<story><title>Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash</title><url>http://abc7news.com/automotive/exclusive-tesla-issues-strongest-statement-yet-blaming-driver-for-deadly-crash/3325908/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tc</author><text>Tesla probably shouldn&amp;#x27;t be saying anything about this at all, even just to avoid giving it more news cycles.  But if they were going to say something, here&amp;#x27;s what they should have said the first time.&lt;p&gt;----&lt;p&gt;We take great care in building our cars to save lives.  Forty thousands Americans die on the roads each year.  That&amp;#x27;s a statistic.  But even a single death of a Tesla driver or passenger is a tragedy.  This has affected everyone on our team deeply, and our hearts go out to the family and friends of Walter Huang.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;ve recovered data that indicates Autopilot was engaged at the time of the accident.  The vehicle drove straight into the barrier.  In the five seconds leading up to the crash, neither Autopilot nor the driver took any evasive action.&lt;p&gt;Our engineers are investigating why the car failed to detect or avoid the obstacle.  Any lessons we can take from this tragedy will be deployed across our entire fleet of vehicles.  Saving other lives is the best we can hope to take away from an event like this.&lt;p&gt;In that same spirit, we would like to remind all Tesla drivers that Autopilot is not a fully-autonomous driving system.  It&amp;#x27;s a tool to help attentive drivers avoid accidents that might have otherwise occurred.  Just as with autopilots in aviation, while the tool does reduce workload, it&amp;#x27;s critical to always stay attentive.  The car cannot drive itself.  It can help, but you have to do your job.&lt;p&gt;We do realize, however, that a system like Autopilot can lure people into a false sense of security.  That&amp;#x27;s one reason we are hard at work on the problem of fully autonomous driving.  It will take a few years, but we look forward to some day making accidents like this a part of history.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>patcheudor</author><text>&amp;gt;t&amp;#x27;s a tool to help attentive drivers avoid accidents that might have otherwise occurred.&lt;p&gt;This needs far more discussion.  I just don&amp;#x27;t buy it.  I don&amp;#x27;t believe that you can have a car engaged in auto-drive mode and remain attentive.  I think our psychology won&amp;#x27;t allow it.  When driving, I find that I must be engaged and on long trips I don&amp;#x27;t even enable cruise control because taking the accelerator input away from me is enough to cause my mind to wander.  If I&amp;#x27;m not in control of the accelerator and steering while simultaneously focused on threats including friendly officers attempting to remind me of the speed limit I space out fairly quickly.  In observing how others drive, I don&amp;#x27;t think I&amp;#x27;m alone.  It&amp;#x27;s part of our nature.  So then, how is it that you can have a car driving for you while simultaneously being attentive? I believe they are so mutually exclusive as to make it ridiculous to claim that such a thing is possible.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash</title><url>http://abc7news.com/automotive/exclusive-tesla-issues-strongest-statement-yet-blaming-driver-for-deadly-crash/3325908/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tc</author><text>Tesla probably shouldn&amp;#x27;t be saying anything about this at all, even just to avoid giving it more news cycles.  But if they were going to say something, here&amp;#x27;s what they should have said the first time.&lt;p&gt;----&lt;p&gt;We take great care in building our cars to save lives.  Forty thousands Americans die on the roads each year.  That&amp;#x27;s a statistic.  But even a single death of a Tesla driver or passenger is a tragedy.  This has affected everyone on our team deeply, and our hearts go out to the family and friends of Walter Huang.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;ve recovered data that indicates Autopilot was engaged at the time of the accident.  The vehicle drove straight into the barrier.  In the five seconds leading up to the crash, neither Autopilot nor the driver took any evasive action.&lt;p&gt;Our engineers are investigating why the car failed to detect or avoid the obstacle.  Any lessons we can take from this tragedy will be deployed across our entire fleet of vehicles.  Saving other lives is the best we can hope to take away from an event like this.&lt;p&gt;In that same spirit, we would like to remind all Tesla drivers that Autopilot is not a fully-autonomous driving system.  It&amp;#x27;s a tool to help attentive drivers avoid accidents that might have otherwise occurred.  Just as with autopilots in aviation, while the tool does reduce workload, it&amp;#x27;s critical to always stay attentive.  The car cannot drive itself.  It can help, but you have to do your job.&lt;p&gt;We do realize, however, that a system like Autopilot can lure people into a false sense of security.  That&amp;#x27;s one reason we are hard at work on the problem of fully autonomous driving.  It will take a few years, but we look forward to some day making accidents like this a part of history.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Dwolb</author><text>Tesla need to stop calling it &amp;#x27;Autopilot&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;The name implies drivers don&amp;#x27;t need to drive and is most likely a big reason drivers are lured into a false sense of security.</text></comment>