Photo: Jason Hughes
The utility of a dashcam is undeniable, so you have to ask yourself why aren't carmakers integrating this cheap feature into the vehicles they build from the start, forcing their customers to opt for third-party products that can be cumbersome to install?
That question is even more pertinent these days when a lot of new cars come equipped with a front-facing video camera. It doesn't matter whether its main use is to read street signs or monitor the traffic ahead - its feed could easily be diverted toward a storage device which would record a few hours of footage in a loop.
A recent discovery on a salvaged Tesla Model S revealed that the Autopilot video camera does something very similar to that (well, at least in principle). Jason Hughes is a guy who likes to treat his Teslas the same way surgeons treat our bodies: he dissects them until they hold no more secrets for him.
In the past, he's found some hidden stuff in there that made Elon Musk pretty angry, and he's also toying with the idea of putting two of Tesla's performance motors (the ones driving the rear wheels) onto the same car to create a 1,000 hp super-EV.
He told Electrek that he's gotten his hands on an Autopilot-equipped Model S for the first time, and while looking inside the Media Center Unit, he came across the Event Data Recorder. As we've said, this was a salvaged Model S, and what he found in the EDR showed him exactly why that was.
It seems like, on May 1st, the Model S was involved in an accident with an Acura. The Tesla was driving forward through an intersection when it forced a yellow light. The Acura was turning left and, for some reason, thought it was its cue to go. The accident was inevitable, and so the two cars crashed into each other.
Hughes managed to decipher some of the data present there and deducted that the car was traveling at 57 mph (92 km/h) with the Autopilot feature deactivated. The Automatic Emergency Braking system engaged, but the distance was too short for it to achieve more than shave some of the speed off. Given the severity of the incident, the airbags had also deployed.
The most interesting part are the eight frames that the system stored just before and during the accident. The images are black and white and their quality isn't great, but it's enough to get an idea about what happened. These pictures aren't normally available to the vehicle's owner, but we understand that Tesla has access to them, just as it does to the rest of the car's logs.
Since nobody knew about this feature so far, this might come as a bit of a privacy violation. OK, we're well aware of the fact that Tesla could track its cars through GPS and know where they are at any moment, but using or viewing video footage from somebody's personal vehicle without their consent doesn't sound right to us.
Not trying to blow things out of proportion and create a 1984 moment here, but it wouldn't hurt if Tesla were a little more transparent on certain matters. It should know by now that it can ask almost anything of its clients and they will gladly oblige, so it would only have to gain from a more open relationship.
A recent discovery on a salvaged Tesla Model S revealed that the Autopilot video camera does something very similar to that (well, at least in principle). Jason Hughes is a guy who likes to treat his Teslas the same way surgeons treat our bodies: he dissects them until they hold no more secrets for him.
In the past, he's found some hidden stuff in there that made Elon Musk pretty angry, and he's also toying with the idea of putting two of Tesla's performance motors (the ones driving the rear wheels) onto the same car to create a 1,000 hp super-EV.
He told Electrek that he's gotten his hands on an Autopilot-equipped Model S for the first time, and while looking inside the Media Center Unit, he came across the Event Data Recorder. As we've said, this was a salvaged Model S, and what he found in the EDR showed him exactly why that was.
It seems like, on May 1st, the Model S was involved in an accident with an Acura. The Tesla was driving forward through an intersection when it forced a yellow light. The Acura was turning left and, for some reason, thought it was its cue to go. The accident was inevitable, and so the two cars crashed into each other.
Hughes managed to decipher some of the data present there and deducted that the car was traveling at 57 mph (92 km/h) with the Autopilot feature deactivated. The Automatic Emergency Braking system engaged, but the distance was too short for it to achieve more than shave some of the speed off. Given the severity of the incident, the airbags had also deployed.
The most interesting part are the eight frames that the system stored just before and during the accident. The images are black and white and their quality isn't great, but it's enough to get an idea about what happened. These pictures aren't normally available to the vehicle's owner, but we understand that Tesla has access to them, just as it does to the rest of the car's logs.
Since nobody knew about this feature so far, this might come as a bit of a privacy violation. OK, we're well aware of the fact that Tesla could track its cars through GPS and know where they are at any moment, but using or viewing video footage from somebody's personal vehicle without their consent doesn't sound right to us.
Not trying to blow things out of proportion and create a 1984 moment here, but it wouldn't hurt if Tesla were a little more transparent on certain matters. It should know by now that it can ask almost anything of its clients and they will gladly oblige, so it would only have to gain from a more open relationship.
Tinkering with a crashed @TeslaMotors Model S. #Autopilot camera stored these frames from the accident event. #tesla pic.twitter.com/HdUgVjJ6c3
— Jason Hughes (@wk057) September 13, 2016
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