So...For a bit of context on the video and the article:

- The documentary is from the RTS. The RTS is the main publicly owned media from Switzerland. They are not the typical European owned public media: They are generally pretty well funded (contrary to most). They also tend to generate good (high) quality content, tend to be independent and rather neutral (leaning slightly to the left politically speaking).

- The video is in French because, in Switzerland, the media are divided in three group associated to the regional languages: RTS for the French, SSR for the German and RSI for the Italian. Thats why you do get German translation.

- They are generally pretty cooperative and open minded. If one of you want to submit english subtitles. Just contact them, they might accept it (I do not promise anything).

Sorry, but you seem to be implying that European public owned media outlets are not normally to be trusted. Why?

I started out writing a list of European countries with high quality public broadcasters, but the comment started looking silly since the list quickly grew very long.

Teslas turning off autopilot seconds before a crash, apparently avoiding being recorded as active during an incident, is wild https://futurism.com/tesla-nhtsa-autopilot-report

To be fair, that report says

> the self-driving feature had “aborted vehicle control less than one second prior to the first impact”

It seems right to me that the self-driving feature aborts vehicle control as soon as it is in a situation it can’t resolve. If there’s evidence that Tesla is actively using this to “prove” that FSD is not behind a crash, I’m happy to change my mind. For me, probably 5s prior is a reasonable limit.

IDK, this has the same unethical energy as police turning off body cameras.

in the BEST CASE, this is a confluence of coincidences. Engineering knows about this and leaves it "low prio wont fix" because its advantageous for metrics.

In the worst case, this is intentional.

In any case, the "right thing to do" is NOT turn off the cameras just before a collision, and yet it happens.

This is also Safety Critical Engineering 101. Like.... this would be one of the first scenarios covered in the safety analysis. Someone approved this behavior, either intentionally, or through an intentional omission.

This is a policy that Tesla put in place, period. Handling control to driver suddenly in a weird moment can make the whole situation even more dangerous as the driver is not primed to handle it on the spot, it’s all too unexpected.

This is reasonable, and you have to imagine many collisions involve the driver taking control at the last second causing the software to deactivate. That being said, this becomes a matter of defining a self-driving collision as one in which self-driving contributed materially to the event rather than requiring self-driving be activated at the exact moment of impact.

I think this is part of the reason I am wary of trying it ( including some of the competitor's variants ). They all want you to pay attention, because you may be forced to make a decision out of the blue. I might as well be in control all the time and not try to course correct at the literal last second.

SAE level 2 is just a bad idea. People can't be expected to carefully monitor a car and take over at a moment's notice when it's doing all the driving. My adaptive cruise control is great and I hope to have a future car where I can zone out while it drives and take over after after a few seconds heads up, but the zone between shouldn't be a valid feature.

Treat it like a driver assistance system. I treat FSD the same as I treat Augmented Cruise Control and Lane Keep Assist in my CRV. I keep my hands on the steering wheel and follow along with the decision making.

Reminds me of a situation not long ago.

I’m in left lane on highway. Tesla ahead of me but quite a ways away.

I realize as I’m driving that the Tesla is moving quite slow for the left lane driving. And before you say it, yes there are lots of people speeding in highway left lanes too.

So - I passed on the right rather than tailgate. Look over and see a guy leaning back in his seat. No hands on wheel. Could’ve been asleep. And driving 10-15 mph slower than you’d expect in that lane.

To your point about using it FSD the way you do, makes total sense to me. Which implies you would also cruise at the right speed depending on the lane you are in, unlike my example.

Interestingly, I think that similar types of arguments are made against "agentic coding"

If you don't pay constant attention, you will never notice when it slips in a bug or security issue

Sure, but you can do that in a diff after the event, rather than live.

A self driving car should have no steering wheel. If it has a steering wheel it is a vote of no confidence from the manufacturer.

Well we don't have any self driving cars outside of San Francisco. Only cars with advanced driver assistance.

Throttle and yoke aren't a vote of no confidence from aircraft manufacturers. Some modes of operation are suitable for autopilot and some are not.

Would it be a vote of no confidence in Full Self Flying?

I don't really buy that. There are a lot of situations (e.g. being directed to park in a space at a fairgrounds, ski area, or whatever) that you can't reasonably expect AFAIK to be programmed into a car's computer. Even if a car can legitimately handle roads under most circumstances, they're not going to be able to handle everything.

How do you reverse such a car into your own driveway that's positioned in a funny way at an angle and an incline? What if you're parking off road for any reason? Like, you have to be able to manoeuvre your own vehicle sometimes.

Tesla has a very bad track record in terms of both compliance and disclosure when it comes to autonomy incidents.

The article was also published in German: https://www.srf.ch/news/dialog/autonomes-fahren-wie-tesla-un...

It's the Swiss national radio/tv service, they probably have the article in 4 languages or more

Are these still accidents where the driver was not paying attention, though?

Of course. But the argument that the nature of FSD causes them to not pay attention.

