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Comment by spullara | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't lead to more deaths. See Tesla for proof. This is a super bad take.

The issue isn’t whether having the technology saves more lives than not having the technology. The issue is whether, given the technology, the marketing creates a perception that results in unsafe usage of the technology, costing lives.

It’s is easy, even almost trivial to drive long hours on almost nothing happens freeways. We don’t have any sort of statistics on the dangerous close encounters, and on whether these remain close encounters with teslas.

We have all sorts of statistics, every car maker keeps track of disengagements and events. What are you talking about?

Accidents per miles is not too informative. For example do teslas fair better than an average human driver on eg. someone running a red in front of the car? On a suddenly overturned car on the freeway? Do we have enough data to answer these questions?

I don’t understand this kind of question. Obviously you need some statistical measure to compare safety, and incidents per mile (or vehicle years, or hours driven) is an accurate way to estimate accident rates. All we care about is that on average it crashes less than human drivers. If there are specific conditions where it fares worse those would be pretty obvious to address, and naturally the odds of when crashing the situation being weirder than usual is a given if safety improves for the average case.

That aside, the answer to the first one is yes. Because of sonar and the cameras, a Tesla can see traffic two or three cars ahead and will initiate braking way earlier than a human would in the case of someone else running a red light - there a few videos of this exact situation available in YouTube. As for the second, probably not enough data, but in absolute numbers humans are responsible for nearly al of those cases so far, they happen weekly.

By the way, the overturned truck was not a fatal accident - the car triggered emergency braking and the driver came out without a scratch. The fatal one was a couple years ago when a Model S ran under a white truck making an unsafe u-turn.

Incidents per miles is fine with a big enough data set —- but I disagree that it is enough in case of a new technology that can potentially kill. Like let’s say teslas are absolutely safe on the highways, much more than human drivers, but would have a tendency to hit pedestrians much more so than humans. It is possible that it will have a better incident per mile record even though no sane person would legalize them in this case.

> If there are specific conditions where it fares worse those would be pretty obvious to address

Like, if (inSpecificSituation) { payMoreAttention(); } ? This is the actually hard part of the problem, not breaking when something is close and stay in the lane. They can’t even create adequate test environments for the many many special cases that can trivially happen in a city.

Also, how does it see traffic two or three cars ahead? It sounds like a marketing gimmick but correct me if I’m wrong.

> Incidents per miles is fine with a big enough data set

Only if you're comparing comparable conditions. If you compare autopilot in the sun to humans in the snow, infinite miles won't make it any more valid of a autopilot/human comparison.

Tesla's miles driven is self-selecting, because AP won't engage when it can't because of poor conditions.

Humans don't get that luxury.

You can't say for Tesla (deaths/miles driven on good-for-AP roads in acceptable conditions) and for humans (deaths/miles driven on all roads in all conditions) and then act as if they are comparable or prove "improved safety", because they don't.

> All we care about is that on average it crashes less than human drivers.

All we care about is that on average it crashes less than human drivers in comparable conditions. If you compare a 40 year old driving a tesla on autopilot on a sunny freeway to an 18 year old driving a 1995 beater without modern safety features, no ADAS, etc, in a snowy busy intersection, autopilot doesn't have to be that great to look better. If you compare tesla on autopilot to "average human miles" you rolling some very invalid comparisons into the averages. You can only usefully compare averages if they're averaged over comparable contexts.

A less extreme comparison, if my memory serves, is tesla rolling out ADAS with autopilot when they did a before/after comparison. They compared autopilot-available + ADAS-engaged to autopilot-unavailable + ADAS-unavailable, or something along those lines, if I remember correctly.

The stats I’ve seen quoted about Tesla are super misleading and not at all apples to apples comparisons.

Tesla's miles have the advantage of being inherently autopilot capable, and turning off when things get dicey for it.

Human drivers do not have those advantage.

So Tesla is comparing drivers in situations where AP doesn't even try to drive the vehicle because it couldn't.

This is amazingly misleading. And Tesla knows it.

I'm not sure why you are going downvoted, this is true.

https://www.tesladeaths.com/

It should be noted that that site is run by a group of pseudonymous people who do not hide the fact that they have been shorting Tesla for years. They count every death involving a Tesla. If someone jumps in front of a manually piloted Tesla and is run over before the driver can react, it is added to the spreadsheet. They’re holding the company to an impossible standard. Moreover, they don't actually care about reducing deaths involving Tesla vehicles. They want Tesla to fail so that they can profit. It’s a purely selfish act.

