National Security Administration road traffic (National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB) The US has sent experts to California to investigate a fatal accident involving a Tesla electric vehicle.
Driver (operator) Tesla Model X died on March 23 in a crash on California Highway 101 near Mountain View. For reasons not yet clear, the crossover lost control, for high speed crashed into a bump stop, then caught fire and exploded. The car had to move in unmanned mode, and the operator was in the cabin for emergency insurance, as required by California state regulations. Driving without a driver will only be allowed. The accident happened a week before the introduction of the new rules. The operator of the car died on the way to the hospital in an ambulance.
However, the main topic of the upcoming investigation is fire. After the accident, two more cars following it crashed into the electric car, as a result of which the Tesla, which received significant damage, caught fire, and then, according to eyewitnesses, exploded. It is assumed that due to the collision, the car's battery, located under the floor, detonated, although the manufacturer had previously stated that it was completely safe. Tesla noted that the car's battery is designed to minimize the likelihood of a fire. But if a fire does occur, then the fire will spread slowly so that passengers have time to leave the cabin.
It should be noted that, according to eyewitnesses, they managed to get the operator out of the car even before the explosion. Thus, his death was not associated with burns to the body, but caused injuries resulting from the collision.
The company pointed out that more than 200 Tesla are driving along this section of the highway every day in autopilot mode, and never before have any accidents with drones been recorded there.
Tesla offered their own version of the fire and the explosion that followed - the bumper, into which the car crashed, was supposed to soften the blow, but for some reason this did not happen. It is possible that this section of the bumper was either incorrectly installed, or had previously suffered from a similar collision and was not replaced after that.
But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does not intend to pay special attention to the ensuing fire. The main thing is to find out the reasons for the very accident with Tesla in California. The American road regulator is increasingly faced with the need to study the role of unmanned technologies, writes The Wall Street Journal.
American officials and politicians have been increasingly talking about the need to revise the regulatory rules in connection with the development of the self-driving car industry.
PHOTO and VIDEO from the scene of the fatal accident with Tesla:
Americans are afraid of drones and express aggression
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of Americans fear traveling in a completely independent vehicle, according to a survey by the American Automobile Association (AAA).
The death of a cyclist in Arizona () and the latest fatal accident in a Tesla showroom only add to these concerns.
San Francisco cyclists have previously petitioned California authorities not to allow self-driving cars to be tested on state streets without drivers, as existing technology is not yet safe enough.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles has recorded an increase in numbers since the beginning of 2018. As it turned out, of all accidents involving unmanned vehicles registered in the first month of the year, almost a third were caused by pedestrians who expressed aggression and attacked cars.
In most US states, there is a rule according to which a person must be behind the wheel for safety reasons during tests of unmanned vehicles. California lifted this rule at the end of February. The absence of an operator in the salon will become legal from April 2018. However, so far none of the companies have applied for such permits.
In addition, Americans fear that hackers can gain remote unauthorized access to control systems of unmanned vehicles - to starting the engine, steering, brake system - and disable them, as well as block people in the car.
Experts warn that it could potentially be possible by remotely hacking into vehicles equipped with a remote control function. After all modern cars - this is " opened door"for hackers, and the opportunity to hack them can be used by enemy states or terrorists, turning cars into a deadly weapon.
Hackers are already capable of taking control of any car produced since 2005, but some cars built in 2000 are also in danger.
"Any nation with the ability to launch a cyber strike could kill millions of civilians by hacking into cars," said Justin Kappos, a computer security expert at New York University.
And while automakers argue over the timing of the global launch of self-driving cars, cybersecurity experts paint a rather grim picture of the "terrorist" potential of drones, whose systems can be hacked just like any other computer.
And it is very difficult to defend against such hacking - only one mistake is needed for the system to become available to hackers. Even for an organization like the US National Security Agency (NSA), which has all the necessary technical and intellectual resources, the main question is not "if" a potential hack occurs, but "when" it will happen. With regard to drones, one of the main dangers can be the so-called. Virus creators focus their efforts precisely on detecting such unknown vulnerabilities in software, which, if successful, provides them with control over the entire system, and not its single objects.
Tesla lost $ 3 billion in a month
The outlook remains “negative”, which suggests the possibility of further deterioration in the credit rating.
Tesla shares have dropped 25% since early March. Tesla's capitalization decreased by $ 14.6 billion in a month. Shares are falling amid investor worries about a lack of funding and the fatal accident scandal on California Highway 101. Founder and CEO Elon Musk lost about $ 3 billion in just a month.
To pay off debt and avoid liquidity shortages, Tesla's executives will need substantial capital raising in the near future.
If the system did not notice the truck on the road, Tesla will have to recall the cars to correct the deficiencies, the general director of the legal organization Center for automotive safety"Clarence Dietlow. “The autopilot must be able to recognize all possible road conditions... This is a clear defect and must be corrected. When autopilot is installed in a car, you are inviting people to trust the system, even if you legally oblige them to keep their hands on the steering wheel, "Dietlow said.
Tesla wrote in a blog that it specifically warns the owner before turning on the system vehiclethat Autopilot is " new technologystill in the public beta phase. "
No other automaker sells untested technology to customers, Eric Noble, president of consulting firm CarLab, told the agency. “No qualified auto maker will put this technology on the road, into the hands of consumers, without additional testing,” Noble said. "It needs to be tested millions of miles with trained drivers, not consumers."
The investigation was announced at a difficult time for the California-based company when Tesla announced its intention to acquire solar solutions provider SolarCity for $ 2.8 billion. The news alarmed investors, and the company's shares fell 10%. Since 2013, the company's capitalization has grown more than five times - over $ 30 billion, that is, more than two-thirds of the value of General Motors, The Wall Street Journal notes. But Tesla is not expecting to go into profit earlier than 2020, and investors are punishing stocks for Musk's plans to merge the two unprofitable companies.
