It happens too often. Someone sees a Tesla owner sleep while driving on the highway, and their car under the control of Tesla’s driver assistance system for Autopilot. The next thing you know is everywhere in social media.
You may be wondering how Tesla was able to release this product on public roads. Are there no regulations covering such properties? Is not this a security issue? According to a report of the Los Angeles Times, it really breaks out to government oversight.
The Trump administration has focused its efforts on reducing fuel consumption requirements. The arguments for this were that cars would become cheaper and safer. That did not happen, and it’s a mystery why Trump thought it would happen. One explanation is he did not know shit about cars.
Unfortunately, fuel consumption feedback and emissions control were about the only things Trump’s NHTSA did. NHTSA’s important regulatory oversight has stalled for four years without a director at the helm. The administration of Biden now has a backlog of neglected tasks to dig through. Like the Times report shows that NHTSA has been quite practical when it comes to driver assistance systems, specifically regarding Tesla’s deceptive Autopilot:
Officially, the National Road Safety Administration discourages such behavior and last fall hosted a public awareness campaign with the hashtag #YourCarNeedsYou. But the messages compete with the marketing of Tesla itself, which recently said it would start selling a software package for ‘Full Self Driving’ – a term it has used since 2016 despite objections from critics and the reservations in the company’s own fine print – on an entry basis from this term.
The fact that NHTSA has so far refused to confront Tesla directly about the issue is inherently characteristic of an agency that has taken a practical approach to a wide range of issues under the Trump administration.
‘Inactive’, Carla Bailo, chief executive of the Center for Motor Research, summed up NHTSA’s four previous years. “Dormant,” said Jason Levine, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety. “No direction,” says Bryant Walker Smith, a professor and expert in autonomous vehicle law at the University of South Carolina.
The agency went through the full Trump term without an administrator confirmed by the Senate, leaving deputies in charge. It launched several safety investigations into Tesla and other companies, but left most unfinished. “A huge backlog awaits the Biden government,” said Paul Eisenstein, publisher of the Detroit Bureau news website.
Although NHTSA was absent on a number of issues, the lack of oversight of autonomous management is perhaps the biggest. According to The Times, Level 2 autonomy is the biggest security challenge since Ralph Nader Unsafe at any speed. Silly Nader refers to the side, the Times does have a point.
Dealing with emerging autonomous management technologies is a long-term issue. But one thing is for sure: the way Tesla uses its customers as beta testers is causing experts to sound the alarm.
Whoever takes the lead must balance the long-term potential for the next generation of cars to reduce pollution, traffic and greenhouse gases against the short-term risks of harnessing new, new technologies on a large scale before they are fully tested. In Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” style, Tesla CEO Elon Musk seized the risks.
While other driverless car developers – from General Motors’ Cruise, Ford’s Argo AI, Amazon’s Zoox, Alphabet’s Waymo, independent Aurora and more – all follow an incremental, slow rollout approach with professional test drivers at the helm, Tesla ‘beta testing’ is its driverless technology on public roads that its customers use as test drivers.
Musk said last month that Tesla could fully drive cars by the end of the year without human intervention on public roads. He has made similar promises since 2016. No driverless car expert or leader in the automotive industry outside of Tesla has said they think it is possible.
While Smith’s law professor is impressed by Tesla’s ‘brilliant’ ability to use Tesla drivers to collect millions of miles of sensor data to refine the software, it does not excuse marketing because it is by no means full of self-government. . There are so many things wrong with the term. This is ridiculous. If we can not trust a company when they tell us that a product is self-managed, then how can we trust them when they tell us that a product is safe? ‘
The Detroit Bureau’s Eisenstein is even harder. “Can I say that off the record?” he said. ‘No, let me say it on the record. I was horrified by Tesla. They use the smartphone approach: put the technology out there and discover if it works or not. It’s one thing to pronounce a new iOS that has caused problems with voice dictation. It’s another thing to have a problem moving 60 miles per hour. ‘
G / O Media can get a commission
A 2016 NHTSA directive under the Obama administration is considered ‘predictable abuse”As a possible flaw in the development of autonomous management technologies. Unfortunately, NHTSA did nothing under Trump. For that context, the directive was about a year after the software that enabled Autopilot driver assistance in the Tesla Model S was released.
The lack of NHTSA got a fuss from another federal safety agency, the National Transportation Safety Board. The NTSB, which is best known for its investigation into plane and train incidents, blamed the predictable abuse a collapse in 2018 where a Tesla Model X crashed into a concrete divider.
Part of the issue is the lack of transparency from Musk and Tesla about how secure the Autopilot’s driver assistance system is, as well as a lack of data in general. From the Times:
Musk regularly issues statistics claiming that Autopilot and Full Self Driving are safer than people-only cars. That may be so, but even if Musk’s analysis is sound – several statisticians have said it is not – the data is unique to Tesla, and Tesla has refused to make even anonymous data available to university researchers for independent confirmation. Tesla could not be reached – he dissolved his media relations department last year.
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In 2019, after a series of Tesla batteries, NHTSA launched an investigation into the company’s software and battery management systems. Later, the agency said it was also investigating defective cooling pipes that could cause leaks. At the time, the agency did not release public information it contained about battery cooling tubes prone to leaks installed in the early versions of the Model S and Model X.
Since late 2016, many Tesla drivers have complained about ‘whompy wheels’ on their cars – a tendency for the suspension system to break apart, sometimes causing a wheel to collapse or fall. Chinese drivers have filed similar complaints and in October last year, Chinese authorities ordered the recall of 30,000 Model S and Model X cars. A Tesla lawyer has written a letter to NHTSA claiming it is not necessary to recall the US government. NHTSA said in October it was monitoring the situation closely.
Four days before Biden’s inauguration, NHTSA announced that defects in the hardware of the Tesla touchscreen could drain the car’s rear camera, among other things. Instead of ordering a recall, NHTSA said Tesla is being asked to voluntarily recall about 158,000 Model S and Model X cars for repairs. On February 2, Tesla agreed to recall 135,000 of the cars.
Watch the full Los Angeles Times report, it’s worth reading!