Tesla In 'Self-Drive Mode' Hit By Train After Turning Onto Train Tracks
One family in Pennsylvania found their Tesla had turned onto some railroad tracks and, eventually, got hit by a train
Paraphrasing:
"We only have the driver's word they were in self driving mode..."
"This isn't the first time a Tesla has driven onto train tracks..."
Since it isn't the first time I'm gonna go ahead and believe the driver, thanks.
Furthermore, with the amount of telemetry that those cars have The company knows whether it was in self drive or not when it went onto the track. So the fact that they didn't go public saying it wasn't means that it was in self-drive mode and they want to save the PR face and liability.
I have a nephew that worked at Tesla as a software engineer for a couple years (he left about a year ago). I gave him the VIN to my Tesla and the amount of data he shared with me was crazy. He warned me that one of my brake lights was regularly logging errors. If their telemetry includes that sort of information then clearly they are logging a LOT of data.
Since the story has 3 separate incidents where "the driver let their Tesla turn left onto some railroad tracks" I'm going to posit:
Teslas on self-drive mode will turn left onto railroad tracks unless forcibly restrained.
Prove me wrong, Tesla
Map data obtained and converted from other formats often ends up accidentally condensing labeling categories. One result is train tracks being categorized as generic roads instead of retaining their specific sub-heading. Another, unrelated to this, but common for people that play geo games is when forests and water areas end up being tagged as the wrong specific types.
I mean …… Tesla self driving allegedly did this three times in three years but we don’t yet have public data to verify that’s what happened nor do we in any way compare it to what human drivers do.
Although one of the many ways I think I’m an above average driver (just like everyone else) is that people do a lot of stupid things at railroad crossings and I never would
The ~2010 runaway Toyota hysteria was ultimately blamed on mechanical problems less than half the time. Floor mats jamming the pedal, drivers mixing up gas/brake pedals in panic, downright lying to evade a speeding ticket, etc were cause for many cases.
Should a manufacturer be held accountable for legitimate flaws? Absolutely. Should drivers be absolved without the facts just because we don't like a company? I don't think so. But if Tesla has proof fsd was off, we'll know in a minute when they invade the driver's privacy and release driving events
How is a manufacturer going to be held responsible for their flaws when musk DOGE'd
investigating his companies?The ~2010 runaway Toyota hysteria was ultimately blamed on mechanical problems less than half the time. Floor mats jamming the pedal, drivers mixing up gas/brake pedals in panic, downright lying to evade a speeding ticket, etc were cause for many cases.
I owned an FJ80 Land Cruiser when that happened. I printed up a couple stickers for myself, and for a buddy who owned a Tacoma, that said "I'm not speeding, my pedal's stuck!" (yes I'm aware the FJ80 was slow as dogshit, that didn't stop me from speeding).
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't it trivial to take it out of their bullshit dangerous "FSD" mode and take control? How does a car go approximately 40-50 feet down the tracks without the driver noticing and stopping it?
On some railroad crossings you might only need to go off the crossing to get stuck in the tracks and unable to back out. Trying to get out is another 30-40 feet.
Being caught off guard when the car isn't supposed to do that is how to get stuck in the first place. Yeah, terrible driver trusting shit technology.
I mean... I have seen some REALLY REALLY stupid drivers so I could totally see multiple people thinking they found a short cut or not realizing the road they are supposed to be on is 20 feet to the left and there is a reason their phone is losing its shit all while their suspension is getting destroyed.
But yeah. It is the standard tesla corp MO. They detect a dangerous situation and disable all the "self driving". Obviously because it is up to the driver to handle it and not because they want the legal protection to say it wasn't their fault.
At my local commuter rail station the entrance to the parking lot is immediately next to the track. It’s easily within margin of error for GPS and if you’re only focusing immediately in front of you the pavement at the entrance probably look similar.
There are plenty of cues so don’t rolled shouldn’t be fooled but perhaps FSD wouldn’t pay attention to them since it’s a bit of an outlier.
That being said, I almost got my Subaru stuck once because an ATV trail looked like the dirt road to a campsite from the GPS, and I missed any cues there may have been
How the fuck do you let any level 2 system go 40 to 50 fucking feet down the railroad tracks.
We're they asleep?
I'm not sure I'd be able to sleep through driving on the railroad tracks. I'm going to guess this person was simply incredibly fucking stupid, and thought the car would figure it out, instead of doing the bare fucking minimum of driving their goddamn 2 ton heavy death machine themself.
