Tesla’s remote parking under federal scrutiny after multiple crashes

This is the fourth NHTSA safety investigation currently looking at Tesla.

See full article...

 

[GreyAreaUK]

What was it Trump basically said? "Pay us $1B and those pesky rules and regulations go away?"

Words to that effect, anyway.

 

[ThatDevilTech]

I'm guessing this probe will disappear on 1/21, when President Musk makes it go away.

 

[jonah]

There totally won’t be any political interference in things like this starting in two weeks. Don’t worry.

 

[ranthog]

At this rate, it may become easier to list the things that aren't under investigation at Tesla.

 

[Ripaille]

It's unclear to me how, in the US, such technologies are tested on the road first, and only then evaluated by regulators.

It's the same for crash tests. You'd figure the IIHS would test vehicles before they get sold to customers, but no, I suppose that would be socialism or something.

"Let's make a giant steel truck that drives itself, a few pedestrians will die, but it's a price we're willing to pay in the name of progress!"

 

[msawzall]

Today's trouble concerns the automaker's "Smart Summon" and "Actually Smart Summon" features

This reminds me of unlimited and ultra unlimited plans phone companies offer.

Stop calling things they are not.

 

[markgo]

NHTSA's ODI says it has received one complaint of a crash using "Actually Smart Summon" and has reviewed reports of at least three more cases. In all four incidents, the Teslas being remotely operated failed to detect the parked cars or bollards they crashed into.

Another 12 complaints concern "Smart Summon," a less-advanced version of the same system.

You must be kidding me. What’s next? “Really, Actually, We Mean It This Time Smart Summon”

 

[Dr Gitlin]

It's unclear to me how, in the US, such technologies are tested on the road first, and only then evaluated by regulators.

It's the same for crash tests. You'd figure the IIHS would test vehicles before they get sold to customers, but no, I suppose that would be socialism or something.

"Let's make a giant steel truck that drives itself, a few pedestrians will die, but it's a price we're willing to pay in the name of progress!"

Firstly, because the US uses a system of self-certification, not type approval or homologation.

Secondly, you probably mean NCAP, not IIHS. IIHS is not a government agency, it's paid for by the insurance companies and is a private organization.

 

[msawzall]

Guessing this won't be an issue since they probably happened in a parking lot and not a public road. Is there any data on the location of the crashes?

Seinfeld voice: "Why do we park in a driveway and drive on a parkway?"

 

[Cthel]

This reminds me of unlimited and ultra unlimited plans phone companies offer.

Stop calling things they are not.

From the marketing genius behind "Autopilot" and "Full Self Driving" come the next smash hits - "Smart Summon" and "Actually Smart Summon - Electric Boogaloo"

 

[HMSTechnica]

Hmm... Does the "actually" in "Actually Smart Summon" have the same magic incantation as asking an LLM "please"?

But I also like the implication that the less advanced is "stupid summon"... Did no one think of that in the pitch meeting?

 

[jranson]

"where the user had too little reaction time to avoid a crash, either with the available line of sight or releasing the phone app button, which stops the vehicle’s movement."

What happens when the user's cell service has latency / reception issues while the button is being pressed? How does the Car know if the button is actually still depressed or not in those cases?

Relying on a one-button UX to send internet signals over consumer-grade cellular for controlling the movement of an unmanned automobile seems like playing with fire. Are people just too lazy to walk their ass the extra 50 yards to the car? We really are approaching the time of the Wall-E floating chairs, aren't we?

(edits for grammar)

 

[Oh look spaces]

Can’t imagine its even worth Tesla picking up the phone or replying to emails between now and Jan 20 before it all goes away.

 

[Frodo Douchebaggins]

What happens when the user's cell service has latency / reception issues while the button is being pressed? How does the Car know if the button is actually still depressed or not in those cases?

Logically, it would fail safe. If it stops receiving a positive signal, if stops the car. Is that how it actually works? No idea.

Are people just too lazy walk their ass the extra 50 yards to the car? We really are approaching the time of the Wall-E floating chairs, aren't we?

