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Tesla Hid Fatal Accidents to Continue Testing Autonomous Driving (French) (rts.ch)
adev_ 14 minutes ago [-]
So...For a bit of context on the video and the article:

- The documentary is from the RTS. The RTS is the main publicly owned media from Switzerland. They are not the typical European owned public media: They are generally pretty well funded (contrary to most). They also tend to generate good (high) quality content, tend to be independent and rather neutral (leaning slightly to the left politically speaking).

- The video is in French because, in Switzerland, the media are divided in three group associated to the regional languages: RTS for the French, SSR for the German and RSI for the Italian. Thats why you do get German translation.

- They are generally pretty cooperative and open minded. If one of you want to submit english subtitles. Just contact them, they might accept it (I do not promise anything).

limbero 1 minutes ago [-]
Sorry, but you seem to be implying that European public owned media outlets are not normally to be trusted. Why?

I started out writing a list of European countries with high quality public broadcasters, but the comment started looking silly since the list quickly grew very long.

jasoncartwright 32 minutes ago [-]
Teslas turning off autopilot seconds before a crash, apparently avoiding being recorded as active during an incident, is wild https://futurism.com/tesla-nhtsa-autopilot-report
d1sxeyes 8 minutes ago [-]
To be fair, that report says

> the self-driving feature had “aborted vehicle control less than one second prior to the first impact”

It seems right to me that the self-driving feature aborts vehicle control as soon as it is in a situation it can’t resolve. If there’s evidence that Tesla is actively using this to “prove” that FSD is not behind a crash, I’m happy to change my mind. For me, probably 5s prior is a reasonable limit.

superxpro12 35 seconds ago [-]
IDK, this has the same unethical energy as police turning off body cameras.

in the BEST CASE, this is a confluence of coincidences. Engineering knows about this and leaves it "low prio wont fix" because its advantageous for metrics.

In the worst case, this is intentional.

In any case, the "right thing to do" is NOT turn off the cameras just before a collision, and yet it happens.

x187463 1 minutes ago [-]
This is reasonable, and you have to imagine many collisions involve the driver taking control at the last second causing the software to deactivate. That being said, this becomes a matter of defining a self-driving collision as one in which self-driving contributed materially to the event rather than requiring self-driving be activated at the exact moment of impact.
iugtmkbdfil834 21 minutes ago [-]
I think this is part of the reason I am wary of trying it ( including some of the competitor's variants ). They all want you to pay attention, because you may be forced to make a decision out of the blue. I might as well be in control all the time and not try to course correct at the literal last second.
x187463 3 minutes ago [-]
Treat it like a driver assistance system. I treat FSD the same as I treat Augmented Cruise Control and Lane Keep Assist in my CRV. I keep my hands on the steering wheel and follow along with the decision making.
pmarreck 17 minutes ago [-]
Interestingly, I think that similar types of arguments are made against "agentic coding"

If you don't pay constant attention, you will never notice when it slips in a bug or security issue

ownagefool 11 minutes ago [-]
Sure, but you can do that in a diff after the event, rather than live.
IgorPartola 20 minutes ago [-]
A self driving car should have no steering wheel. If it has a steering wheel it is a vote of no confidence from the manufacturer.
grog454 11 minutes ago [-]
Throttle and yoke aren't a vote of no confidence from aircraft manufacturers. Some modes of operation are suitable for autopilot and some are not.
sobellian 3 minutes ago [-]
Would it be a vote of no confidence in Full Self Flying?
ghaff 15 minutes ago [-]
I don't really buy that. There are a lot of situations (e.g. being directed to park in a space at a fairgrounds, ski area, or whatever) that you can't reasonably expect AFAIK to be programmed into a car's computer. Even if a car can legitimately handle roads under most circumstances, they're not going to be able to handle everything.
gambiting 4 minutes ago [-]
How do you reverse such a car into your own driveway that's positioned in a funny way at an angle and an incline? What if you're parking off road for any reason? Like, you have to be able to manoeuvre your own vehicle sometimes.
9 minutes ago [-]
ymolodtsov 44 minutes ago [-]
Tesla has a very bad track record in terms of both compliance and disclosure when it comes to autonomy incidents.
pmarreck 59 seconds ago [-]
Are these still accidents where the driver was not paying attention, though?
doener 1 hours ago [-]
The article was also published in German: https://www.srf.ch/news/dialog/autonomes-fahren-wie-tesla-un...
raverbashing 24 minutes ago [-]
It's the Swiss national radio/tv service, they probably have the article in 4 languages or more
mnvsbl 10 minutes ago [-]
RoxiHaidi 22 minutes ago [-]
One day an AI will obviously be infinitely better at driving than a human will be but that day is not yet here.
JumpCrisscross 7 minutes ago [-]
> that day is not yet here

