Tesla Autopilot, fatal crash into side of truck 6

[JNieman]

Very dumb of the driver to /replace/ 911 emergency services with the /hope/ that his car went where he wanted.

At the least, he should have dialed 911 and kept them apprised of his location and intent to proceed to the hospital so that emergency services were there as a backup, or to keep him from careening out of control in the event of a car control failure.

Glad it worked out for him, though. That's a nice story.

 

[itsmoked]

I'm sure this is going on somewhere in the Tesla hierarchy.

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Keith Cress
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[JStephen]

Bigger problem is that the Tesla could have just motored down to the hospital, found its own parking space, and sat there waiting for the guy to get out...forever. I guess they need to build "detect dead driver" functionality into these things.

 

[VEBill]

One could try to argue that it would be logical to equally weight the "lives saved" and "those killed" by a given technology or process.

But that's not how it works.

The BBC podcast series (that I linked to in another thread) gave the example of EMS Helicopters, which helps 400,000 cases a year (USA, if I recall correctly) and undoubtedly saved thousands of lives per year. But when crashes of EMS Helicopters killed a couple dozen in one year, the NTSB still began a program of corrective action.

It's not good enough that the balance sheet is in your favour. The values we silently apply are not symmetrical.

The asymmetry even shows up financially. e.g. The EMS Helicopter performs a mission that saves a life, and they invoice somebody for, say, $2000. A job well done. But they mess up and crash, killing somebody, they might be liable for several million dollars. The asymmetry is at least 1000:1.

Another example is the huge Takata airbag recall. Those airbags have undoubtedly saved tens of thousands of lives in their expected operation. But some much smaller number (dozens?) have allegedly been killed by fragments, so massive recall underway.

There are endless similar examples.

One won't get very far arguing about 'greater good' and balance sheets. The regulators and authorities enforcing our value system generally won't allow it.

There might be the occasional historical exception that's been grandfathered in by default.

All this philosophy probably aligns with the 'First, do no harm' mantra.

 

[itsmoked]

You need to update your helicopter flight pricing. I believe you will find they range from between $30K and $80K. There is currently an uproar for family economic disasters with people losing their homes etc. due to the exorbitant prices charged when they may have not even needed the flight. So, you're looking at only about 50 victims to cover the $3M helli.

But I totally get your valid point.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[GregLocock]

That price seems a bit crazy- our ambulance service prices are 4184 for the first hour plus 68$ a minute thereafter. Admittedly they operate at a loss.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[itsmoked]

[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/business/rescued-by-an-air-ambulance-but-stunned-at-the-sky-high-bill.html?_r=0[/url]

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[VEBill]

Yep. It was a guess, as indicated by "say". But you're correct that it's a bit low.

News: "...total 750 EHS LifeFlight missions last year. Nova Scotia currently spends $3.6 million per year for EHS LifeFlight helicopter service." Pretty good value. It was in the news because they're tightening up the airworthiness rules, and a certain old helicopter is no longer permitted to land on the hospital roofs. Costs will be rising.

So our local system is about Cdn $4,800 per mission, on average. I'm not sure if that's a full accounting. As far as I know, the patient only pays a relatively small fee.

YMMV. US pricing on anything medical is notorious. EMS helicopter service, or a $750 box of tissue at the bedside.

 

[SwinnyGG]

So our local system is about Cdn $4,800 per mission, on average. I'm not sure if that's a full accounting. As far as I know, the patient only pays a relatively small fee.

Considering that your average medivac heli is going to cost somewhere in the realm of $1300-$1600 per hour to operate, I'd say that $4,800 per mission is a reasonably fair estimate of what the owner actually spends.

 

[marty007]

Just playing devil's advocate... does the $1300-$1600 value include the cost of having trained paramedics ready to go, or does this just represent the helicopter maintenance and operating costs?

(I live in Canada, and am counting my lucky stars based on this conversation...)

