A car accident in May 2016 has fueled a heated
debate about autonomous cars, driver safety
and a company’s responsibility to shareholders.
Let’s get to the bottom of it.
The fatal accident happened on May 7th, 2016
and involved Joshua Brown, the owner of a
Tesla Model S. Brown’s vehicle was in autopilot
mode, a Tesla feature that’s still in beta
testing. Brown’s car collided with a big
rig’s trailer as the truck crossed traffic
while making a left hand turn. According to
Tesla, on the day of the crash, the sky was
brightly lit, making it difficult for both
Brown and the Model S’s camera system to
see the rig’s trailer. On top of that, the
car’s radar system didn’t register the
rig because it misidentified the trailer as
an overhead road sign. Later in May, Tesla
held a shareholder’s meeting. At that time,
the company had yet to disclose the autopilot
accident to the public, though it had alerted
the National Highway Traffic Safety Authority.
It wasn’t until the end of June that information
about the incident became public knowledge.
Some critics are saying that Tesla should
have acknowledged the accident ahead of the
shareholder meeting as a material fact because
the company has advertised autopilot
as a “safe and important” feature.
Tesla founder, Elon Musk responded
by saying autopilot, if it had been universally
available in 2015, would have saved as many
as 500,000 lives. So who is right? Is autopilot
dangerous or a life saver? First, while autopilot
sounds like it could be an autonomous driving
mode, Tesla has always maintained that it’s
a driver assist feature. The company says
that drivers should keep their hands on the
steering wheel at all times. In fact, drivers
must acknowledge this requirement in order
to opt in to the beta test and activate autopilot.
Second, Tesla pointed out that this incident,
while awful, represents the first fatality
in more than 130 million miles of Tesla vehicles
in autopilot mode. That’s lower than the
average number of deaths per miles driven.
In the US, there’s a fatality every 94 million
miles, and globally the figure is one in every
60 million miles. Third, the autopilot feature
is still in beta testing, meaning Tesla is
continuously modifying and improving it. It’s
not a final product. That said, perhaps it’s
time to acknowledge that autopilot isn’t
the best name for a driver assist system.
It may create an unrealistic expectation of
what the feature can actually do.
There’s a lot more to this story, like an
alleged second autopilot accident involving
a Model X vehicle in Pennsylvania, but we’re
out of time. What do you guys think? Does
this make you feel differently about driver
assist features and autonomous vehicles? Get
in touch with us and let us know. And don’t
forget to visit now.howstuffworks.com every
day to learn about the biggest stories going
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