LOL right? Like deciding to see what the car will do ON RAILWAY TRACKS is absolutely fucking bonkers.
I’m going to guess this person was simply incredibly fucking stupid
Well, the guy owned a Tesla, it was pretty obvious.
I was gonna say it’s not so much the fact that the car was hit by a train, but that it turned on to the tracks …but 40 or 50 feet?
Cop: WTF happened here?
Driver: It drove itself onto the tracks
Cop: Okay, but what about the other 49 feet of the 50 feet it's on the tracks?
Driver: ...
LOL wasn't expecting that.
Teslas do still have steering wheels, after all
You don't say!
Also, the robotaxi has been live for all of a day and there's already footage of it driving on the wrong side of the road: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s-h0YXtF0c&t=420s
The thing that strikes me about both this story and the thing you posted is that the people in the Tesla seem to be like "this is fine" as the car does some pretty terrible stuff.
In that one, Tesla failing to honor a forced left turn instead opting to go straight into oncoming lanes and waggle about causing things to honk at them, the human just sits there without trying to intervene. Meanwhile they describe it as "navigation issue/hesitation" which really understates what happened there.
The train one didn't come with video, but I can't imagine just letting my car turn itself onto tracks and going 40 feet without thinking.
My Ford even thinks about going too close to another lane and I'm intervening even if it was really going to be no big deal. I can't imagine this level of "oh well".
Tesla drivers/riders are really nuts...
If only there was a way to avoid the place where trains drive.
I checked first. They didn't make a turn into a crossing. It turned onto the tracks. Jalopnik says there's no official statement that it was actually driving under FSD(elusion) but if it was strictly under human driving (or FSD turned itself off after driving off) I guarantee Tesla will invade privacy and slander the driver by next day for the sake of court of public opinion
They didn't make a turn into a crossing. It turned onto the tracks.
Just to be clear for others, it did so at a crossing. That's still obviously not what it should have done and it's no defence of the self-driving feature, but I read your comment as suggesting it had found its way onto train tracks by some other route.
Thanks. I could have clarified better myself. I meant "didn't turn from a rail-parallel road onto a crossing to be met by a train it couldn't reasonably detect due to bad road design"
Damn. I hope the train is ok
Tesla's self-driving is pretty shite but they seem to have a particular problem with railway crossings, as also pointed out in the article. Of all of the obstacles for the self-driving system to fail to detect, the several thousand tons of moving steel is probably one of the worst outcomes.
Maybe if they use LIDAR like they should have instead of just cameras it wouldn’t be such an issue, but they’re determined to minimize costs and maximize profits at the expense of consumers as are all publicly traded companies
That, and little kids... and motorcycles... and school busses
Don't forget "styrofoam walls painted to look like tunnels". Fucking looney tunes.
Working as expected then.
Tesla's have a problem with the lefts.
Deregulation, ain't it great.
I'll just fork it; we can do better than this.
Elongated Musketon: UM THAT WAS JUST 1 FAULTY MODEL STOP CHERRY PICKING GUYS JUST BUY IT!!!1
Clearly the train didn't yield properly, time to ban trains.
I mean, he did specifically come up with his idiotic "Hyperloop" concept to kill California's high speed rail project
For as much as I’d like to see Tesla stock crash these days, and without judging on the whole autonomous car topic, this IS cherrypicking.
Human drivers aren’t exactly flawless either, but we won’t ban human driven cars because some acts recklessly or other had a seizure while driving.
If statistically self driving cars are safer, I’d rather have them and reduce the risk of coming across another reckless driver.
yes we should be doing more to reduce driving, it's relatively unsafe and I'm sick of our lived environments being designed for cars and not people.
Car drove itself on to the tracks, gets hit by a train. This is some Maximum Overdrive shit.
What a cool and futuristic car. It’s all computer!
I’m still waiting for Elon’s car to drive onto train tracks.
Can't wait to hop in a Robotaxi! /s
What's that? They'll have human drivers in them? Still maybe no.
Pretty sure this one also had a driver in it.
A family in Pennsylvania
And who is going to willingly get into a Tesla Taxi?!?!
You still don't have to get in for one to hit you. I ride a motorcycle and I'm always sketched out when there's a Tesla behind me
Very true.
I won't get in one because I'm not giving a single dollar of business to Musk. He can go jump up his own asshole.