The most prominent member of the TSLAQ people and (IIRC) the first to publicize a spreadsheet of Tesla deaths is Elon Bachman (a pseudonym). He has also been a charlatan on COVID. A year ago he said, “After 4 months of white hot Coronavirus panic, the disaster is visible everywhere except in the data. Total deaths, rounded to the nearest percent, remain 0% of annual flu deaths, and serious cases are falling”[1]

I tried to bet him up to $1,000 that US COVID deaths would exceed 25,000 by the end of 2020.[2] He ignored me and continued to deny the harm caused by the disease.

One simply cannot trust anything he’s involved in.

1. https://twitter.com/ElonBachman/status/1237030292340314112

2. https://twitter.com/ggreer/status/1237164317142736896

> They want Tesla to fail so that they can profit.

A more realistic take is: They think Tesla is massively overvalued and should be held accountable for fraudulent corporate behaviour.

> He has also been a charlatan on COVID.

Kind of ironic given that Elon himself was (is?) one of the first vocal Covid deniers.

Check out TC's Chartcast [1] in case you are interested in TSLAQ, beware it's a deep rabbit hole.

I've previously tried to sum up Tesla's red flags here [2].

[1] https://www.buzzsprout.com/758369

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26065075

Musk has never been a covid denier. He understood that covid wasn't as dangerous as many claimed, especially for younger and healthier people. The only thing close to covid denialism that I can find is Musk's decision to resume production at Tesla's Fremont plant in defiance of Alameda county lockdown orders. This was in May of 2020 after months of failed negotiations with government officials. It's important to note that unlike Bachman, Musk had skin in the game. He asked that if the government sent cops to shut down the factory, only he be arrested.[1] The factory resumed production and nobody was arrested. A week or so later, Alameda county changed its rules to allow the factory to operate legally.

1. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1259945593805221891 "Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me."

Here's a selection of tweets for you, by a celebrity many still trust and consider a "scientific genius":

@elonmusk Mar 6, 2020

The coronavirus panic is dumb

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1236029449042198528

@elonmusk Mar 19, 2020

Based on current trends, probably close to zero new cases in US too by end of April

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1240754657263144960

@elonmusk Mar 19, 2020

Kids are essentially immune, but elderly with existing conditions are vulnerable. Family gatherings with close contact between kids & grandparents probably most risky.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1240758710646878208

@elonmusk Jun 29, 2020

There are a ridiculous number of false positive C19 tests, in some cases ~50%. False positives scale linearly with # of tests. This is a big part of why C19 positive tests are going up while hospitalizations & mortality are declining. Anyone who tests positive should retest.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1277507826529660928

The only screw-up I see is his prediction that the US would conquer the spread by the end of April. All the other info is pretty accurate, especially considering how little we knew back in March. Compared to most authorities and experts, he did a pretty good job. Remember two weeks to flatten the curve? Remember when the official line was that masks don't work?[1][2][3] Remember when the WHO said that travel bans are a bad idea?[4]

Musk was calling the panic dumb at the same time as the WHO was saying, "Our greatest enemy right now is not the coronavirus itself. It’s fear, rumours and stigma."[5] If we judge him by the same standards as every major institution (media, governments, NGOs), Musk is far less deserving of criticism. And unlike those institutions, Musk never claimed to be an expert on the topic.

1. https://twitter.com/WHOWPRO/status/1243171683067777024

2. https://twitter.com/UNGeneva/status/1244661916535930886

3. https://web.archive.org/web/20200312104152if_/https://twitte...

4. https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1224734993966096387

5. https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1233418231261646849

> They think Tesla is massively overvalued

> fraudulent corporate behaviour.

These two things have nothing to do with each other.

> and should be held accountable for

Holding a company accountable should go through the courts, not personal profit.

I'd be happy if short selling weren't an option. If you believe something is overvalued, stay out. You're not wanted.

If you believe a company did something wrong, file a lawsuit.

You haven't made an argument against short selling.

Pessimism is counterproductive to the long-term development of humanity and rapid deployment of electric vehicles and clean energy. Armchair pessimists don't deserve a place in the stock market. If you think Tesla is doing something wrong, either (a) go work there and fix it or (b) start your own Tesla competitor. Short selling isn't constructive.

What's wrong with short selling? The only reason why people like Elon Musk don't like short selling is because they know that their companies are massively overvalued.

The problem is profiting from spreading misinformation. Tesla short-sellers run large operations that fabricate and spread lies. It's usually easier to spread misinformation than to debunk it.

And Tesla will happily release misinformation too.