 

[BrianPetersen]

Another Tesla Autopilot crash, and this one's on video.

http://www.autoblog.com/2016/08/10/tesla-autopilot-crash-beijing-china-video/

If this system has any collision avoidance logic, it stinks.

 

[VEBill]

I don't see how the regulators [USA] would fail to instruct Tesla to remotely disable the system.

 

[SwinnyGG]

Just playing devil's advocate... does the $1300-$1600 value include the cost of having trained paramedics ready to go, or does this just represent the helicopter maintenance and operating costs?

(I live in Canada, and am counting my lucky stars based on this conversation...)

Your average medivac chopper is something in the mid-size range, like a Bell 222 or Augusta A-109.
The Bell 206 is also very common.

Helis in that range, you're looking at $900-$1000 per hour, wet, conservatively. Tack on another $100-$150 per hour for a high-hours pilot, plus anywhere from $100 an hour to $400 an hour for the medical crew (paramedic/paramedic on the low end, nurse/physician crew on the high end).

I'd guess the average mission is in the 2-3 hour range, which leaves a little, but not exorbitant, profit for the operator. Certainly nothing like charging $100,000 for a service that requires $4,000 of outlay.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

So at roughgly $1,500/hr all in, at 3 hours, that's <$5k... but they're charging $40k. Yeah, I'd call that a "little" profit

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[JohnRBaker]

What about liability insurance for the medi-vac operator...

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[SwinnyGG]

So at roughgly $1,500/hr all in, at 3 hours, that's <$5k... but they're charging $40k. Yeah, I'd call that a "little" profit peace

I was referencing VE1BLL's quote that the average mission for Canada is a $4800 expense. Pretty much right on target.

What about liability insurance for the medi-vac operator...

Cheaper than you'd think as a per-hour cost. Remember that a medivac operator is operating thousands of hours per year.

 

[marty007]

Your average medivac chopper is something in the mid-size range, like a Bell 222 or Augusta A-109.
The Bell 206 is also very common.

Helis in that range, you're looking at $900-$1000 per hour, wet, conservatively. Tack on another $100-$150 per hour for a high-hours pilot, plus anywhere from $100 an hour to $400 an hour for the medical crew (paramedic/paramedic on the low end, nurse/physician crew on the high end).

I'd guess the average mission is in the 2-3 hour range, which leaves a little, but not exorbitant, profit for the operator. Certainly nothing like charging $100,000 for a service that requires $4,000 of outlay.

$4500 for a 3-hour mission vs. $40,000 bills. Again, I'm glad I'm in Canada...

 

[JStephen]

One of the questions I had was "What did that truck actually look like", and I never could find any pictures of it when searching previously. I did find some links to the Preliminary NTSB report, which includes one photograph of the truck:

http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/HWY16FH018-preliminary.aspx

Can't see it there, but I remember long long ago, my employer had a track hoe that was parked well off the road out by the fenceline for the night. A driver (maybe drunk driver, I forget) ran off the road and into that trackhoe. Report from the scene said there was still hair and blood on the counterweight of that trackhoe when the crew got there the following morning.

 

[IRstuff]

Thanks for that. There's something fundamentally WRONG with a driver's assistant that misses an obstacle that gigantic. The supposed argument that the system thought it was a an overhead sign is absurd; the system was incorrectly designed if that was actually the case.

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[LionelHutz]

It's interesting in the China crash article it seems to focus on how Tesla feels the driver is wrong because his hands were not on the wheel. If Tesla can detect that hands are on the wheel and they require hands on the wheel then why doesn't the system warn and disconnect when hands are not on the wheel????

It's ridiculous that a system deemed usable by the general public can't avoid a disabled car that was in it's path.

Both these point out the fundamental flaw of expecting a "learning" system that makes a best guess based on it's database of objects to work reliably all the time. Tesla though they were close enough yet the system still didn't detect the side of a truck trailer and a car partially in the lane correctly, which are rather simple cases compared to what else is out there.