Model 3

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Model 3 Autopilot accident

Had a solo car accident while using autopilot. Apparently, the margin of error is very low with no road shoulders. In addition, the shadow of the sun was coming in and out of the bridge overpass which might have confused the autopilot. Wonder if anyone else has gotten into a similar accident, see 12 seconds into the video I uploaded. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgzpAN4qsmg
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Comments

  • Glad you are good tho!

    Autopilot aside, that is a very dangerous set up. The city should be notified, the truck in front of you had a delayed reaction too. They should be putting reflectors on that wall. You could probably take it up with the city.

    That being said, the damage wasn't as bad as I was expecting
  • Thanks! The crazy thing is that Tesla said it'll take 3-5 weeks for them to analyze the autopilot data and get back to me. That's awfully long, isn't it? I asked them to escalate the ticket but the support person said they have to be very thorough and that's how long it's going to take. In the meantime, I'll need to fix my car through my insurance company. Even though the damage doesn't seem bad, there are 5 body panels that's damaged plus the side mirror. The front isn't too bad because it has a Xpel protective wrap but not the rear. It won't be cheap to fix. :(
  • Dang, that stinks. Sorry. Agree city should be made aware.
    FSDbeta for the fleet can’t come soon enough!
  • I drive there daily and really have to be alert about that spot on the left.
  • > @jimcheung41_98246540 said:
    > Thanks! The crazy thing is that Tesla said it'll take 3-5 weeks for them to analyze the autopilot data and get back to me. That's awfully long, isn't it? I asked them to escalate the ticket but the support person said they have to be very thorough and that's how long it's going to take. In the meantime, I'll need to fix my car through my insurance company. Even though the damage doesn't seem bad, there are 5 body panels that's damaged plus the side mirror. The front isn't too bad because it has a Xpel protective wrap but not the rear. It won't be cheap to fix. :(

    I have zero experience with this type of situation. Sorry you gotta deal with it. 3-5 weeks seems like an eternity while you try and deal with it. But maybe it will be sooner!

    Good luck
  • WHAT is going on with that lane?!?!?!

    I can't believe it hasn't caused many deaths at that speed. I would've smashed right into that divider if I were driving your car. They've put a wall up that covers half of a lane and expect cars traveling at thruway speeds to swerve around it? This is negligent homicide. Unbelievable.
  • > @father_of_6 said:
    > WHAT is going on with that lane?!?!?!
    >
    > I can't believe it hasn't caused many deaths at that speed. I would've smashed right into that divider if I were driving your car. They've put a wall up that covers half of a lane and expect cars traveling at thruway speeds to swerve around it? This is negligent homicide. Unbelievable.

    Said the same thing, that is super dangerous. No reflectors, no arrows, no notice of any kind. With highway speeds, that is inexcusable.
  • That's a crazy set up by the town/state.
    How long has the left lane been open and no other Tesla has driven through it via autopilot?
    Maybe notify local news as to the danger of that section?
  • I've not driven on that road enough to know it's there. This is heavily traveled and one of the major freeway in Los Angeles! Unbelievable!
  • > @jimcheung41_98246540 said:
    > I've not driven on that road enough to know it's there. This is heavily traveled and one of the major freeway in Los Angeles! Unbelievable!

    Keep the “fight” going with tesla. But I’d honestly contact engineering department for Los Angeles. Id demand an explanation.
  • The "explanation" is that LA Traffic is horrible, and they tried to widen the freeway by adding a lane in what used to be the shoulder. They built a concrete base around the pillars supporting the upper roadway so that a car couldn't run into the pillar and bring down the freeway. But the base narrows the freeway at that point. I'm sure that it is precisely legal according to all DOT and NHTSA regulations, but to me it most certainly needs a left-side lane line to guide drivers.
  • Such a bummer. Anytime I use autopilot in the left hand lane I am hyper aware of these kind of moments. The thing I really enjoy about autopilot is that it gives me an opportunity to watch even more carefully at the traffic around me.

    That is a terrible stretch of road there and I'm really sorry this happened to you. Thanks for posting and sharing your video, as it can be a reminder to all of us to stay incredibly aware.

    Please keep us posted after Tesla gets back to you!
  • Two rules of thumb I live by with autopilot.

    1. Never drive in the left lane if there's no shoulder. For some reason, the car views the wall as the lane marker and always hugs the left side of the lane, closer to the wall, rather than in the middle of the actual lane. The OP's video is exactly why I don't do it. No margin for error.

    2. Always pay attention and be ready for the system to F*)*# up. Because it absolutely will. #2 has prevented many accidents that would have happened had I not been paying attention.