So my feelings on Tesla and their Führer are no secret, but when I had mine I'll admit I did actually use smart summon a few times in situations where it was genuinely useful.

What was the situation? Having it pull up to the curb at the grocery store in the rain. Was I prepared to sprint and jump in to move it if it failed? Yup. Did I have to do it sometimes? Yup.

But was it really, really fucking cool when it worked? Yeah.

 

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I'm guessing this probe will disappear on 1/21, when President Musk makes it go away.

And they'll return in force, a month or two later, when he finds out that Thou Shalt Have No Gods Before Me doesn't just apply to Jehova.

 

[ranthog]

It's unclear to me how, in the US, such technologies are tested on the road first, and only then evaluated by regulators.

It's the same for crash tests. You'd figure the IIHS would test vehicles before they get sold to customers, but no, I suppose that would be socialism or something.

"Let's make a giant steel truck that drives itself, a few pedestrians will die, but it's a price we're willing to pay in the name of progress!"

There are some problems that will only show up at scale. There are a lot of edge cases to these types of systems, and being sure you've tested random variation throughout the complete problem domain is difficult to be sure of for these problems. There is no guarantee that extensive government testing would be able to expose these prior to production.

That is a fundamental problem with these systems. It is hard to define the entire problem domain and hence know if you've got good test coverage.

 

[ranthog]

From the marketing genius behind "Autopilot" and "Full Self Driving" come the next smash hits - "Smart Summon" and "Actually Smart Summon - Electric Boogaloo"

Will "Smart Summon We Swear This Time Actually" release fix the problems?

 

[Fred Duck]

Another 12 complaints concern "Smart Summon," a less-advanced version of the same system.

I see, but at the end of the day, it also works like ASS?

Are people just too lazy walk their ass the extra 50 yards to the car?

Have you noticed how many people tout wireless charging of mobiles as incredibly helpful? Yes, that is how lazy humans are. In my day, we had rocks. And we liked them.

 

[fenris_uy]

Any company that sells "product" and "actually product" should be immediately fined by the Federal Trade Commission over fraudulent marketing.

 

[Frodo Douchebaggins]

Have you noticed how many people tout wireless charging of mobiles as incredibly helpful? Yes, that is how lazy humans are. In my day, we had rocks. And we liked them.

wireless charging: no stuff stuck in ports. No broken connectors. It's better in almost every situation and I'll die on that hill

 

[AusPeter]

And in other Tesla news, I just saw today that Tesla is apparently performing a stealth recall of batteries in the Cybertruck. They haven't announced any recall, but people have reported their trucks going in for service for one thing, and surreptitiously having the battery replaced. See here for a report:

Matt reached out to the Tesla service team and asked “Hi. It looks like there was an additional work item regarding a battery replacement. Can you explain what that means?” They responded as follows: “Hey Matthew, this is a proactive replacement as our engineering team has noticed that some cells may have side dents, which can cause shorting in cells in packs developed around your car’s production date.”

 

[GKH]

Guessing this won't be an issue since they probably happened in a parking lot and not a public road. Is there any data on the location of the crashes?

"Publicly accessible" != "public".

 

[Nora Lenderbee]

I'm guessing this probe will disappear on 1/21, when President Musk makes it go away.

"In a monarchy, a regent (from Latin regens, meaning 'ruling, governing') is a person appointed to govern a state pro tempore (Latin for 'for the time being') because the actual monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge their powers and duties."

I think Musk isn't to be president, he's to be the regent, because the monarch elect is still acting like a child.

 

[Ianal]

Full Self Denting?

Which wouldn’t be as bad if it weren’t for the bonus Other Dented Stuff too.

 

[socialmischief]

report crashes involving such systems that occur on publicly accessible roads.

Unpopular take, but Actually Smart Summon won’t work on public roads. I’m not sure if it will work on private roads, or what one would consider a private “road”, but in my experience, it gives an error if you try to use it anywhere but a parking lot or driveway, specifically saying that you can’t use it on public roads. If these incidents happened in parking lots, they may not be subject to the NHTSA reporting requirements.

