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Comment by downandout | Hacker News Reader

> This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

Do you mean ridiculous as in you believe that he is exaggerating, or ridiculous as in it is amazing that the car held up so well? I doubt that he would simply make up verifiable facts concerning a specific, well publicized accident to make his company look better. That said, it is quite clear from these facts that this driver is lucky to be breathing today regardless of what kind of car he was driving. If the guy had died, Elon would be talking about how such an extreme accident wouldn't be survivable in any car.

This being an edge case, it doesn't really sway me either way, but it is undeniable that Tesla automobiles are very safe relative to others. He is justifiably incensed at the negative media attention surrounding a very small number of incidents.

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It's ridiculous how much emphasis the media placed on the fire while ignoring the extreme speed and consequently minor injuries involved in the crash.

The standard that the media holds Tesla to will still be a picnic compared to how the media will treat the first self-driving cars. Far safer than human-driven will not be nearly enough; the first high-profile accident will be wall-to-wall "Are Self-Driving Cars Really Ready For Prime Time?"

Even Betteridge's law occasionally has it's exceptions.

Does Betteridge's law have exceptions?

No.

I love the meta-ness of this exchange. I assume it was intentional.

Breaking News: "Vehicle computer records indicate that the driver took control of the vehicle three minutes prior to the accident."

I would bet the first self-driving car accident involves a human driven car as well. Even if it is human error, the media will say the self driving car should have avoided them or something like that.

It already has.

http://mashable.com/2010/10/09/google-cars/

Tesla was handled with kid gloves compared to Toyota.

Remember the unintended acceleration crock?

You mean this one? http://embeddedgurus.com/state-space/2014/02/are-we-shooting...

Yes, this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle_...

Um, it wasn't crock. They recently settled a huge lawsuit and criminal investigation with the US government to the tune of $1.2B. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/03/19/toyota-s...

It was a crock: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle_...

The Toyota Acceleration issue ranks up there with the McDonald's Coffee lawsuit as one of the most doubly misunderstood corporate events in recent history.

Popular belief has there being an acceleration problem with Toyota cars. Slightly less popular is the correction that in fact it was all just senile old people and floor mats, nothing to do with the computers. Far less common is the correction that there were in fact technical problems with the cars.

Similarly popular belief has the McDonald's coffee lawsuit being absurd, because "everyone knows that coffee is hot and how much damage can it cause anyway?". Slightly less popular is the correction that the burns were in fact horrific and the coffee was stunningly hot, far hotter than industry standard. Far less common is the further correction that in fact McDonald's coffee was being served at an industry standard temperature, where "industry standard" is defined as how other companies also serve their coffee (Starbucks coffee is generally just as hot, and many companies serve hotter coffee than McDonald's was serving.) In fact, since the lawsuit, McDonald's hasn't reduced the temperature that they serve their coffee at. The only change that McDonald's has made since the lawsuit is adding warning labels, the coffee you buy there today can be just as hot as the coffee that burned Stella Liebeck... don't spill it on yourself!

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restauran...)

Excellent summary. 5 stars, would read again.

According to NHTSA, there was not a technical problem:

In February 2011 the findings of a 10-month-long study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), aimed to identify the main cause of sudden acceleration in Toyota and Lexus models. The study was requested by the US Congress and "enlisted NASA engineers with expertise in areas such as computer controlled electronic systems, electromagnetic interference and software integrity".[229] The most common problem was drivers hitting the gas when they thought they were hitting the brake, which the NHTSA called "pedal misapplication.”[229] Of the 58 cases reported, 18 were dismissed out of hand. Of the remaining 40, 39 of them were found to have no cause; the remainder being an instance of “pedal entrapment.”

Toyota cars did not fail safe in the event that both the accelerator and the brakes were pressed. Combined with the floor mats, this could create dangerous situations where drivers were unable to stop their cars using the brakes (the standard objections that they should have turned their cars off or shifted out of gear still have some validity of course) The two sibling comments to my above comment address other potential technical problems with Toyota vehicles. Your Wikipedia link does not refute their points.