    AP is a great if used responsibly. But it is so, so, so far from perfect. It's the capabilities of AP we have today, combined with the the capabilities of the Enhanced Summon Feature and Navigate on AP features that tell me we are so, so, so far away from these cars being capable of going driverless. Tesla has got 95% of the way there, but that last 5% is very, very hard to achieve. The car can only do what it's programmed to do. Programming it with any and all possible scenarios that humans react to in a fraction of a second is proving much harder than they thought it would be. Understandably so. No knock on Tesla by any means. It's just a hard thing to do. Probably as hard as Rocket Science. How many years has it been since NASA has launched a person into space with their own program? Level 5 Autonomy appears just as difficult.

    I love AP and have learned to work with its limitations, which is what makes it more enjoyable. I trust it as much as I would trust a 5 year old to drive my car. But, some tasks it does very well.

    Glad this case wasn't worse and the OP was OK. Thanks for posting. Posts like this will hopefully contribute to people being smarter with the system.
  • LIDAR might prevent such accidents. I hate myself for saying it though.
  • From what I’ve seen in the testing videos, FSDbeta could likely avoid that (won’t know unless someone tested it though...come on LA based testers!)
  • If I recall correctly, that area (or a similar one) was pointed out a year or two ago without actually hitting the barrier after manually taking over at the last moment. What a horrible road design and a potentially dangerous choke point on a high speed roadway. They must have crews out every night picking up debris left behind from cars striking it.
  • > @hgmichna said:
    > LIDAR might prevent such accidents. I hate myself for saying it though.

    You shouldn't hate yourself for saying that. LIDAR is good technology, and IMO Elon shouldn't have taken a public stance against it.

    I agree with you, LIDAR would've had no problem with that, and I personally wouldn't label a car as L5 without LIDAR.
  • from what I understand LIDAR cars don’t work well when encountering each other, don’t handle occlusive weather well.
  • Tesla has already developed vision based 3D mapping that rivals the precision of LiDAR (so-called pseudo LiDAR). Thus eliminating any advantages that LiDAR might have. LiDAR has severe limitations in that it does not work in snow, rain, or fog. It does not work around other LiDAR units due to interference. It is expensive and not very reliable. Tesla’s vision based 3D mapping rivals LiDAR in precision and exceeds the LiDAR’s performance in every other aspect. It is highly questionable whether any system that relies on LiDAR will ever be able to achieve Level 5 autonomy.
  • I don't believe any other system "relies on LiDAR". I believe that, for all of them, LiDAR is one component of their sensing system that includes cameras, radar, sonar, etc. Tesla is doing the same, just without LiDAR.

    LiDAR adds specific distance information that may be difficult in some situations to extract from camera-only systems. In this particular case, the fact that the median jutted out towards the left lane might not be obvious to a camera-only system with the lighting as it was; but adding the information from LiDAR might have made it possible to detect if the computer hardware/software was capable of integrating all of the sensor readings (sometimes having too much information is worse than not having enough...).

    There's nothing wrong with LiDAR, except that it's currently costly, and in the Tesla view of things simply unnecessary once their software reaches maturity. That doesn't mean that VW, or Cadillac, or Waymo, won't be successful with a sensor system that includes LiDAR; just that it will likely cost more to equip a vehicle with it, than without it.
  • Waymo, for example, relies on LiDAR and will not work without it. There are videos of the car stopping due to light rain and requiring a human driver to continue. LiDAR requires optimal conditions in order to work and even the best LiDAR systems only work up to 250 meters. LiDAR has severe limitations beyond just cost. Elon has even stated that he would not use LiDAR even if it was free.

    As far as vision based 3D mapping (pseudo LiDAR), if a human being can see it, then it can be captured by cameras and rendered on a 3D map. The current public version of AP relies on well marked lane lines and only has limited object detection and avoidance, thus the reason for the accident.
  • Until it gets better it’s my
    auto-copilot.
  • Are you assuming Tesla is going to pay for your damage? 'cause I kinda doubt that.

    As for the video, looks like a pretty stupid design... but you get that now a days for sure. Where you not paying attention and not ready to take over? Have you driven this route before?

    It sucks and is unfortunate, but to be honest I think I might have hit that wall in any car I was driving with or without auto pilot if I didn't know it was there. Crazy design if you ask me.
  • > @rhj_98431040 said:
    > Until it gets better it’s my
    > auto-copilot.

    I like it. That is a perfect way of thinking about AP. I may steal that from you! :)
  • I'm not assuming nor expecting Tesla to pay for the damages but I do hope they own up to it and do the right thing. They did tell me that if it's determined to be an autopilot issue, they will pay for the damages. According to other Tesla forum posts, the Collision Avoidance is always on. In this case, it didn't even try to do that. Yes, I've been using autopilot for almost 3 years now and got too comfortable with it. Lesson learned.
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