On Thursday, following the announcement of an investigation into an accident in Florida, the company's shares fell 2.7% to $ 206.5.
The US authorities began investigating the causes of the first fatal accident involving a car that was moving on autopilot. The accident itself occurred in Florida back in May, but only now it became known about the incident in which the driver died. A Tesla Model S electric car with autopilot on rammed a tractor with a trailer on the highway, which was moving in a perpendicular direction, trying to cross the intersection. As reported by the press service of Tesla, the accident occurred due to a combination of tragic circumstances.
By the way, about a year ago, a self-driving car from Google also got into a serious accident, which cost no casualties, but three Google employees were injured. "Self-propelled" hybrid crossover Lexus The RX 450h was approaching an intersection when two vehicles in front of it suddenly began to brake, despite a traffic signal permitting passage. The drivers of these cars saw a traffic jam after the intersection and, despite the burning "green" one, did not dare to go to the intersection of streets so as not to block traffic at the intersection. The standalone Lexus also slowed down. The driver of the car driving behind the Google mobile did not have time to react and crashed into a Lexus at a speed of 27 km / h. Later it turned out that the man driving this car did not even have time to press the brake pedal before the impact.
Tesla, which makes the world's most popular electric cars, is famous not only for this, but also for introducing the first autopilot available on the market. Large automotive concerns are still only testing such technologies, adding only some of their components to commercial products: automatic parking, tracking the car in front, intelligent braking in emergency situations... Tesla, on the other hand, was the first in the market to venture to release the autopilot to the masses, and the first to suffer from this. We have collected five cases where tesla cars got into major accidents.
First death involving tesla cars... There are many mysterious circumstances in this story. Almost 2 months passed between the incident and its publicity. During this time period, Elon Musk sold part of the stock worth more than $ 2 billion, making decent money. Naturally, after the information about the accident became public, Tesla shares fell sharply in price.
Tesla admitted the autopilot error in the accident. The autopilot was unable to identify the white truck trailer on the road, and the car simply drove under it. The driver died on the spot. According to some reports, the driver behind the wheel of the Tesla X was watching a movie, which did not allow him to react in time to the traffic situation.
The most recent public incident involving Tesla vehicles happened earlier this month in Indianapolis. Casey Speckman, who was driving, and her future husband Kevin McCarthy crashed into a tree at full speed. The woman died on the spot, and the passenger was in the hospital. Major version of what happened: excess speed mode... The autopilot had nothing to do with this accident. On the contrary, it would not allow the car to reach that speed if it was on.
This accident showed another problem for Tesla cars. When mechanical damage batteries, they explode and generate enormous amounts of heat. It is very problematic to extinguish them with conventional means, you need to have special chemicals, you cannot cope with ordinary water.
Tesla Model S and Motorcyclist (October 12, 2016)
An incident that occurred in October in Norway. Tesla car in autopilot mode touched a motorcyclist on the road. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the case itself sparked a heated discussion among experts. Elon Musk's company received another batch of criticism and accusations that it did not sufficiently test the autopilot, forgetting about such road users as motorcyclists and cyclists. Tesla acknowledged the problem, promising to improve the mechanism for recognizing small vehicles.
The most ridiculous accident involving Tesla cars happened in Montana this summer. A Chinese man named Pan, accelerated in his Tesla X on a mountainous stretch of road at night, activated the autopilot and removed his hands from the steering wheel. The car, of course, began to warn of an emergency, but the careless driver did nothing, calmly crashing into the bump stop. When the policeman asked why he did nothing, Mr. Pan replied that he did not know English well and could not understand what the autopilot wanted from him. Tesla has repeatedly warned that its automatic system piloting is suitable only for motorways and city roads, so in this case the fault lies entirely with the driver.
Tesla Model S, driving on autopilot in Germany, crashed into a bus. The passengers of the bus were not injured, and the driver of the electric car received minor injuries. The incident happened almost immediately after updating the autopilot to version 8.0. As the police investigation showed, the driver of the bus was to blame for the accident, who untimely turned into the traffic lane, where he is prohibited by law.
As you can see, any accident involving Tesla cars immediately attracts the public's attention. Many people want to convict Elon Musk's company that their technologies are dangerous to the lives of road users, but, as practice shows, Tesla autopilot often saves the lives of drivers, than leads to emergency situations on the roads. In many accidents involving Tesla cars, it is not the automatic control system that is to blame, but the drivers who drove the car on their own. Tesla's autopilot isn't perfect yet. But he is called not to replace the driver, but to be his assistant, helping in those situations when the human reaction is not enough to properly respond to the traffic situation. As much as the experts criticize Tesla, the American company is doing a great job for the personal car and road safety market.
The logs have not yet been retrieved due to serious damage to the electric vehicle, but Tesla has revealed details of the accident.
- Due to severe collision damage, we were unable to retrieve the logs.
- We are working closely with the authorities to recover the logs from the computer.
- Our data shows that the EV has driven this section on Autopilot ~ 85,000 times since 2015 and 20,000 since the beginning of the year without incident. There are 200 successful Autopilot rides here every day.
- The reason for such a strong collision is a separation fence to reduce the impact. It was either removed or broken without replacement. The figure shows the normal state and the day before the accident. We have not seen such a deformation of the Model X before.
- The batteries are designed so that in the rare event that a fire breaks out, it spreads slowly. Passengers have enough time to get out of the car. According to witnesses, this is similar to what happened here. By the time the fire could pose a danger to the driver, the Model X was already empty. Damage can lead to fire, regardless of the type of vehicle. A gas-powered car in the United States is five times more fire prone than a Tesla electric car.
After the Tesla X crash,