Reiterated:

What the NHTSA believed that they found in 2011 is overshadowed by more recent developments, mainly that Toyota was not being forthcoming with the NHTSA. In 2014, Holder said "Today, we can say for certain that Toyota intentionally concealed information and misled the public about the safety issues behind these recalls," Additionally: "The cover-up is still there on the electronics issue," says Sean Kane, an auto safety expert for Safety Research and Strategies. "This (government penalty) sends an important message, but it's a mixed message." Furthermore it has become clear that Toyota's code was a clusterfuck and that the alleged failure modes were very possible.

My point is that in both the Mcdonalds case and the Toyota case, the issue is not nearly as clear cut as the two most popular points of view present.

It is as simple as the second most popular theory makes it out to be.

Holder is wrong. This shouldn't be surprising.

If it really were that simple, it would have stopped in 2011. That seems to be when you stopped following the story.

There is really not much more I can say in response to such a substance-less comment, other than telling you that you should research the more recent developments in this situation before misrepresenting it again in the future.

In fact the story is that simple.

It didn't stop in 2011 because there are careers to be made in slamming corporations for even bogus claims.

Corporations are more than willing to settle when the government is willing to take them to court. Guilt and innocence are irrelevant.

It's rather comical that many of the same folks who complain about the criminal justice system hammering individuals into pleading guilty when they are innocent fail to see the parallels with civil suits / government pressure and corporations.

Just to add - My '07 Vauxhall Corsa has a throttle cut off - so if you a apply the brake pedal, the car [ecu] ignores any/all throttle inputs when in gear; which I assume is what you meant by fail-safe.

exactly.. I read that and was like... how did I not get that from the original article?

Most normal cars survive "normal" crashes just fine, don't they?

Tesla buyers tend to be sports car buyers who want to drive fast. Whether this means we should expect accidents with more force or that Tesla should anticipate this and design accordingly is debatable.

Do you have a citation for that claim?

I think a lot of people still think of the Tesla Roadster, not the Model S. The Roadster is definitely a sports car, but the Model S is like a BMW 5-series... Yeah, it's fast, but the people who can afford one are generally old/mature enough to know not to drive recklessly on public roads.

...you don't know the same middle aged and affluent people I do.

I know 280 though and Tesla S drivers although they often like to drive fast are generally courteous.

True. Here's what happens to a Ford Focus that crashes into a concrete wall at ~100mph: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmRkPyuet_o

That's not really comparable, though, because this video is going straight into a super reinforced wall. The Tesla accident was hitting the roundabout, going on into another wall, then going on into a tree, so each of those is much less of an impact than smack into a reinforced wall.

Ah yes, because a Tesla would leave you unscratched if you collided with the same immovable wall?

Reminded me of a joke I heard a while ago:

"Just released car has amazing safety features that prevent any damage to the vehicle. Amazing advance of technology was made available by near instantaneous braking. Even going 100 mph a car can come to a complete stop instantaneously. After that wipers are deployed automatically to wipe off remains of a driver from windshield."

Any significant change of momentum will harm humans no matter how tough the car is. Newer cars are actually less rigid to provide a cushion to human drivers in case of such collision.

Edit: I meant less rigid in right places. If you observe crash test you could see how neatly car folded around drivers cage. Thanks drglitch for pointing that out.

Newer cars are more rigid in just the right places (e.g. driver cage) - they do have larger/softer crumple zones that permit the damage to be absorbed along a longer time period. By prolonging the total crumple/crash time, the peak energy is decreased, thereby avoiding injuries from force overload during deceleration.

Knowing that, one should also be able to conclude this Focus crash test is meaningless. How it performs vs. an immovable wall at 120mph really doesn't tell you much about how it will perform at 65mph vs. a fence, or a tree, or a guard rail. If it didn't crumple at 120mph, then you'd have cause to worry though.

