Photo: Yan Chang
Elon Musk has often claimed that autonomous driving was “basically a solved problem.” He also has multiple videos acting as if Autopilot already offered autonomous driving. Officially, Tesla states the truth about it: that Autopilot and FSD are Level 2 ADAS (advanced driver assistance system). There’s no autonomous vehicle on the market yet, which makes it even more ironic that a Tesla Model 3 turned a motorcycle into an “autonomous vehicle” after rear-ending it in China.
As the tweet and the images in our gallery show, everything happened very quickly. After the Tesla Model 3 failed to stop at a traffic light, it hit the motorcycle from the back, dropping its rider in the process. The bike did not care to fall and continued moving to the left side of the intersection. The video did not show when it finally stopped.
Joking aside, the crash luckily did not seriously hurt anyone involved, according to Yan Chang. The Chinese journalist who tweeted the rogue ride the motorcycle took on its own did not mention exactly where the weird bump happened in China. Thanks to the video information, we know it happened on August 17, at precisely at 6:17 PM. If you happen to know more about the other circumstances in this crash, please share them with us.
The episode is metaphorically relevant. Just because a vehicle seems to move on its own, it does not mean it is autonomous. Imagine if people trusted it was or even claimed that it was safer than a human driver. It would seem absurd in this motorcycle’s case, right? That’s also the case for any beta software or technology currently available, no matter how sophisticated it may seem to be.
There’s also a striking difference between the “autonomous motorcycle” and all crashes involving ADAS. As we already said, the former did not seriously hurt anyone, but it could have done that. The same cannot be said about Autopilot or NOP (from Nio). Unfortunately, we have seen more than once that overreliance on these systems can be fatal.
Joking aside, the crash luckily did not seriously hurt anyone involved, according to Yan Chang. The Chinese journalist who tweeted the rogue ride the motorcycle took on its own did not mention exactly where the weird bump happened in China. Thanks to the video information, we know it happened on August 17, at precisely at 6:17 PM. If you happen to know more about the other circumstances in this crash, please share them with us.
The episode is metaphorically relevant. Just because a vehicle seems to move on its own, it does not mean it is autonomous. Imagine if people trusted it was or even claimed that it was safer than a human driver. It would seem absurd in this motorcycle’s case, right? That’s also the case for any beta software or technology currently available, no matter how sophisticated it may seem to be.
There’s also a striking difference between the “autonomous motorcycle” and all crashes involving ADAS. As we already said, the former did not seriously hurt anyone, but it could have done that. The same cannot be said about Autopilot or NOP (from Nio). Unfortunately, we have seen more than once that overreliance on these systems can be fatal.
It's so funny that in China, after a Model 3 crashed into a motorcycle, the motorcycle took off on its own and luckily didn't hit anyone. pic.twitter.com/QRjKVfNuye
— Yan Chang (@cyfoxcat) August 18, 2021
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