This is very troubling, does autopilot hide a unintended acceleration problem? That Utah accident into the firetruck also stated last second acceleration. Hmm... this is troubling. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-07/tesla-model-x-in-california-crash-sped-up-seconds-before-impact
Thanks! Here is the NTSB report from the Mountain View accident: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HWY18FH011-preliminary.pdf Since the cruise control speed was set to 75 mph, acceleration from a slower speed makes sense. It happens all the time with dynamic cruise control when a lead vehicle changes lanes and the road is free. The symptoms suggest the car uses painted lines to detect the lane boundaries and has inferior obstacle detection. Our Prius Prime has a radar based, object detection. In spite of the short range, it works great in the 30-35 mph range. At higher speeds, it does not detect objects soon enough to reduce the speed. The Toyota system has lane departure alert which is an audio and visual notice. It does make a single, weak attempt to steer towards the lane, it by no means is trying to follow the lane. But it too is dependent upon the quality of painted lane lines. The "gore" is the triangular area before the barrier. This is where rumble strips are needed to provide a vehicle independent signal of the hazard. Painted lane lines are unreliable. Bob Wilson
Yes, I read the report earlier today... Of course this is just a preliminary report, but Wall Street did not like it much, as the stock started dropping almost immediately when the report was released. Cars in Europe now have to have High Speed Emergency braking to get the high safety rating, it does not sound like you Toyota has that? I think the part that was the most shocking was Tesla misrepresentation on the facts when they released data earlier. Tesla made it sound like the driver has his hands off the wheel a lot before the crash, and that the car was warning him all the way... Actually his last warning was 15 Minutes earlier in the drive, which at that speed is + or - 17 Miles. That is a long way in a car... and then he touched the wheel several times in the minute leading up to the crash. I am not going to rush to judgement, but this does not look good for Tesla legally. Their earlier arrogance may come back to haunt them I am afraid. Other Tesla owners have tested in the same area, with the same hardware/software bug... Its interesting to see how it turns out. I personally think Tesla should settle the lawsuit quickly to get it out of the news. Maybe they already have... ?