Also a very valid point.
It's stupider than I thought reading the headline. That car started driving down the fing tracks
Meanwhile my sister's fiancee drank the whole pitcher and is back working there totally believing Elon is some super genius and that the cars are capable of full self-driving. (I really have to bite my tongue when listening to him)
My camry can self-drive too, same outcome. (just off a cliff, rather than in front of a train)
How could the left do this /s
Next up: "Train is a communistic tool to restrict vehicular freedom. Banish trains! More highways!"
Train often frequented by Hamas supporters canceled a Tesla.
This is unironically something I've heard people argue about public transport in general, that its a tool to control people's movement.
Just one more lane, bro!
At this point, if anybody buys one of these vehicles from Tesla, they absolutely deserve what they get. It is absurd.
Honey, are those train tracks? .... Yes looks like we'll turn left on to the tracks for 1/2 a mile. Its a detour.
Yeaaaaah, I mean fuck Tesla for a variety of reasons, but right here we're looking at a car that drove itself onto a set of train tracks, continued down the train tracks, and the people inside did...nothing? Like, they grabbed their shit and got out when it got stuck. The car certainly should not have done this, but this isn't really a Tesla problem. It'll definitely be interesting when robotaxis follow suit though.
Hope no one was hurt, regardless whether they're stupid, distracted or whatever! If we can't build fail-saves into cars, what are our chances for real AI?
Okay I don't want to directly disagree with you I just want to add a thought experiment:
If it is a fundamental truth of the universe, a human can literally not program a computer to be smarter than a human (because of some Neil deGrasse Tyson-esq interpretation of entropy), then no matter what AI's will crash cars as often as real people.
And the question of who is responsible for the AI's actions will always be the person because people can take responsibility and AI's are just machine-tools. This basically means that there is a ceiling to how autonomous self-driving cars will ever be (because someone will have to sit at the controls and be ready to take over) and I think that is a good thing.
Honestly I'm in this camp that computers can never truly be "smarter" than a person in all respects. Maybe you can max out an ai's self-driving stats but then you'll have no points left over for morality, or you can balance the two out and it might just get into less morally challenging accidents more often ¯(ツ)/¯. There are lots of ways to look at this
a human can literally not program a computer to be smarter than a human
I'd add that a computer vision system can't integrate new information as quickly as a human, especially when limited to vision-only sensing - which Tesla is strangely obsessed with when the cost of these sensors is dropping and their utility has been proven by waymo's excellent record.
All in all, I see no reason to attempt to replace humans when we have billions. This is doubly so for 'artistic' ai purposes - we have billions of people, let artists create the art.
show me an AI driven system that can clean my kitchen, or do my laundry. that'd be WORTH it.
Where's the video?
@Davriellelouna I am sure it was all monitored in real time and a revised algorithm will be included in a future update.
And maybe an update to the firmware on those expensive Logitech webcams powering the AI.
Driver failed to control their car and avoid a collision.
FTFY.
I'm sure the car did actually take the action. But there are TONS of unavoidable warnings and reminders to the driver to supervise and take control when FSD goes wrong.
Which you can do by such super-technical means as "hitting the brake" or "steering the other way" or "flipping the right stalk up". Rocket science, I know.
Driver's fault. Bad technology, yes. Worse driver.
I just don't know how they're getting away with calling it 'full self driving' if it's not fully self driving.
I didn't keep track of how that lawsuit turned out.
That said, it is labeled "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)" on everything in the car.
Supervised as in you have to be ready to stop this kind of thing. That's what the supervision is.
I'd have bailed out and waited for the insurance check. Then got a different car.
I wouldn't have had time between pumping iron and getting head, myself.
You all don't seem to understand, this is just the cost of progress!
Self-driving not being reliable yet is one of the biggest disappointments of the last decade.
What did we even do all those ReCAPTCHAs for
New food chain just dropped
You could not pay me to drive a Tesla.
Every thing seems to turn to shit
To be fair it is a Tesla. It started out as shit.
It started out promising, then was consigned to be shit when Elon swore off LIDAR. If he kept his shitty little hands away from management and let the engineers do their thing, it could've been great.
Yup, but the control mechanisms are going to shit, because it sounds like they are going to maybe do a half assed rollout :)
How symbolic
Tesla's are death traps.
He wants to make us a multi transport mode species.
I am all in on testing these devices and improving waay before they recommend fully giving into AI