The car came to rest more than 70 metres away, on the opposite side of the road, leaving a trail of wreckage. According to witnesses, the Model S burst into flames while still airborne. Several passersby tried to open the doors and rescue the driver, but they couldn’t unlock the car. When they heard explosions and saw flames through the windows, they retreated. Even the firefighters, who arrived 20 minutes later, could do nothing but watch the Tesla burn.
At that moment, Rita Meier was unaware of the crash. She tried calling her husband, but he didn’t pick up. When he still hadn’t returned her call hours later – highly unusual for this devoted father – she attempted to track his car using Tesla’s app. It no longer worked. By the time police officers rang her doorbell late that night, Meier was already bracing for the worst.
This is the kind of shit that makes me worried even seeing someone else driving one of these deathtraps near me while I am driving. They could explode or decide to turn into me on the highway or something. I think I about this more than Final Destination when seeing a logging truck these days.
Article does not actually answer why Tesla vehicles crash as much as they do or how their crash frequency compares to other vehicles. Its more about how scummy tesla is as a company and how it witholds data from the public when it could incriminate them.
In some ways that is the answer. Crashes keep happening because they are not being held accountable to regulators because they are not reporting these incidents and no one is exercising oversight to be sure the reporting matches reality.
I think over the years, accurate reporting by manufacturers has been done because they generally do not want to be known as that car company that killed a child and it could have been prevented with a 50 cent bolt. As a result, regulators have been less hawkish. Of course there are probably political donations in the US to help keep the wheels turning.
Bad code. Guinea pig owners. Cars not communicating with each other. Relying on just the car’s vision and location is stupid.
FYI, some numbers. The guardian article is still definitely worth reading, it just had no statistics.
*Nationally (USA), Tesla drivers had 26.67 accidents per 1,000 drivers. This was up from 23.54 last year.
The Ram and Subaru brands were again among the most accident-prone. Ram had 23.15 per 1,000 drivers while Subaru had 22.89.
…
As of October 2024, there have been hundreds of documented nonfatal incidents involving Autopilot and fifty-one reported fatalities, forty-four of which NHTSA investigations or expert testimony later verified and two that NHTSA’s Office of Defect Investigations verified as happening during the engagement of Full Self-Driving (FSD).*
I have never ridden a Tesla, and I plan on requesting a non Tesla car from now on when I have to take a taxi.
Cars in general, Teslas in particular, should have a standardized blackbox data recorder that third parties can open and access the logs, we have had this kind of tech on aircrafts for many decades.
It is terrifying that Tesla can just say that there was no relevant data and the investigative agency will just accept that.
I remember watching an episode of Air Crash Investigations, where a plane crashed, and they could not find an immediate cause, but the flight data recorder was able to be analysed far back, way before the accident flight, and they noticed that a mount for the APU turbine had broken many flights earlier, and the APU had broken free during the flight, causing the crash.
It is not Tesla’s job to tell the investigators what is relevant and not, it is Teslas job to unlock all data they have and send it to the investigators, if they can’t or won’t, then Tesla should lose the right sell cars in Europe
Cars do have that in what amounts to a TCU or Telematics Control Unit. The main problem here isn’t whether or not cars have that technology. It’s about the relevant government agency forcing companies like Tesla (and other automakers) to produce that data not just when there’s a crash, but as a matter of course.
I have a lot of questions about why Tesla’s are allowed on public roads when some of the models haven’t been crash tested. I have a lot of questions about why a company wouldn’t hand over data in the event of a crash without the requirement of a court order. I don’t necessarily agree that cars should be able to track us (if I buy it I own it and nobody should have that kind of data without my say so). But since we already have cars that do phone this data home, local, state, and federal government should have access to it. Especially when insurance companies are happy to use it to place blame in the event of a crash so they don’t have to pay out an insurance policy.
News of malfunctioning Tesla cars and Musk going crazy are still not enough to crash Tesla stocks to zero. Which I am hoping will happen not just to inflict sorrow on Musk and his wealth, but so that I could hedge against the stock 😂
If we lived in any sort of reasonable or responsible world then these cars would be banned from public roads all over the globe.
And Tesla would be fined and sued into oblivion.
And the people who knowingly put profits before lives would be individually serve time for manslaughter.
Call me a Luddite but I won’t ride in a “self driving” car. I don’t even trust lane assist although I’ve never had a car with that feature.
I think my sweet spot is 2014 for vehicles. It’s about 50/50 with the tracking garbage and the “advanced features” on those models but anything past 2015 seems to be fully fly-by-wire and that doesn’t sit right with me.
I’m old though and honestly if I bought a 2014 right now and babied it as my non commuter car I could probably keep it until I should give up my keys. You younger people are going to have to work around all this crap.
