Ralph Nader urges regulators to recall Tesla’s ‘manslaughtering’ FSD vehicles | Hacker News Reader

Ralph Nader urges regulators to recall Tesla’s ‘manslaughtering’ FSD vehicles

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It's complete willful ignorance to mock or dismiss this. It may not be a 'dangerous at any speed' scenario, but that's only a difference of scale because there aren't a lot of Teslas on the road and because FSD is an add-on. If Tesla were allowed to keep releasing such an untested product with such a poor safety track record without repercussions, it could set the tone for other auto manufacturers to do the same. Luckily other auto manufacturers aren't being as reckless.

FSD is dangerously immature software that is not anywhere close to road ready, and yet we are supposed to trust it not to kill or injure people.

Some examples:

- Teslas can't distinguish yellow stoplights from the moon.

https://twitter.com/JordanTeslaTech/status/14184133078625853...

- Numerous examples of near-misses where it decides to veer into pedestrians

- They are demonstrably much more dangerous than other cars:

https://www.tesladeaths.com/resources.html

Aside from the software, they also aren't safe on a mechanical level either, since for instance, they don't have good mechanical safety mechanisms as a fallback for when the electronics fail, and people are trapped in burning cars.

https://www.autoblog.com/2019/02/25/fatal-tesla-model-s-cras...

In my state FSD/Autopilot luckily isn't street legal, but if it was and I saw another Tesla on the road, rather than take my chances I'd pull over if I wasn't able to keep sufficient distance from them. And I certainly wouldn't want to take my chances near them as a pedestrian.

I will give Tesla credit for popularizing EVs and innovating auto design, but that doesn't make up for such poor execution in manufacturing, safety design, and alpha-quality software being trusted to make decisions that can kill people when.

I agree. FSD in this moment is Alpha version and will be for years to come. Musk should get the software back from the streets and refund everyone who bought into this FSD scam.

Musk should get a prison cell for the people he has killed by recklessly putting this vaporware on the streets.

> It's complete willful ignorance to mock or dismiss this.

It's complete willful ignorance to participate in this well-funded paid fearmongering campaign driven by a Musk opponent who ran for office just so he couldn't be sued for libel and defamation for his statements.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/dan-odowd-senate-c...

The paid anti-Tesla ad I just saw on YouTube is also an advertisement for the guy's own software company. Self-driving cars are the future and are already saving lives. (https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-autopilot-eight-times-less-l...) Promoting this Luddite anti-self-driving fearmongering campaign will directly lead to more deaths.

> Self-driving cars are the future and are already saving lives. (https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-autopilot-eight-times-less-l...) Promoting this Luddite anti-self-driving fearmongering campaign will directly lead to more deaths.

I don't have teeth on either party, but I want to see independent results instead of self-reported results. It seems that Tesla isn't that willing to allow independent analysis though.

Insurance companies and NHTSA have nationwide accident statistics available - see https://www.nhtsa.gov/ratings for Tesla safety ratings - but those don't support the Luddite narrative so they engineer videos and fear-monger over individual cases. It's immoral to ban self-driving technology that's saving lives.

Sure when you switch Autopilot off few seconds before impact, then it is easy to blame driver and have nice score on you faulty system.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/nhtsa-tesla-autopilot-invest...

Your article is a Tesla fansite which links to a "study" done by ... Tesla. It's a bit odd to criticize the previous poster on one of several links/sources they included if that's your counter. These criticism go back years, and is not merely a "Luddite anti-self-driving fearmongering campaign" by one guy.

I didn't criticize one of his links, I criticized the current organized attack on Tesla that people here are being complicit in, which will lead to many deaths.

Check out NHTSA's safety ratings at https://www.nhtsa.gov/ratings.

NHTSA safety ratings measure the safety of the vehicle’s occupants and have nothing to do with Autopilot or FSD safety. The only data available to the public is provided by Tesla and presents a faulty comparison between vehicles of all ages and prices and Tesla’s expensive luxury cars.

In fact, NHTSA has multiple investigations open into FSD and Autopilot because of recent fatal crashes.

Plus, NHTSA was responsible for the misleading claim that Autopilot provided a 40% increase in safety after the Joshua Brown fatality, but that number was later torn apart by independent researchers after they sued for the data behind the claim, and NHTSA backed down.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/in-2017-the-feds-said-t... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-autopilot-idUSKBN1I...

Tesla publishes details about accidents per million miles driven and compares that with Autopilot active and without. https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport

In the 4th quarter, we recorded one crash for every 4.31 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology (Autosteer and active safety features). For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology (no Autosteer and active safety features), we recorded one crash for every 1.59 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 484,000 miles.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they split out numbers for FSD, which is important to understand in this context.

Assuming FSD is currently as good as a human driver (Tesla suggests it is better), how much better does FSD have to be than a person to be accepted as a safer way to drive?

> Assuming FSD is currently as good as a human driver

That's a massive assumption made without evidence.

> Tesla publishes details about accidents per million miles driven and compares that with Autopilot active and without.

The problems with Tesla's autopilot (different from FSD) statistics have been pointed out before: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/06/teslas-using-autopilot-...

