Photo: BMW
It would appear Tesla is not the only brand whose cars are becoming sentient, trying to "terminate" their human masters. At least that's what happened to a 71-year-old British driver, if you can believe it.
As cars become more and more technology-rich, the number in which things can go wrong also goes up. There is probably no better way of portraying this undeniable truth than by looking at Tesla's Full Self-Driving Beta debacle, hence the free shoutout the Californian carmaker got in the previous paragraph. I guess that's the price you have to pay when you're so desperate to have your name associated with the emerging technology of driver's assistance systems.
This story, however, takes place thousands of miles and one ocean away from Palo Alto (in the Essex region of the UK, to be more precise) and features a German vehicle (a BMW X5 SAV), so even though I can't fully promise the Tesla name won't get mentioned again going further, I'll do my best.
According to the British publication The Times (reading this article requires a subscription) quoting the vehicle's owner and driver at the time of the incident, the Bavarian SAV decided on its own accord to rush toward speeds of 110 mph (177 km/h) on a village road with a speed limit of 30 mph (48 km/h). “The car took off like a scalded cat," the driver, 71-year-old Stuart Greengrass, told the news outlet, though during those short moments, he must have felt more like a passenger than the actual driver.
"[...] it accelerated very quickly, and I felt the car had taken over. It was speeding away and I had to intervene very quickly to prevent the car from going to a dangerous speed,” the driver recalls. The incident occurred while the BMW X5's cruise control system was activated, and since the vehicle also had the brand's Speed Limit Assist feature activated (which uses GPS data as well as cameras to know the speed limit for the road sector the vehicle is on), all it took was a technical glitch to give the car the wrong information to work with.
How the vehicle's system could be fooled to think the speed limit was 110 mph when there's no road in the entire world apart from the German Autobahn (and perhaps the Isle of Man) that would allow such a speed is anyone's guess, but it happened. In fact, it did happen again to Stuart's wife, prompting the Greengrasses to report the incidents to their local dealership.
A BMW official drove a different car in an attempt to replicate the incident, with the same dangerous results. Even so, the company's response was surprisingly relaxed, downplaying the entire situation. “If the driver chooses to enable the ‘adjust automatically’ functionality, it remains their responsibility to validate the decisions of the system," an official statement read. "BMW Speed Limit Assist functionality is a driver aid and is not designed or marketed as an autonomous driving function and the driver remains responsible for ensuring they do not exceed the permitted speed limit."
Nobody is questioning the full responsibility of the driver, but this reported statement does nothing to cover two very important points: (1) what caused the incident in the first place? and (2) will it happen again? If the answer to the first question is "we don't know" and to the second, "yes", then I'm afraid that Munich, we have a problem.
As it stands, we don't know how likely it is for anyone using BMW's system to have a similar experience in other parts of the world outside Essex, but I know I would keep an eye out for any unexpected interventions over vehicle's throttle my very own BMW might make. To be fair, that should be the default attitude of any driver using these systems regardless of whether they're in a BMW, a Ford, or a Tesla. (Oh, shoot, I was so close to keeping my promise)
This story, however, takes place thousands of miles and one ocean away from Palo Alto (in the Essex region of the UK, to be more precise) and features a German vehicle (a BMW X5 SAV), so even though I can't fully promise the Tesla name won't get mentioned again going further, I'll do my best.
According to the British publication The Times (reading this article requires a subscription) quoting the vehicle's owner and driver at the time of the incident, the Bavarian SAV decided on its own accord to rush toward speeds of 110 mph (177 km/h) on a village road with a speed limit of 30 mph (48 km/h). “The car took off like a scalded cat," the driver, 71-year-old Stuart Greengrass, told the news outlet, though during those short moments, he must have felt more like a passenger than the actual driver.
"[...] it accelerated very quickly, and I felt the car had taken over. It was speeding away and I had to intervene very quickly to prevent the car from going to a dangerous speed,” the driver recalls. The incident occurred while the BMW X5's cruise control system was activated, and since the vehicle also had the brand's Speed Limit Assist feature activated (which uses GPS data as well as cameras to know the speed limit for the road sector the vehicle is on), all it took was a technical glitch to give the car the wrong information to work with.
How the vehicle's system could be fooled to think the speed limit was 110 mph when there's no road in the entire world apart from the German Autobahn (and perhaps the Isle of Man) that would allow such a speed is anyone's guess, but it happened. In fact, it did happen again to Stuart's wife, prompting the Greengrasses to report the incidents to their local dealership.
A BMW official drove a different car in an attempt to replicate the incident, with the same dangerous results. Even so, the company's response was surprisingly relaxed, downplaying the entire situation. “If the driver chooses to enable the ‘adjust automatically’ functionality, it remains their responsibility to validate the decisions of the system," an official statement read. "BMW Speed Limit Assist functionality is a driver aid and is not designed or marketed as an autonomous driving function and the driver remains responsible for ensuring they do not exceed the permitted speed limit."
Nobody is questioning the full responsibility of the driver, but this reported statement does nothing to cover two very important points: (1) what caused the incident in the first place? and (2) will it happen again? If the answer to the first question is "we don't know" and to the second, "yes", then I'm afraid that Munich, we have a problem.
As it stands, we don't know how likely it is for anyone using BMW's system to have a similar experience in other parts of the world outside Essex, but I know I would keep an eye out for any unexpected interventions over vehicle's throttle my very own BMW might make. To be fair, that should be the default attitude of any driver using these systems regardless of whether they're in a BMW, a Ford, or a Tesla. (Oh, shoot, I was so close to keeping my promise)
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