I think Ford does a good job of offering the features and tech, but not making them required. Even their EVs have settings that can mimic a gas driving experience. Be a Luddite trust what you trust. But don’t pigeon hole your acceptable years of manufacture.
My wife had a rental for a trip she and my daughter were going on for a gymnastics event and I got to drive it back from the rental place and it had lane assist.
Every time another car passed in the opposite lane the damn thing would try and jerk in the opposite direction of that car, sometimes almost running itself off the road into the ditch in the process.
That’s horrible
Drove a few cars with “lane hold” and it’s infuriating to have to suddenly correct the car’s trajectory at every curve because it misjudges the road line. Some cars are worse than others but it was literally the first thing I disabled every time. I wonder how truck drivers feel about it. Do modern trucks even have this?
I don’t know what professional truckers have for “assist” but I’m sure they resist it. “I’m a professional fucking driver! I don’t want this shit.”
I have a Sprinter van with lane assist for cross country travel. As obnoxious as it is 99% of the time, it has come in clutch a few times when I started to get drowsy and drifted off my lane.
Yikes. Chew gum, pinch the lobe of your ear, take a nap.
Your anecdote terrifies me that people may be relying on this shit when they are overtired.
I hear you, but a 99% chance of being obnoxious isn’t a great review.
I think I’ll just stick to not driving when tired.
That’s easier said than done. You can’t judge your own behavior when impaired because you are impaired. By the time you are aware you are that tired, you’ve already been impaired for a long time.
You absolutely can judge your own behavior when you are impaired, I have done that plenty of times and decided that I needed a break when driving plenty of times.
The issue is that you are a worse judge of your own behavior when impaired, so you need to take that into account
You absolutely can judge your own behavior when you are impaired
By the time you realized it you were already impaired. That’s why professional drivers have a schedule. It’s not up to them to decide for themselves that they could go longer.
For sure, but when you are driving cross-country you sometimes do not have a choice because there is nowhere to stop.
Unless there’s a safety concern, there’s always the side of the road. I drive 2 lane backwoods roads periodically, and it’s not uncommon to see a car pulled a bit off the road with no visible driver’s seat.
“Guess I’ll just drive off the road then!”
it has come in clutch a few times when I started to get drowsy and drifted off my lane.
Respect for sharing your mistakes.
it has come in clutch a few times
Massive disrespect for not learning a thing.
My 2023 Subaru has lane assist. It was absolutely obnoxious so I turned it off.
It turns itself back on every time you restart the van.
Driving when tired enough to drift out of your lane multiple times?
You shouldn’t have a license.
I suddenly got very tired today when driving, and noticed my car drifting out of lane as I was unfocused, I was far from home, didn’t have any snacks or anything.
Luckily I found a place to park soon after, pulled over, and rested for 20 min or so.
Tiredness can come sudden, it doesn’t mean you should loose your license as long as you can deal with it in a safe manner.
I’ve had tiredness come around everytime I try to drive West around 3:30-5:00 when the sun is around setting is the perfect time where it just hits me and the traffic slows to a crawl were the last 10 miles are just hitting myself until I get to class and then Im suddenly fully awake.
If it happens to someone multiple times and they treat lane assist as a crutch then they are not safe to drive on the road.
The best part is they followed up with this gem so I know they didn’t pull over like you did:
For sure, but when you are driving cross-country you sometimes do not have a choice because there is nowhere to stop.
Fair point.
I’ve never had any issue with the lane assist in my Mitsubishi. It’s absolutely built as an “assist” and not something that will actually try to take control from you. It’s trivial to “overpower” it manually and turn out of your lane without signaling if that’s what you want to do, but does a perfectly reasonable job of steering on its own when left to its own devices.
That said, I wouldn’t be driving a vehicle new enough to have the feature yet either if I hadn’t been rear ended a couple of years ago and had my 2012 Lancer written off. :(
I quite like lane assist in the 2019 Honda I drive, even though it gets it wrong occasionally. It will not function unless it detects that you’re providing some steering input of your own, and it’s easy to override just by steering the way you want to go. That and cruise control are handy on the highway and have worked well for 6 years with no problems. But it’s very far from either functioning or being advertised as “full self driving.”
So it does move the wheel under your hands? That’s just gross to me. I guess maybe I should rent a car with it and give it a shot but I don’t think I’ll like it.
When cruise control is on, yes, but it’s extremely gentle. The slightest bit of resistance from the driver will overpower it.
I should try this stuff and then see which of those cars I can disable the tracking antennas
I rented a Hyundai Elantra. Yes, the wheel will move under your hand. Yes, it has hand detection, which is probably trivial to spoof. When I used it, winter had just ended and lines on the road weren’t always clear, so it would occasionally disable itself. Trying to change lanes without signals isn’t terrible, but certainly won’t happen by accident.
