Craig Doty II, a Tesla owner, narrowly avoided a collision after his vehicle, in Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode, allegedly steered towards an oncoming train.
Nighttime dashcam footage from earlier this month in Ohio captured the harrowing scene: Doty’s Tesla rapidly approaching a train with no apparent deceleration. He insisted his Tesla was in Full Self-Driving mode when it barreled towards the train crossing without slowing down.
Tesla opted not to use LIDAR as part of its sensor package and instead relies on cameras which are not enough to determine accurate location data for other cars/trains etc.
This is what you get when billionaires cheap out on their products.
Not only that, but took out the radar, which while it has its own flaws, would have had no issue seeing the train through the fog. While they claimed it was because they had “solved vision” and didn’t need it anymore, it’s bullshit, and their engineering team knew it. They were in the middle of sourcing a new radar, but because of supply chain limitations (like everyone in 2021) with both their old and potential new supplier, they wouldn’t continue their “infinite growth” narrative and fElon wouldn’t get his insane pay package. They knew for a fact it would negatively affect performance significantly, but did it anyway so line could go up.
While no automotive company’s hands are particularly clean, the sheer level of willful negligence at Tesla is absolutely astonishing and have seen and heard so many stories about their shitty engineering practices that the only impressive thing is how relatively few people have died as a direct result of their lax attitude towards basic safety practices.
I never understood Musk’s reasoning for this decision. From my recollection it was basically “how do you decide who’s right when lidar and camera disagree?” And it felt so insane to say that the solution to conflicting data was not to figure out which is right but only to listen to one.
Also that LIDAR is more expensive then cameras, which means higher end user price, as far as I remember.
I wasn’t sure if he admitted that as being the reason (even though it obviously is)
I thought that was his main justification, idk tho, I don’t listen to the earnings calls or interviews myself lol
LIDAR would have similarly been degraded in the foggy conditions that this occurred in. Lasers are light too.
While I do think Tesla holds plenty of responsibility for their intentionally misleading branding in FSD, as well as cost saving measures to not include lidar and/or radar, this particular instance boils down to yet another shitty and irresponsible driver.
You should not be relying on FSD over train tracks. You should not be allowing FSD to be going faster than conditions allow. Dude was tearing down the road in thick fog, way faster than was safe for the conditions.
Well said.