Have you been in a Waymo? SAE Level 4 is here, and it’s safer than humans [1].

[1] https://waymo.com/safety/impact/

senordevnyc 9 minutes ago [-]
“Infinitely” is a high bar, but Waymo is already demonstrably better than the majority of human drivers.
qsera 2 minutes ago [-]
But only in very controlled environments...
bluefirebrand 18 minutes ago [-]
Personally I don't know if I care. Unless I can have some guarantee that the AI will prioritize my life and safety over literally any other concern, I'm not sure I would trust it

I don't ever want to be inside an AI driven vehicle that might decide to sacrifice me to minimize other damage

pmarreck 15 minutes ago [-]
> to minimize other damage

You mean deaths to multiple other people, do you not? Let's just call a spade a spade here and point out the genuine ethical dilemma.

What's the ratio between "bodies of your own kids" and "other human bodies you have no other connection with" in terms of what a "proper" AI that is controlling a car YOU purchased, should be willing to make in trade in terms of injury or death?

I think most people would argue that it's greater than 1* (unless you are a pure rationalist, in which case, I tip my hat to you), but what "SHOULD" it be?

*meaning, in the case of a ratio of 2 for example, you would require 2 nonfamiliar deaths to justify losing one of your own kids

CrazyStat 3 minutes ago [-]
We can take the AI out of the question entirely and ask how many other humans you personally as a driver would be willing to mow down to avoid your own death—driving off a bridge, say.

I would suggest that all but the most narcissistic would have some limit to how many pedestrians they would be willing to run over to save their own lives. The demand that the AI have no such limit—“that the AI will prioritize my life and safety over literally any other concern”—is grotesque.

senordevnyc 10 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, you also have to consider that your kids can be on either side of the equation too.
bluefirebrand 10 minutes ago [-]
> You mean deaths to multiple other people, do you not

I mean deaths the AI predicts for other people, yes

And I'm not saying I would never choose to kill myself over killing a schoolbus full of children, but I'll be damned if a computer will make that choice for me.

AlotOfReading 47 seconds ago [-]
I don't believe any AV software out there attempts to solve the trolley problem. It's just not relevant and moreover, actually illegal to have that code in some situations.

You can't get into a trolley situation without driving unsafely for the conditions first, so companies focus on preventing that earlier issue.

JumpCrisscross 1 minutes ago [-]
> deaths the AI predicts for other people

Isn’t this entirely hypothetical? In reality, are any systems doing this calculus? Or are they mimicking humans, avoiding obstacles and reducing energies in a series of rapid-fire calls?

7 minutes ago [-]
occamofsandwich 9 minutes ago [-]
Sure, but then I don't want you to have a vehicle at all to minimize my own risk.
bluefirebrand 5 minutes ago [-]
Feel free to minimize your own risk by staying home and never leaving
occamofsandwich 4 minutes ago [-]
Feel free to minimize both our risks by not polluting public space with your personal crap.
maxerickson 10 minutes ago [-]
I find it interesting that you don't give other drivers any consideration in your analysis.
bluefirebrand 2 minutes ago [-]
Other drivers should take public transit if they don't want to / are afraid to operate their own vehicles

As for me I actually like driving and I'm good at it. I'm not afraid of operating my own vehicle like so many people seem to be

36 minutes ago [-]
zulgin 25 minutes ago [-]
Look I don't like Tesla as much as the next person, I think it is wildly over-hyped and over-valued. But this article is just slop.