 

[Johnny Vector]

You must be kidding me. What’s next? “Really, Actually, We Mean It This Time Smart Summon”

Personally, I’m waiting for Actually Really Smart Summon_final_final_final.

 

[evanTO]

I bet just like with Autopilot™, the system turns off remote parking just before a collision so that Musk can claim "Remote Park wasn't involved with this crash".

 

[ThatDevilTech]

Have you noticed how many people tout wireless charging of mobiles as incredibly helpful? Yes, that is how lazy humans are. In my day, we had rocks. And we liked them.

I love the wireless charging, as another commenter stated, it saves the charging port on the phone. Keeps it from failing from constant use. So, yeah, call me lazy, but wireless charging is a helpful creation.

 

[AusPeter]

And they'll return in force, a month or two later, when he finds out that Thou Shalt Have No Gods Before Me doesn't just apply to Jehova.

OT but that sort of implies that there are other gods. Otherwise, why do you need to tell your followers to not to have any? /s

 

[msawzall]

"In a monarchy, a regent (from Latin regens, meaning 'ruling, governing') is a person appointed to govern a state pro tempore (Latin for 'for the time being') because the actual monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge their powers and duties."

I think Musk isn't to be president, he's to be the regent, because the monarch elect is still acting like a child.

But Elon also acts like a child.

 

[ranthog]

What happens when the user's cell service has latency / reception issues while the button is being pressed? How does the Car know if the button is actually still depressed or not in those cases?

Relying on a one-button UX to send internet signals over consumer-grade cellular for controlling the movement of an unmanned automobile seems like playing with fire.

Having actually dealt with problems like these, the solution is fairly easy. This is a scenario where we do not really care about how available or reliable the service is. All we really care is about is the scenario where communications fail for any reason. In technical terms, we want the system to be failsafe.

While it looks like two events to the user (press button, release button) in code it is not. If this is being done right, the phone is actively indicating the button is being pressed at a given rate X Hz, and the car is verifying that it has received a button is pressed signal in the last Y ms. The phone should also send a signal to stop if the button is no longer pressed, and repeat that signal until the car has acknowledged it.

Any interruption in the networking between the phone and car should default to the car stopping within Y ms in the worst case scenario.

Are people just too lazy walk their ass the extra 50 yards to the car? We really are approaching the time of the Wall-E floating chairs, aren't we?

What is a nice thing to have for able-bodied people, like ramps and cut out curbs, are not necessarily so for those with disabilities. There are plenty of people out there for whom this might be useful.

We have writing from people like Cicero in antiquity complaining about how lazy people are these days. People are exactly as lazy as they've always been.

 

[xPutNameHerex]

Don't forget this "smart" summon feature managed to crash into a parked airplane in the past: https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/22/23037654/tesla-crash-private-jet-reddit-video-smart-summon

(I'm taking the article on face value that this wasn't some sort of elaborate ruse, since no correction was ever issued)

 

[Frodo Douchebaggins]

But Elon also acts like a child.

As does most of congress and the Supreme Court. We are governed by fart-sucking cretins.

 

[Fatesrider]

This reminds me of unlimited and ultra unlimited plans phone companies offer.

Stop calling things they are not.

Full Self Driving...

 

[Dr Gitlin]

So we have < 20 incidents reported? What would be useful to know is how many times the systems are used. If there are 2.5 million vehicles, then let's assume that the systems are only ever used once (which is probably low). Let's also assume 99% of incidents aren't reported. That would still mean the summons worked right 99.92% of the time. And if the worst that's happened is the Tesla that was summoned struck a parked car, I'm not seeing anything worth getting too upset about.

Thankfully for the rest of us, federal safety regulators aren’t nearly as laissez-faire when it comes to crashing vehicles.

 

[Demosthenes642]

[Post now made redundant, no need for it to continue to exist]