Tesla auto-braking saves two families from falling tree

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8 pointsgrandpoobah2 comments

As I understood it, self driving cars are designed to ignore objects when traveling at speed, because there is a risk a car could slam on the brakes for a plastic bag floating in the wind? Can somebody smart explain what happened here?

And is Elon's "Glad you're all ok" a way of accepting credit where credit is not really due?

I would guess these objects were too large for that heuristic (which, if given 100% control, is fairly bad, by the way. A plastic bag is quite different, safety-wise, from a plastic bag containing 100kgs of concrete).

It makes sense to put a size limit on that heuristic. If a 3M meter plastic bag were to blow onto your windshield, braking is in order.

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