Photo: California Highway Patrol via The Intercept
Whenever we tell a story, no words will be more emblematic than the images of what happened. You can see that pretty clearly with our story about a pileup in San Francisco, more precisely on Interstate 80 east of the Bay Bridge. A Tesla Model S suddenly braked in the left lane, and its driver accused Full Self-Driving of that mess. The Intercept managed to obtain surveillance videos of the situation, and they are impressive.
The footage shows how dangerous phantom braking is. We have also written several texts about the problem, including one in which Steve Wozniak complained about that. Tesla is yet to fix the problem. Adopting Tesla Vision and ditching sensors and radars – a move that the EV maker is already backtracking – may have made it even worse. Above all, the videos make it evident how stupid and avoidable the pileup was.
There was absolutely nothing wrong on Interstate 80 on November 24 when the white Tesla Model S moved from the fourth to the fifth lane to the left. As soon as the vehicle gets into the fast lane of that highway, it brakes hard enough to stop the EV. The car immediately behind the Model S (apparently a Honda Pilot) does not manage to avoid the collision, just like six more cars behind them. One pickup truck is the only one that manages to swerve to the right and escape the nightmare.
The first reports stated 18 people got hurt. Thankfully, nobody died, which would not be a first involving Tesla’s advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). According to CNN, nine people got injured. The Intercept confirmed that and discovered that a two-year-old child was also involved. CNN said a child had to be taken to the hospital, so we assume it was talking about this toddler. The report obtained by The Intercept states the boy “suffered an abrasion to the rear left side of his head as well as a bruise.”
Ironically, November 24 was the same day Elon Musk announced FSD would be available to anyone who paid for the feature. Although he promised Tesla would have 1 million robotaxis on the streets in 2020, less than 300,000 people decided to give the idea a go. Despite being less than 30% of what the Tesla CEO believed he would have, it is a number that scares traffic safety specialists, who are concerned about how recklessly Tesla is dealing with these ADAS. It is not a surprise that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating the pileup.
The wide release Elon Musk promoted was not for a finished feature. Tesla stresses that FSD is in its beta development stage, meaning it is not ready and that anyone willing to use it is doing so at their own risk. Madeleine Clare Elish classified this sort of strategy as “moral crumple zones” In her words, it is meant to safeguard “the integrity of the technological system at the expense of the nearest human operator.” The videos The Intercept obtained show how that strategy works with lively images.
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