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Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

>so I tried to turn the wheel to avoid it from going into the wrong lane but the car by itself took control and forced itself into the incorrect lane

Something doesn't add up about this report. Teslas are not fly-by-wire. Their steering wheel and brakes are mechanical. You can't turn the wheel without the wheels turning. It therefore shouldn't be possible for the computer to overrule the human. Considering that, it is unclear what intervention the driver actually did and what "the car by itself took control" means. My initial hunch is that the driver isn't being entirely truthful in an attempt to shift blame from themselves to Tesla. But even if that is the case, it wouldn't clear concerns about the safety of FSD.

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I don't have FSD in my Model 3, but there are times when overcoming whatever Autopilot is doing with the wheel takes a surprising amount of force. I have no doubt that the motors used to control the wheel are way stronger than me.

Motor that turns wheels is way stronger than human. Try to turn steering wheel with engine turned off.

If a car uses electric power steering, your resistance in the wheel will be different from a vehicle that has hydraulic power steering, or even older cars without power steering.

The designs for each of these three are different and will - while make the resistance heavier when un-powered, are not quite the same between each other.

I have never experienced that and never heard of anyone else experiencing that. I have often disengaged Autopilot accidentally due to the limited forced required. And for the record, I also don't have FSD because I don't trust it.

Are you sure you couldn't overpower it or were you subconsciously holding back because you were worried about jerking the wheel too hard and how that would impact the vehicle? If you have ever driven a car without power steering, there is a surprising amount of force required to actually steer a vehicle mechanically, but it is something every driver used to do so it shouldn't be that difficult even in the worst situations when the power steering is refusing to cooperate.

> I have never experienced that and never heard of anyone else experiencing that.

That's good. It's happened to me several times, and it's one of the reasons I'm not a fan of Autopilot. When it happens, the car is usually following a curve in the road. I've also had it turn off because I barely touched the wheel, and that usually happens on a straightaway.

I'm not sure if I could overpower it or not if I'm honest. Last night when it happened, it took a lot of force before it relinquished control to me. While fighting it I was definitely thinking about how it'd react once it "let go", which could have easily influenced how aggressive I was in applying force.

Regarding power steering - I have a 2006 Subaru STI that's a track-only car. The power steering pump began leaking years ago, so I removed it and the air conditioning entirely. It takes a lot of effort to steer that car, but that makes it pretty fun on the track too. A day at the track often means my upper body is sore the next day.

That said, I'm not sure how that's relevant to Tesla's FSD or Autopilot.

I've not dug into the mechanics of the Model 3, but it seems reasonable to suggest that for Autopilot or FSD to work, the mechanisms that support power steering can also be automated through software. Meaning, it's unlikely that there's a traditional power steering pump, and the automation is done with stepper or servo motors. It's more likely that it's done with a single motor. I could be wrong, of course.

That said, irregardless of how it works, it's reasonable to assume that that system has to be able to match or exceed what a driver is capable of doing, force-wise. If that's the case, then it seems totally reasonable that the car could prevent me from steering it manually if it wanted to.

Have you talked to Tesla support about this? I don't think what you are experiencing is intended or common (my quick googling didn't find other reports of this issue). But if you are experiencing it, maybe the driver in the accident did too. But that would mean this accident is a combination of two unrelated issues.

My googling has also suggested that Tesla does have a pretty standard EPS system although it doesn't use a pump and fluid like older systems.

Cars without power steering were designed quite a bit differently, not quite comparable to a modern car with broken power steering.

I think that's absolutely wrong. One of the first things I started playing with when I got the car was AP authority. It's true that Tesla steering is stiff overall. It's true that Tesla AP, unlike some other driver assistance UIs, wants you to apply full override force to disengage (that is, it will fight you as hard as it can, and the car will "pop" out of AP, sometimes with a distinct swerve if you don't reverse correct).

But the force required to do that is just not high. It's not. Just try this on an empty highway. Engage AP in a context where you're doing a lane change or something and hold the wheel firmly. It won't be remotely able to overpower you. You'll feel it tug and then it will chime and give up.

Yea, it doesn't sound like the driver is truthful in the report. It is super easy to disengage autopilot - I do it all the time on accident. Just a little nudge of the wheel and it just gives up. Of course, this is assuming there isn't a firmware bug, but such a bug would have likely been reported publicly on the dozens of Tesla forums given it's severity

Possible FSD disengagement problems aside...

> it wouldn't clear concerns about the safety of FSD.

If you follow FSD review channels like AI Addict, you'll know that there's no "safety" in the system. The human must maintain control at all times, as part of the agreement with Tesla for using the system, because it is clearly unsafe, if left on its own.

Don’t they have games built into the car that let you use the steering wheel (while parked, of course) to control? Surely this wouldn’t be turning the wheels?

Yes, the wheels turn when playing those games and it makes the steering wheel controls pretty stupid in my opinion. Who wants to put that much wear on their tires to play a video game?

That can't possibly be true, can it???

Yes, it is true. Here is video evidence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sanbI_ze8c&t=111s

That's incredibly dumb. Like, wow.

True - when car is driving itself, it's relatively easy to override automatic steering and disengage.

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