hasn’t had those successes yet, they do have the “at scale” part down and are already profitable on the vehicles. They are close enough to self-driving them at they’re willing to try their own pilots with human intervention. If they succeed, they already have the scaling up done and are profitable on hardware so will quickly surpass other competitors.

    I like that different companies are taking different approaches, so we have competition. May the best technology succeed!

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    There's absolutely a reason to not engineer something you're not required to. It's called capitalism. Tesla cut every corner they could.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    No, the problem is they engineered something they didn't need to, because Musk thinks everything should be electric because it's cool. They had to then engineer a mechanical release, because it was required by law (for good reason)

    Mechanical door locks would have been cheaper. The fly by wire in the cyber truck is far more expensive, heavier, and far more dangerous than the very well polished power steering systems every other car uses

    Maybe it's something like they wanted to make more money on repairs or something... But even that they could've done better by starting from very common, cheap technology

    Let's be clear... The real problem here is that Elon Musk, opinion having idiot that he is, made decisions from on high with very little understanding of engineering

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  • [+] -7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Musk thinks everything should be electric because it's cool.

    I strongly disagree. Things are getting more and more electric across all manufacturing because it is cheap. A single touch screen that drops in place under a snap on bezel with a premade cable harness and some programming time is so much faster and cheaper than designing, installing, wiring, coding, and testing physical buttons or mechanical linkages. PCBs can be tested in a negligible amount of time.

    Mechanical door locks would have been cheaper.

    No. Sorry, but no. The locks were going to be electrically operated no matter what. But the inclusion of standard mechanical components would increase the cost significantly.

    very common, cheap technology

    Yes, but that would be electrical components. It's not very intuitive, I agree. But cost is the sole reason things are becoming more "electronic". Electronics are extremely cheap compared to their analog ancestors. And not only that, but since very few mfrs are using off the shelf mechanical components, they are now less supplied and harder to get. So their cost is going up. Electronics are going down.

    I don't know the engineering endeavors that he may or may not have been directly involved with. I'm not entirely sure what "from on high" means, but I would presume you are referring to his net value and authority. In that case, I would say he is no different than literally any other CEO. He made decisions that made him a profit. That's what they do. GE is a great test case for this. Nearly destroyed the company in the long term so that board members see a small financial gain in the short term, then dump the carcass on the next guy. It's just money. That's all.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    Yes, electronics are very cheap... But remember the part where they also have a mechanical mechanism? They have two systems, where most cars have this very simple lock that connects to a tiny motor assembly. It's literally a piece of plastic and a few wires

    The tablet thing is true, they've changed cars to computerize everything, and once you've done that you can connect everything over a network. Every button needs to do back to a chip to become a digital signal, so before you had these complex one-off wiring harnesses for everything

    But the tablet thing is again, common. It makes sense, it's just worse

    But Elon is a unique case. Elon likes to actually make decisions, because he thinks he's Tony Stark. He actually goes down into teams and hangs out, and they have to just work around whatever decisions he makes. It's present in all of his companies, but you can see it most in Twitter, because they didn't have time to build a team to strategically distract him when he comes to visit

    This absolute idiot has spent the last month trying to get grok to be a literal Nazi. First, he added a bunch of white genocide to the prompt, making it change the topic to that from any question for a few days.

    Now it's responding all confused, and saying things like "I never gave Jeffrey Epstein tours of spaceX or Tesla" when asked it Elon did it. Seems to me they fed Elon's tweets in the RAG system in a amateur way

    He micromanages and meddles constantly... That's what he does at his companies

    For a counterexample, Jeff Bezos. He was heavily involved in the fire phone, and had some genuinely cool ideas... But the priorities were all wrong, so it flopped. He learned his lesson

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    By your logic then, capitalism is great, because that means no one would've engineered these crazy locks but instead just used the tried and true ones.

    Wait. That's not what happened?

    Oh.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    engineered these crazy locks

    I would joke that since they don't work then I doubt any engineering went into them at all. But I know that isn't true.

    So I wonder if you could elaborate on what you mean by "crazy locks"? I did a lot of work investigating the manufacturing equipment and their use, so I remember a bit about their components, design, and assembly; but I did not work with those directly so I could be missing something entirely. I don't remember there being anything groundbreaking about the mechanics of the door locks. But the general build always felt... "thinner". Most manufacturers stay away from minimum standards by at least the standard deviation or two, so if the required gauge was 18 ± 1, a typical mfr would use 20+. Tesla would use 18. On the nose. That was a lot more common in automotive but even hyundai/kia used wide margins for safety. All that to say, I have a hard time believing the door locks were so complex that a sizable investment would be anything other than reinventing the wheel, but even moreso that it was even worth the superfluous cost.

    One of the last jobs I had there was a machine that they picked up third hand and cobbled together with some very sketchy safety systems that wildly failed requirements. I was there for days and it was one of the more extensive reports I've ever made on a single installation. The control system was designed by the onsite engineers and passed flawlessly. But they had a lot to do to get the equipment usable.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I stopped reading when you suggested 20 gauge was heavier than 18 gauge.

    Rookie mistake you can't come back from.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Lol, I saw that after I sent it, but was absolutely not confident enough to change it. I don't work in that field any more so that is not the only thing about materials that you probably know better than me. And I'm sorry for the wall of text. My bad.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    In this crash, part of the blame was on retracting handles on the outside, not the interior locks. If the handle is retracted, it’s tough to open the door from the outside.

    • model s has electrically presented handles. The car has to be somewhat functional for the handles to extend …. I haven’t heard of extend on emergency or extend on power lost, or any other failsafe
    • model 3/y door handles are not electrical. You have to press on one end to extend the other. You may or may not like them, but at least they don’t have that failure case of what happens when the car loses power
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  • [+] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    No. Window retracting on door opening is no different than other cars with frameless windows. Most lowering the window may damage the weatherstripping but is no impediment to door opening.

    True that the door latch itself is just a solenoid. I actually forgot the the outside handles don’t do anything but give you something to pull on.

    The worst part of the manual door release is that it’s different on each model. For mine, the front door manual release is easily accessible to the point I have to tell people not to use it. Back door is a problem though

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