The headline says - "How Tesla hid accidents to test its Autopilot" but the actual article has no explanation as to (1) how Tesla hid anything or, for that matter, (2) who did Tesla hide this information from

It mashes together a Tesla data leak from 2022 and an unconnected lawsuit from 2026 without ever explaining how those 2 are connected.

Tesla has a pattern of making deceptive promises and deceptive disclosures but this article doesn't make that case at all.

rob74 4 minutes ago [-]
There is a sentence in the article that refers to an intervier for an RTS documentary, and at the end of the article there's a line "RTS, Temps présent, 16.04.2026, 20:14 Uhr; noes". So I guess there was a piece on Tesla's autopilot issues on RTS's "Temps présent" ("present tense/time") TV show, and the article is referencing that rather than some current developments?
8 minutes ago [-]
HFguy 12 minutes ago [-]
After you wrote this, I went and read the article I also didn't see much there either. And wonder why you are getting down voted. And TBC, also not a tesla fan (the truck is dumb).
tiberriver256 19 minutes ago [-]
Thanks
kotaKat 29 minutes ago [-]
Hot take but I feel like Tesla owners (hell, anyone with 'autonomous driving' vehicles) need to see some kind of modern lecture based on the Children of the Magenta talk on automation dependence in aircraft. Mandatory, before you can trigger the system on.

FSD has built this generation's newest children of the magenta line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ESJH1NLMLs

meindnoch 25 minutes ago [-]
>Tesla owners (hell, anyone with 'autonomous driving' vehicles)

Or LLM users.

oblio 44 minutes ago [-]
Look, there is no way corporations would lie for their own interest. Especially when they spent tens of billions to develop something.

It's not like they sold us leaded gasoline or "healthy tobacco" for decades.

Forgeties79 30 minutes ago [-]
You would be surprised how passionately people defend Tesla on HN sometimes, especially when safety records come up.
friendzis 26 minutes ago [-]
Otherwise number go down
lotsofpulp 26 minutes ago [-]
Liability insurance pricing tells the whole story, without clickbait articles or emotion.

If there was a significant problem, my liability only insurance premiums would be higher for the Tesla compared to a non Tesla. But they are not.

JumpCrisscross 3 minutes ago [-]
> my liability only insurance premiums would be higher for the Tesla compared to a non Tesla. But they are not

You’re correct inasmuch as we have no evidence there is “a significant problem.” But if Tesla is hiding evidence, as this article suggests, that might just be because lawsuits are still gaining steam.

belter 15 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
gchamonlive 39 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
Forgeties79 29 minutes ago [-]
That’s certainly the myth musk and his compatriots repeat whenever they’re slightly inconvenienced by consideration for the broader public, yes.
philipallstar 38 minutes ago [-]
Yes, all companies sold leaded gasoline.
post-it 35 minutes ago [-]
Usually when people provide examples, they're intended to serve as a representative sample of a larger trend, and not an exhaustive list. Hope that helps.
cj 29 minutes ago [-]
Their point still stands.

Not all companies do illegal things.

IMO it’s also a distraction to blame it on “capitalism” or some “larger trend” rather than just pointing directly at the company and people responsible.

“The system is broken” line hasn’t worked for years now. Maybe if we stop blaming the system and start blaming the people?

tonyedgecombe 1 minutes ago [-]
[delayed]
ModernMech 23 minutes ago [-]
No one claimed all companies do illegal things.
philipallstar 9 minutes ago [-]
All of this is a crazy overgeneralisation of the hundreds of millions of companies in the world:

> Look, there is no way corporations would lie for their own interest. Especially when they spent tens of billions to develop something.

> It's not like they sold us leaded gasoline or "healthy tobacco" for decades.

ModernMech 3 minutes ago [-]
Saying "corporations have lied in the past for their own self interest" and then pointing to two very well known examples does not imply or over generalize that all corporations do that.
chneu 29 minutes ago [-]
Or pushed beef that destroys the environment and gives people GI cancers while claiming the opposite.
dangus 40 minutes ago [-]
To pile on to this pathetic excuse for a company: anyone considering buying a Tesla should know that they are the #1 brand for fatal accidents in the United States, with over twice the accident rate of a typical automaker: https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a62919131/tesla-has-highes...

