trevorswaine
Member
Anyone thinking of buying a Tesla? The following was in one of the national newspapers a week or so ago:
This might sound like a story about a haunted car; if nothing else, it serves as a salutary tale about the possible perils of self-driving technology..
Geoff Holman took delivery of his 70-registration Tesla Model 3 in September this year. The 200 or so miles he’s covered since have been punctuated by a series of incidents caused by his car doing its own thing. And when he told Tesla, its response was pretty much: “It can do that.”
The retired biochemist from Knutsford, Cheshire told me: “I’ve now had five autobraking incidents, none of which was necessary and two were potentially dangerous. The car brakes suddenly and in my experience quite violently for no reason. No car in front of me, no car coming the other way, not even a squirrel running across the road.”
But Mr Holman was more concerned about what he considers to be Tesla’s apparently cavalier response. When he asked his dealer to get to the bottom of the car’s behaviour, a Tesla representative replied: “We found no hardware issues with the Autopilot system at the times you provided. Please note that this feature may react to vehicles or objects that either do not exist or are not in the lane of travel, causing Model 3 to slow down unnecessarily or inappropriately.”
The Autopilot function of the larger Model S has also had a few glitches, according to Tesla owners' forums
This is hardly a ringing endorsement of Tesla’s self-driving technology. But much of it is lifted direct from the car’s user manual. Mr Holman added: “Even if it is a disclaimer in the user manual, the system shouldn’t be allowed on the road. If it was a person seeing ‘things that do not exist,’ they’d be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.”
His experiences aren’t limited to sudden unexpected braking. He said: “On one occasion I deliberately moved into the middle of the road to avoid debris. There were no cars coming in the opposite direction. The car yanked me violently back into my lane.”
After investigating his car, Tesla replied: “At 13:21:59 a lane departure warning was flagged as the vehicle was detected to be drifting out of lane with no hands on the steering wheel. This is a safety feature of Autopilot system designed (sic). Autopilot is currently operating as designed.”
To which Mr Holman said: “Again, I think it was reacting to something that wasn’t there. I was driving my wife back from hospital. The idea that I would take my hands off the wheel under those circumstances is frankly absurd.”
Thankfully none of these incidents caused any injury. However, Mr Holman’s Tesla has prompted kerb damage to two wheels. He recalled: “I was driving along a winding road when the radio suddenly came on by itself at full blast with loud music, together with a simultaneous visual on the screen. I was so startled I temporarily lost control of the car and hit the kerb at about 45mph. There is no possibility of my accidentally touching one of the audio controls: the station that came on was Radio 2, which I never listen to.”
Tesla has so far offered no reason for this audio aberration. The company is still investigating and when we spoke to Tesla it didn’t want to add to its representatives’ statements.
Scary stuff.
This might sound like a story about a haunted car; if nothing else, it serves as a salutary tale about the possible perils of self-driving technology..
Geoff Holman took delivery of his 70-registration Tesla Model 3 in September this year. The 200 or so miles he’s covered since have been punctuated by a series of incidents caused by his car doing its own thing. And when he told Tesla, its response was pretty much: “It can do that.”
The retired biochemist from Knutsford, Cheshire told me: “I’ve now had five autobraking incidents, none of which was necessary and two were potentially dangerous. The car brakes suddenly and in my experience quite violently for no reason. No car in front of me, no car coming the other way, not even a squirrel running across the road.”
But Mr Holman was more concerned about what he considers to be Tesla’s apparently cavalier response. When he asked his dealer to get to the bottom of the car’s behaviour, a Tesla representative replied: “We found no hardware issues with the Autopilot system at the times you provided. Please note that this feature may react to vehicles or objects that either do not exist or are not in the lane of travel, causing Model 3 to slow down unnecessarily or inappropriately.”
The Autopilot function of the larger Model S has also had a few glitches, according to Tesla owners' forums
This is hardly a ringing endorsement of Tesla’s self-driving technology. But much of it is lifted direct from the car’s user manual. Mr Holman added: “Even if it is a disclaimer in the user manual, the system shouldn’t be allowed on the road. If it was a person seeing ‘things that do not exist,’ they’d be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.”
His experiences aren’t limited to sudden unexpected braking. He said: “On one occasion I deliberately moved into the middle of the road to avoid debris. There were no cars coming in the opposite direction. The car yanked me violently back into my lane.”
After investigating his car, Tesla replied: “At 13:21:59 a lane departure warning was flagged as the vehicle was detected to be drifting out of lane with no hands on the steering wheel. This is a safety feature of Autopilot system designed (sic). Autopilot is currently operating as designed.”
To which Mr Holman said: “Again, I think it was reacting to something that wasn’t there. I was driving my wife back from hospital. The idea that I would take my hands off the wheel under those circumstances is frankly absurd.”
Thankfully none of these incidents caused any injury. However, Mr Holman’s Tesla has prompted kerb damage to two wheels. He recalled: “I was driving along a winding road when the radio suddenly came on by itself at full blast with loud music, together with a simultaneous visual on the screen. I was so startled I temporarily lost control of the car and hit the kerb at about 45mph. There is no possibility of my accidentally touching one of the audio controls: the station that came on was Radio 2, which I never listen to.”
Tesla has so far offered no reason for this audio aberration. The company is still investigating and when we spoke to Tesla it didn’t want to add to its representatives’ statements.
Scary stuff.