I would by no means rely on this, or recommend relying on it, just like I wouldn’t recommend relying on blind spot detection, but they can be handy aids to improve your overall driving, and can help catch your mistakes.
Does it pull the wheel when you’re trying to change lanes?
I see the blind spot detection on other people’s mirrors when I pass them and that looks cool as fuck but what happens the instant it fails? If I’m reliant on it and it breaks one day am I going to mistakenly merge into another driver’s right of way?
It didn’t so much as pull as get stiffer to turn out of the lane. Again, that doesn’t happen if your signals are on, so it’s a good reminder to use your signals, too.
Like I said, relying on these assists as replacements for proper driving isn’t something I would recommend. You should still be shoulder checking and using your mirrors. My wife’s vehicle has blind spot detection, which turns on an amber light by the mirror. If you’re changing lanes, it’s an obvious indicator that it may not be safe. A more thorough shoulder check can identify if the vehicle is actually at risk for collision. For example, if you just passed a vehicle and are pulling away, the detection light may still be on, but you aren’t at risk of collision. Alternatively, if I thought the lane was clear and decide to change lanes, the light may be on due to a speeding driver who is approaching to pass me in the adjacent lane. The light will be on even though he isn’t in the way yet, and changing lanes could result in an accident. Or maybe someone has been sitting in your blind spot for a few minutes and you decide to change lanes. A quick mirror check indicates you’re safe, but that amber light says maybe not. If your shoulder check doesn’t catch the problem, you probably haven’t done it well enough.
Again, can be good assistance tools, I don’t think they’re good enough to be replacements yet.
It didn’t so much as pull as get stiffer to turn out of the lane. Again, that doesn’t happen if your signals are on
woah, that’s pretty cool actually.
The amber light in the mirror is what I’ve seen in other people’s blind spot assistance. It’s really cool but I’d hate to get used to it and depend on it the day it stops working.
I have a Toyota with lane assist and it doesn’t. The “lane assist” is part of cruise control. It’s off by default.
I love it because it removes a little of the mental load giving me more time to scan the road for potential problems.
Off by default should be the default.
OK yeah, if I have the cruise control on I can see having lane assist. Can you use the CC independently of lane assist?
Humans first
I drive a BMW i4 and one of the reasons I prefer it is because it still uses a number of mechanical options like physical buttons and an actual door handle. I never trusted that flush handle from Tesla, even back when I liked Tesla.
the truth? Because Elon is the CEO errrr Teknoking.
At 3.18pm on 10 May 2018, Stefan Meier lost control of his Model S on the A2 highway near the Monte Ceneri tunnel. Travelling at about 100kmh (62mph), he ploughed through several warning markers and traffic signs before crashing into a slanted guardrail. “The collision with the guardrail launches the vehicle into the air, where it flips several times before landing,” investigators would write later.
The driver crashed, it doesn’t sound like it was in self driving mode.
The car doesn’t have to be in self driving mode for the fault to be Tesla’s - for example, the pedals on the cybertruck sliding off and sticking down the accelerator.
A stuck pedal turns the steering towards the barrier? I think the driver had a stroke or heart attack and stopped steering
supercars…
Removed by mod
I’m almost won over by your charming manners, but…
- What is your source?
- What happens when the severity of accidents are taken into account? Because it could be this: Tesla Has the Highest Fatal Accident Rate of All Auto Brands, Study Finds
- Tesla’s self-driving features expose their cars to a distinctive kind of risk. It would be important to distinguish the accidents where this played a part.
- Regardless of the statistics, there are some other clear design problems with Tesla’s, such as batteries that explode in a crash and doors that won’t open without power (not to mention autopilot’s limited camera-only inputs and software glitches). These are still concerns specific to Tesla that other brands don’t share, so again it’s worth reviewing accidents where these played a role when gauging Tesla’s safety.
That’s some nice fact cherry picking, and it ignores Tesla’s ongoing campaign to hide and obfuscate their crash records from the NHTSA and the public.
510 reviewed crashes, resulting in one REVIEWED crash for every 5,098 Teslas
you dropped a unit in your analysis. I fixed it for you.
you are an embarrassment
Reported and reviewed are the same word so your math checks out.
Natural Selection.
Someone’s $50,000+ car malfunctioning and killing them isn’t natural selection. That’s not what that term means.
They bought and trusted a Tesla and it almost ended their bloodline.
They’re not the fittest.
This crude recourse to “evolutionary fitness” is the rhetoric of fascists.
Meh, most fascists these days don’t even believe in evolution.