One of the last fatalities, Tesla was more than happy to push out a press release based on telemetry, saying "Autopilot wasn't at fault, the driver was inattentive - the vehicle even told him to put his hands on the steering wheel!".

They somehow neglected to mention that the steering wheel alert was triggered, ONCE, and FOURTEEN MINUTES before the crash.

Misinformation is not a good thing. But lets not pretend that Tesla is some downtrodden underdog just trying to make our lives better.

Also, if you have an accident in your Tesla, you'll have a lot of fun trying to get any telemetry information from them, even if Tesla isn't a named party and you're just dealing with the other involved person. You'll need multiple subpoenas and expect them to resist releasing any data as "proprietary".

But should your telemetry from an accident be able to be spun (correctly or otherwise) into a Get out of Jail Free card for Tesla, expect it to be released to the media without your consent or authorization (I'm sure it's buried in Section 48, Subsection 24, Paragraph 14c iii that you consent, but still).

And the companies don't spread misinformation? Not saying it's right in either case but companies, Tesla included aren't shining beacons of morality and truthfulness.

It's not in their interest to lie in the long term. Those companies who lie are scams and they're spotted pretty quickly (e.g. Theranos, Nikola). Elon has made some mishaps, such as 'funding secured @420' tweet, which he was punished for. Public companies have to be pretty careful in their communications. Making promises with too optimistic schedules is not lying, it's just an error in forecasting, and is common in technology.

That couldn't be further from the truth. Theranos survived for 15 years. Wirecard 22 years. Enron 10+ years. Fraud gives you a massive competitive advantage.

Not too along ago I thought of Musk as a misunderstood genius, now I'm pretty certain he knows exactly what he is doing (for the most part). If you look at all the oddities surrounding Tesla, there are clear patterns emerging.

Plainsite has a good summary [1].

[1] https://www.plainsite.org/realitycheck/tsla.pdf

That report is a bunch of horseshit. Lot of words without any substance. He even cherry-picked some data to "prove" that Tesla's sales are declining. Everyone can see the actual progress that Tesla and SpaceX has made. Their cars are winning awards and they're innovating and building new factories as fast as they can. Who cares if they miss a couple of estimates. SpaceX can deliver payload to orbit with much lower cost than competitors.

True though that those companies survived for too long.

I don't know what world you've experienced, but lying in business is incredibly common. I've seen it personally, and there are plenty of cases of Tobacco companies, DOW, Alcohol companies, and many many more knowingly lying.

Of course they do, it's in their best interest to lie. To think that companies will only tell the truth "because it's in their best interest" is childish, and not at all historically accurate.

Have you mentioned how sparse the autopilot claimed column is? And how even sparser the verified autopilot is? Seems like the authors are trying to inflate the total numbers very hard.

Not to mention the spreadsheet admits Autopilot was released in 2015 but they are still including deaths from 2013.

This can't be more blatant.

Autopilot might not be around, but up until very recently Tesla refused to participate in a lot of auto safety testing saying that they believed the testing regime was "flawed".

I have no issue with keeping track of auto deaths from a company who is claiming that their vehicles are safe while preventing anything but the legal minimum necessary tests from occurring.

That's an interesting table. I would say that it reinforces the case that Autopilot (actually labelled Autosteer in the UI of my 2015 Model S) is actually not dangerous.

I presume that the aim of the site is the opposite though.

Ok, reduce that to where autopilot is engaged.

The issue is when there is a crash or a death could that situation have been avoided if the driver was looking ahead with two hands on the wheel, like you would in any other car without the marketing hype.

I've seen more then enough crashes and deaths in Telsas that were perfectly avoidable providing the driver wasn't watching their ipad.

Really? I've been driving for over forty years (about 15k km per year) and I have never seen a death involving any car let alone the relatively rare Tesla.

I've seen emergency vehicles attending a crash perhaps once or twice a year but never seen the crash occur. In fact the only ones I have personal first hand experience of is the time I rear ended a car, the two times that I was rear ended, and the time I slid off the road on an icy corner. All three rear ending events were relatively low speed incidents (under 30 km/h) and would quite likely have been mitigated or even completely avoided if the cars in question had had automatic emergency braking. The icy corner was my own fault for not thinking ahead.

So, to me, your statement, without some more context, sounds like an exaggeration.

I too have been driving some some time now but we have this thing called the internet, where you can see and share information.

Lemme help you out friend - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tesla+autopilot...

So you didn't mean: "I've seen more then enough crashes and deaths in Telsas"

you meant: "I have heard about .." or "I have seen accounts of .."

Those are not quite the same thing.

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