Late last week in Florida a Tesla Model S with its Autopilot semi-autonomous driving system engaged was involved in a fatal accident accident when the car collided with a lorry abruptly cut across highway lanes to reach an exit it had overshot.
It involved owner Joshua Brown of Ohio and was the first recorded fatality that occurred while the Autopilot feature was active. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) is currently investigating the matter.
Under the Autopilot system, the is programmed to stay within the speed limit and within its own lane apart from during overtaking manoeuvres. Tesla’s not that, while it is developed to make the task of monotonous highway driving less of a chore, the driver should be aware of the car’s actions at all times and maintain situational awareness and react if needed.
The Model S uses radar to detect the road ahead, which in this case seems to not have helped in the accident as the brakes were not applied. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in a tweet, describes the circumstances were not in the car’s favour as the system tunes out what looks like an overhead road sign to avoid false braking events."
The tall nature of the lorry’s trailer and the perpendicular orientation to the road in the moments before impact meant that the side of the trailer impacted the car’s windshield at speed, largely negating the safety equipment that would have likely saved the driver’s life in a typical head-on collision.
Tesla, in a statement, said: “It would likely have prevented serious injury as it has in numerous other similar incidents." The EV maker notes that despite the recent tragedy, statistically the Autopilot system still shows to be safer than human drivers, citing its use over a collective 130 million miles in the many Model S sedans in use. In contrast, Tesla says that a fatality occurs every 94 million miles travelled within the United States and 60 million elsewhere.
In the same post after news of the accident came forward, Tesla reiterated how the Autopilot system is still in development and that owners have to agree to the feature being in “public beta phase” before being allowed to have the feature enabled in their own cars. The disclaimer also stipulates that drivers are expected to maintain control and responsibility for their vehicle.
Since the Autopilot function was made available to Tesla owners, several high profile figures within large automotive manufacturers have shown their disagreement to release such a system to the public at such an early phase.
A Volvo engineer called the system misleading while Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda said previously that such technology, one in which lives are at stake, should be rolled out in a very cautious manner, warning that should a premature incident occur, public perception would drop significantly and thus constrain the development of more advanced systems.
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