This terrible statistic can’t just be explained by aggressive driving owners or some other factor like that. Dodge has plenty of aggressive drivers buying their 700HP V8 rear wheel drive vehicles but they have better fatal accident rates than Tesla.

I’m convinced that Tesla makes unsafe cars and covers it up wherever they can.

The crash test safety awards their vehicles have won are clearly not representative of reality.

The self-driving system Tesla offers is only “ahead” of the competition because the competition is unwilling to sell an unsafe system.

friendzis 21 minutes ago [-]
> I’m convinced that Tesla makes unsafe cars and covers it up wherever they can.

Tesla makes unsubstantiated, exaggerated claims about capabilities of their system and directly encourages unsafe behavior. How many other manufacturers encourage test subjects to drive full speed ahead into a concrete divider "to see what happens"?

infecto 26 minutes ago [-]
Your link only suggests driver and road conditions to be blamed. Consider the amount of power coming from a base model, I would lean towards driver. What they do with FSD stats is terrible and it would be refreshing to have some unbiased looks at it. Your narrative though is too biased and the link makes no connection to Tesla being responsible for the fatalities.
post-it 34 minutes ago [-]
For a while they were the safest car in crash tests, weren't they? Was there an inflection point where they were dropping like a rock? Or is this a case of measuring different things (crash tests vs fatal accident rates)?

I know you probably don't know off the top of your head, I'm hoping someone can chime in.

mzl 20 minutes ago [-]
Dan Luu had some interesting analysis about car safety, comparing how different auto-makers fared on newly introduced crash tests: https://danluu.com/car-safety/

The main take-away for me from that page is that very few manufacturers seem to design for actual safety (only Volvo had good results), and Tesla was angry that a new test had been introduced which feels indicative of a bad safety culture.

iugtmkbdfil834 37 minutes ago [-]
I am admittedly not a fan, but I note that in my social circle I don't have anyone who considers one, one that has one wants to sell one, one vendor has one ( the truck one ), but it is clearly for marketing purposes so at least it makes sense.
philipallstar 37 minutes ago [-]
> Tesla vehicles have a fatal crash rate of 5.6 per billion miles driven, according to the study; Kia is second with a rate of 5.5,

Basically the same as Kia. Why are Kias so bad?

xutopia 34 minutes ago [-]
2 reasons I can see.

Kia have way smaller and cheaper cars with less security features to market. Tesla had front page news at some point saying how they were the safest car ever produced.

Tesla is giving people driving their cars a false sense of security.

estearum 13 minutes ago [-]
Until recently, Kias were sub-entry level shitboxes

This would affect both driver selection and performance during impact

Slap a ridiculously powerful drivetrain on it and a premium price tag and you have a Tesla

infecto 24 minutes ago [-]
I am sure there is a component of safety systems in a Kia but I would bet the bigger weighting is on driver profile.
dangus 24 minutes ago [-]
You’re so close to understanding!

Tesla stans tell us that they’re the most luxurious wafers best-built cars on the road, in reality they’re as poorly built as an economy car brand with a reputation for low quality.

philipallstar 10 minutes ago [-]
> You’re so close to understanding!

Sorry, I don't understand this. I'm just asking a question. Do you reply to every question with that?

infecto 22 minutes ago [-]
You’re missing the obvious explanation here. Driver profile. You could have the safest car around but if it’s being driven by unsafe drivers it will lead to higher accidents and fatalities.
senordevnyc 7 minutes ago [-]
I can get on board with the rationale that Tesla drivers are idiots.
maxcan 23 minutes ago [-]
that study was pretty thoroughly debunked. Also, I believe it was put out by a lobbying group representing auto dealerships who see the Tesla DTC model as a mortal threat. There is a lot of legitimate criticism to be directed towards Tesla but the ISeeCars study "aint it".
mzl 18 minutes ago [-]
I've heard people saying the study is bad, but whenever I've asked about why the answers have been pretty bad. Do you have a good source for why we should disregard it?
dangus 19 minutes ago [-]
Find a link that shows it’s debunked then? All they did was analyze federal crash data.

