Nissan discovered -- by accident -- that its forward collision warning radar was bouncing off the ground under the car directly ahead, allowing it to see 2 cars ahead.

 

It's true that an aviation style TCAS system is not going to be implemented into the automotive world lock, stock and barrel but the principle is sound.

Aircraft with TCAS and ADS crash for many reasons: weather, pilot error or mechanical failure among other things. There used to be a time in the U.S. where you would hear of aircraft running into each other in busy airspace and killing people. Nowadays you don't see that as much.

In crude stone-age tech terms we already have "detection" systems (albeit requiring operator expertise). They're called radar detectors. I don't use my Redline that much but it sure knows when a car with blind spot detection is around, or there's someone up ahead shooting radar back at me or surrounding vehicles.

 

The Washington Post has published a correction and revised the article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...nl_most&wpmm=1

Correction: An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly referred to semi-autonomous car technology in the Tesla Model 3. It should have referred to the Model S. This version has been updated.


Tesla's Autopilot feature is now under investigation after the first known fatality involving a Tesla car using "Autopilot" mode was reported in May. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)
By Editorial Board July 4

THE GOVERNMENT revealed Thursday that a Tesla Model S crashed into a truck in Florida in May, killing the electric car’s driver. This, the headlines roared, is the first known example of a fatal road accident involving a self-driving car.

Except it is not. The Tesla’s “Autopilot” feature was turned on. But the model was not designed to be and should not have been considered to be fully self-driving. The car’s semi-autonomous systems, which use onboard sensors to guide it away from hazards, were not advanced enough to steer and brake the car without the driver paying continuous attention and correcting when necessary. In fact, none of the semi-autonomous cars on the market are trustworthy enough to allow drivers to sit back and zone out. In the Florida case, the car failed to detect a large truck that had crossed into the Tesla’s path, perhaps because it blended in with a brightly lit sky.

Tesla forces drivers to acknowledge that the system has limits before they can allow it to control the steering wheel. But the carmaker also named it “Autopilot,” which suggested that the technology was more capable than it turned out to be. It is critical that the public not take the wrong lesson from this accident, dismissing all car automation technologies because this one appears to have been misused.

There are crucial distinctions between semi-autonomous car technology, which Tesla rolled out in its Model S, and other vehicle technologies. There are accident-avoidance systems, which inform drivers when they are drifting out of their lanes, can help monitor blind spots and can activate emergency brakes. These are relatively basic features that probably do not encourage flagrant risk-taking. Then there are fully autonomous cars, which are still in the testing stage and will be for a while. These cars promise to be advanced enough to do everything, door to door, without any human intervention whatsoever. They are much harder to develop than merely semi-autonomous features such as Autopilot. They have gone through years of research and will continue to be refined before they are introduced into the market.



When real self-driving technology is ready for prime time, it will change all sorts of things about the way people get around — for the better. The elderly and the blind will be able to travel with much less assistance. Road deaths may not disappear, but they will decline. Cars will talk to one another and drive more predictably, so traffic will drop. Americans will not have to spend as much time finding parking spots. Commuters will feel less stress. Many will choose not to own a car at all, since they will probably be able to simply hail an inexpensive ride from a driverless car service. The country will also waste less gasoline.


The benefits are potentially enormous, but they will not be realized if the public turns against autonomous car technology before it has really had a chance to prove itself.

 

Not sure if this has been posted already, but that guy was an idiot. He was watching dvds when the car crashed.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/2...ot-fatal-crash

 

Not Tesla's fault. They don't claim that the car can drive itself. You're still supposed to be attentive, so you can intervene quickly. If he was watching DVDs, that's driver-error.

 

Driver error for sure. However Driver education and quick to strike down users misusing the tech is important, since a distracted autopilot driver is not only putting themselves at risk, but potentially everyone else on the road.

 

Didn't see this posted yet, but here is a report of another one, this time a Model X:

http://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla...ania-turnpike/

I'm curious if we will start to see a rash of these, where, like with the Toyota unintended acceleration situation, some may be legit, and others will see it as a way to blame the manufacturer for their own mistakes.