Reminds me of the saying: "people like to say that speed kills, but really it's a very sudden lack of speed that kills."

I think that might be a Clarksonism...

Also, "No-one ever died from falling. They die from stopping falling."

Also, 'nobody ever died on a motorcycle'.

Not true: plenty of people have died of a heart attack on the way down before they ever hit the ground.

I don't know about Tesla but 120MPH head on collisions like that are in fact survivable without serious injury given the correct car design. People can safely decelerate at 45g's which takes 10.4 feet from 120MPH. Of course in most cases your going to slow down a little before impact and or not hit an immovable wall so cars are generally optimized for lower impact velocity's.

The closest real world example is probably Nascar. Granted, there track design make head on collisions rather difficult but as cars regularly hit 190MPH you do occasionally get near head on collisions at around 120MPH which are often survivable. Best example I could find was: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QVlj7...

PS: The much more common 60MPH drivers side impact is also survivable which I still find shocking.

Yes, cars can be designed to protect you from a 120mph crash into a brick wall. But that comes at the expense of their ability to protect you from a 65mph crash into a lamp post or other car.

I don't know about you, but I drive near cars & lamp posts much more often than I drive on an Autobahn full of brick walls.

Look what they did to Toyota over the Sudden Unrequested Acceleration that never was. $1.6bn fine!

EDIT:

By they I mean the Media.

I guess I should add some substance.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/nesc-toyota-stu...

NASA's Toyota Study Released by Dept. of Transportation 02.08.11

WASHINGTON -- The results of a ten-month study by 30 NASA engineers of possible electronic causes of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles was released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).

"NASA found no evidence that a malfunction in electronics caused large unintended accelerations," said Michael Kirsch, principal engineer and team lead of the study from the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) based at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

The studies cost over $3 million, including the cost of purchasing the vehicles that have allegedly unintentionally accelerated. Upon completion of the studies, the NHTSA will determine whether a formal investigation into Toyota is necessary.

ABC made a totally fake video demonstrating the alleged phenomena.

"Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington today before the House Appropriations subcommittee on Transportation. LaHood first told the subcommittee that owners of Toyotas should stop driving them, then clarified his statement and told owners to get their cars fixed promptly."

Later LaHood told reporters it was "obviously a misstatement"

Toyota have been abused, IMHO, their "blame no-one else" culture is being rinsed by the US Govt.

I don't know what to believe about this. Wasn't it just all over the news that an embedded software engineer found all sorts of code quality problems with Toyota and could even demonstrate unintended acceleration via various bugs?

That's me schooled. I'd not been party to that (not being in the US) I'd missed it.

http://www.viva64.com/en/a/0083/

It sounds like a proper mess. How curious that much is revealed that the NASA people didn't speak of. Maybe because it was ostensibly an investigation at the behest of NIHIST to demonstrate that they hadn't let Toyota off the hook.

It is also somewhat disturbing that these are not Toyota parts but parts sourced from NEC.

I'm still not convinced that Toyota deliberately hid their knowledge of system failure. A software update would have been much simpler than the millions of physical modifications they chose to make, including fetching customers cars on transporters because they owners were too scared to drive them.

And there were some drivetrain software bugs that Toyota did acknowledge and fix (at least partially). My '07 Camry was dangerous to operate for the first few months before a firmware update. Prior to the update, it would accelerate well from 0 to about 15-20, but then almost coast for a few seconds before the speed would increase further. It felt like my 4-cylinder was suffering from severe turbo lag, and it made turning onto busy thoroughfares quite scary when the speed limit was 45 or more.

Yes their were bugs, but nothing implicstingt actual observed failures.

I think it's amazing how any vehicle maker can idiot-proof any vehicle, the general population seems to be suicidal and then blames the manufacturer for not protecting them during their 110mph missile ride.

reddit's /r/Justrolledintotheshop and /r/TalesFromRetail/ makes me wonder how people manage to use any product without killing themselves.

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