I wasn't aware of the problems with Tesla's statistics before.

I find it of an accusation that you say I've a "massive assumption made without evidence". The "evidence" I have is the data from Tesla itself, which states that FSD is better than a person, so I reduced that to say "as good".

The "problems with Tesla's data" as pointed out in the ars technica article doesn't make a comparison to an average driver, or give details on the number of miles driven per accident, etc etc

So, how are we to know where a regular human driver falls on the spectrum.

> The "evidence" I have is the data from Tesla itself, which states that FSD is better than a person, so I reduced that to say "as good".

What data has Tesla provided about FSD? The only data I'm aware of is about Autopilot, and that data doesn't look very good when correctly interpreted.

Ralph might not be wrong, but this isn’t the “Unsafe at Any Speed”[0] moment he might think it is. This is just one manufacturer who is using deceptive marketing for one (arguably two) feature(s). So dialing back the hyperbole might be in order. Yes, Tesla needs a smack. But it is not like Tesla is refusing to put seat belts in cars (as in the book).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed

Seems like a very "I haven't got any press recently" call: it's something where hyperbole can be used, it involves a popular & high profile target, has significant public cost, etc

It's not like they're deathtraps (it seems like mechanically/physically they are safe cars), and Tesla has repeatedly shown that they can disable and remove vehicle behaviour without a car going into a dealer/mechanic. So if it _is_ considered too unsafe a recall isn't needed.

A recall is a bureaucratic process, not the physical travel of cars to a repair shop.

In this case, a recall is very much needed, and would be issued OTA to all the Teslas. It would 100% be a recall, and none of the cars would go to a dealership.

Seems like an overreaction. There's nothing wrong with the cars, it seems the key issue is that the FSD feature needs to be renamed and people need to not be trusting it to handle braking on their behalf. Or disable it entirely over the air until it is fixed to an acceptable standard.

I guess the Chevrolet Corvair is not so distant in human memory that the guy who made news dunking on it can still make a headline.

See, I thought it was the pinto catching on fire when it got rear ended.

Haven’t heard of Nader in a long, long time time though. Maybe they’re dragging him out to split the vote again? Gotta start early for the presidential elections these days.

It was the pinto that caught fire when rear-ended but the corvair had plenty of problems its own. Stability through corners, for starters.

autopilot has been rear ending motorcycles, and has a history of not detecting them properly. also, a rename at this point will not change behavior, owners have already become accustomed to paying lax attention.

Sure, let the regulator decide. Either way seems like an OTA update would address it.

to date, FSD remains a “Level 2” advanced driver-assistance system, meaning the driver must stay fully engaged in the operation of the vehicle while it’s in motion.

The car is continuously reminding you to keep your hands on the wheel with a prompt. You cannot ignore it without deliberately fooling the mechanism somehow. Ultimately it is your responsibility to hit the brakes and steer or stop the car. FSD is not a license to sit back and read a book. Without more information I find it hard to blame anyone but the driver. Are there cases of the car having a mind of its own and overriding the driver's command?

Regardless of whether it's impacting safety or not (I'd be surprised it's not based on the videos of frequent exciting interventions), I can't believe they haven't gotten anything for deceptive marketing about this feature. Tesla.com/autopilot has a video now for many many years that tries to paint the picture you could sit back and read a book (if not for those pesky regulators). Meanwhile people are paying over $10k for it while the fine print (or overt warnings) make it pretty clear it's currently useless

First time I was in a Tesla was about a month ago. We were driving on the expressway and suddenly the Tesla jerked right and then left and beeped. As if it were dodging something. It was pretty horrifying. The driver was no longer in control.

There was maybe some roadkill on the side of the road? Nothing to actually dodge - definitely a false positive.

My dad (a first-time Tesla driver) promptly turned off the assistance and we all had a better time.

> FSD is not a license to sit back and read a book.

Given then that the F stands for "full", this seems like a simple case of fraud to me.

No, you can't design a system than operates contrary to how human brains work, and then say that it's the driver's fault that they did exactly what we know human brains do. We learned that from aircraft, and correctly identified from numerous accidents that expecting even super highly trained, in extremely safety critical positions, are not able to do what FSD requires by design.

Until X Æ A-12 is crossing the road in front a Tesla, FSD should be banned from the roads. These self driving car execs are willing to risk my family’s lives, because it costs them nothing. That’s not a sufficient bar.

Teslas are safer per mile driven than other cars. NHTSA gives them 5-star safety ratings. Banning this technology by being suckered in by a coordinated smear campaign will result in more deaths if successful. The lives you end may be your families' or mine.

Follow up post saying FSD was never enabled [0]

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417286

Great example of fake news https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/tesla-self-driving-smear-camp...

If it's possible to "fail to realize" that FSD has failed to activate when you pressed the button for it, then that's probably worth a recall on its own.

Additionally, any automatic emergency braking functionality that a car has needs to be enabled by default, not something the driver must manually activate along with other features that are less broadly usable.

It is a smear campaign, it is more like they dont care if it was enabled or not

Nader has nothing to do with the Dawn Project. There are a lot more people who recognize Tesla's FSD Beta is dangerous than just O'Dowd.

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