“Autopilot is a key component of the image Tesla wants to project”, Brauer told the Times.
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Tesla Motors Inc. told members of the Senate Commerce Committee Thursday that a problem with the automatic braking system of its Model S vehicle – which is “separate and distinct” from the Autopilot – may have been responsible for its recent fatal crash. Either the car’s cameras and radar failed to spot a crossing tractor-trailer. The second possibility is that the rig was out of the vision of the cameras and the vehicle’s computer ascertained that the radar gave out wrong signal, probably due to an overpass or sign.
According to Tesla’s answers in front of the committee, the carmaker sees braking failures as distinct from its Autopilot feature, which is in charge of changing lanes, steering and tuning travel speed. At the same time, Tesla is looking into whether or not the automatic braking system’s radar saw the trailer but mistook it for a piece of road infrastructure, thus “tuning out” the automated braking system.
The driver killed when his Tesla sedan crashed while in self-driving mode was travelling at nine miles per hour above the speed limit just before hitting the side of a tractor-trailer, federal accident investigators said last week.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which is also investigating the crash, has previously said the autopilot was engaged.
Tesla is still working to pinpoint what system failures caused the crash and still believes the safety benefits of semi-autonomous driving systems like Autopilot far outweigh any risks, the people said. Tesla decreased to go over the meeting except to say it did not suggest that the automobile’s video cameras nor radar “triggered” the mishap. “That involves Autopilot and the automatic braking”. Mobileye said earlier this week that it would end its relationship with Tesla.
In the briefing, Tesla officials told staffers that radar sensors connected to the automated braking system may have spotted the tractor-trailer, but the Model S computer may be created to “tune out” overhead structures, such as bridges and highway signs, “to avoid the triggering of false braking events”, the person said. The company previously has said its system was not created to spot cross traffic, but it didn’t know if Tesla modified the system.
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“American electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors” upcoming minibus will be built on a Model X chassis, informed the company’s Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk in his recent tweet. “So they don’t want to be in the position of saying that there’s something wrong with something that’s part of the whole company’s image”.