I don’t know what’s so hard to believe about the study. Tesla’s numbers are pretty similar to other low-performing brands.

ymolodtsov 31 minutes ago [-]
We're talking about a brand whose every car has at least 350HP, and most of them have more.

It's not an apples-to-oranges comparison.

dangus 18 minutes ago [-]
So why is Dodge better on the list? Most Dodge models sold are rear wheel drive performance cars. They basically only sell the Challenger/Charger and the Hornet SUV that nobody’s buying.

The lengths people will go to defend Tesla continue to astound me. Can’t we just say that they suck without making excuses for them?

jeffbee 37 minutes ago [-]
How do we know it can't be explained by self-selecting driver population? That sounds like the most likely explanation, and it's the only explanation advanced by the article you provided.
post-it 32 minutes ago [-]
I guess there's something to be said for "hey, if you're considering buying a Tesla, you may be the kind of person that's likely to kill themself in a car crash. Consider buying a safer car or taking the bus!"
Forgeties79 27 minutes ago [-]
Reminds me of the first episode of madman where the guy pitches appealing to everyone’s “inherent death wish” when selling cigarettes haha

“That’s it? If you’re gonna die, die with us?”

dangus 24 minutes ago [-]
Who would have guessed that a vehicle with no turn signal stalk or physical control to shift gears is unsafe!

Tesla sells too many vehicles for it to be a “self selecting driver population” thing anymore. They sell almost as many Model Ys as Honda CRVs.

I have a hard time believing that driver profile has anything to do with it, and I especially dislike the temptation to explain away the data by making unsubstantiated excuses for the company.

Dodge has better statistics than Tesla and they almost exclusively sell muscle cars.

infecto 21 minutes ago [-]
They don’t, these are the anti-Tesla folks. No level of reasoning is available for discussions like this.
rvz 30 minutes ago [-]
The Tesla fans fell for it again.

The Fools Self Driving (FSD) contraption once again revealed as a scam and continues to be pushed onto their fans as a "self-driving" capability.

If they (Tesla) can hide fatal accidents, what else is Tesla not telling us?

x187463 8 minutes ago [-]
This article specifically mentions "Autopilot", not FSD. I'll call out Tesla for BS as much as the next person and I own no stock, but FSD (Supervised) is exactly what it says. There's no aspect of vehicle operation that isn't controlled by FSD, but it must be supervised.
dham 15 minutes ago [-]
Here we go again. Autopilot != FSD. Autopilot is not "autonomous" driving. It's lane keep with adaptive cruise control. The same system that Honda, Toyota, etc have. Yes the naming is wrong, the marketing is bad, but I don't see it as much worse as Toyota safety sense. If you use it to be "safe" you're going swerve off the highway into a ditch. I used super cruise from GM in my friends suv. As soon as lane markers go away on a bridge, I almost hit the railing.

I'll get downvoted but just giving you the facts. I'm glad the Autopilot name has been retired. Such a bad name, but maybe a good name because autopilot in planes can't see and avoid obstacles either.

dv_dt 11 minutes ago [-]
The news isn't necessarily of the effectiveness of the particular tech stack, but the integrity, or lack thereof of the manufacturer in reporting incidents. If that is in question, assessing the effectiveness of any of Tesla's tech stacks fsd or autonomy, or taxis for driving is in doubt.
ori_b 11 minutes ago [-]
Can you explain why that makes it ok to cover up accidents and lie about the recordings of the event being corrupted?
Glemllksdf 11 minutes ago [-]
I don't get it?

If autopilot was missleading, full self driving is too?

x187463 7 minutes ago [-]
The difference is FSD is properly annotated as (Supervised) and does exactly that. Autopilot does not 'autopilot' the vehicle by any reasonable measure.
estimator7292 8 minutes ago [-]
How about the fact that Tesla is killing people and covering it up?

Would you go to a driver's funeral and tell their family that um, ackshully it's sparkling autopilot?

What do you think you're adding to the conversation? You're trying to distract from the fact that real, actual people have been actually killed by this.

buellerbueller 11 minutes ago [-]
Here we go again; Musk fanboy to the rescue!
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