Full report here (video): https://www.rts.ch/play/tv/temps-present/video/tesla-la-face...

One day an AI will obviously be infinitely better at driving than a human will be but that day is not yet here.

> that day is not yet here

Have you been in a Waymo? SAE Level 4 is here, and it’s safer than humans [1].

[1] https://waymo.com/safety/impact/

it is finitely better today and will be better still. this doesn't mean it's better at everything a human driver can do, it's just better on average. the jagged frontier is real and a very important safety consideration; nevertheless, the averages matter, too.

“Infinitely” is a high bar, but Waymo is already demonstrably better than the majority of human drivers.

But only in very controlled environments...

Personally I don't know if I care. Unless I can have some guarantee that the AI will prioritize my life and safety over literally any other concern, I'm not sure I would trust it

I don't ever want to be inside an AI driven vehicle that might decide to sacrifice me to minimize other damage

> not sure I would trust it

This is a fair concern. I’m unconvinced it’s even remotely a real market or political pressure. On the market side, Waymo is constrained by some combination of production and auxiliaries. (Tesla, by technology.) On the political side, the salient debate is around jobs, in large part because Waymo has put to bed many of the practical safety questions from a best-in-class perspective.

> to minimize other damage

You mean deaths to multiple other people, do you not? Let's just call a spade a spade here and point out the genuine ethical dilemma.

What's the ratio between "bodies of your own kids" and "other human bodies you have no other connection with" in terms of what a "proper" AI that is controlling a car YOU purchased, should be willing to make in trade in terms of injury or death?

I think most people would argue that it's greater than 1* (unless you are a pure rationalist, in which case, I tip my hat to you), but what "SHOULD" it be?

*meaning, in the case of a ratio of 2 for example, you would require 2 nonfamiliar deaths to justify losing one of your own kids

Yeah, you also have to consider that your kids can be on either side of the equation too.

I don't believe any AV software out there attempts to solve the trolley problem. It's just not relevant and moreover, actually illegal to have that code in some situations.

You can't get into a trolley situation without driving unsafely for the conditions first, so companies focus on preventing that earlier issue.

> deaths the AI predicts for other people

Isn’t this entirely hypothetical? In reality, are any systems doing this calculus? Or are they mimicking humans, avoiding obstacles and reducing energies in a series of rapid-fire calls?

I find it interesting that you don't give other drivers any consideration in your analysis.

Other drivers should take public transit if they don't want to / are afraid to operate their own vehicles

As for me I actually like driving and I'm good at it. I'm not afraid of operating my own vehicle like so many people seem to be

Sure, but then I don't want you to have a vehicle at all to minimize my own risk.

Feel free to minimize your own risk by staying home and never leaving

Feel free to minimize both our risks by not polluting public space with your personal crap.

Look I don't like Tesla as much as the next person, I think it is wildly over-hyped and over-valued. But this article is just slop.

The headline says - "How Tesla hid accidents to test its Autopilot" but the actual article has no explanation as to (1) how Tesla hid anything or, for that matter, (2) who did Tesla hide this information from

It mashes together a Tesla data leak from 2022 and an unconnected lawsuit from 2026 without ever explaining how those 2 are connected.

Tesla has a pattern of making deceptive promises and deceptive disclosures but this article doesn't make that case at all.

There is a sentence in the article that refers to an intervier for an RTS documentary, and at the end of the article there's a line "RTS, Temps présent, 16.04.2026, 20:14 Uhr; noes". So I guess there was a piece on Tesla's autopilot issues on RTS's "Temps présent" ("present tense/time") TV show, and the article is referencing that rather than some current developments?

After you wrote this, I went and read the article I also didn't see much there either. And wonder why you are getting down voted. And TBC, also not a tesla fan (the truck is dumb).

Thanks

Look, there is no way corporations would lie for their own interest. Especially when they spent tens of billions to develop something.

It's not like they sold us leaded gasoline or "healthy tobacco" for decades.

You would be surprised how passionately people defend Tesla on HN sometimes, especially when safety records come up.

Otherwise number go down

Liability insurance pricing tells the whole story, without clickbait articles or emotion.

If there was a significant problem, my liability only insurance premiums would be higher for the Tesla compared to a non Tesla. But they are not.

> my liability only insurance premiums would be higher for the Tesla compared to a non Tesla. But they are not

You’re correct inasmuch as we have no evidence there is “a significant problem.” But if Tesla is hiding evidence, as this article suggests, that might just be because lawsuits are still gaining steam.

Liability insurance premiums would reflect higher risk of Tesla vehicles causing collisions, regardless if Tesla is at fault or if the driver is at fault.

That’s certainly the myth musk and his compatriots repeat whenever they’re slightly inconvenienced by consideration for the broader public, yes.

Usually when people provide examples, they're intended to serve as a representative sample of a larger trend, and not an exhaustive list. Hope that helps.

No one claimed all companies do illegal things.

All of this is a crazy overgeneralisation of the hundreds of millions of companies in the world:

> Look, there is no way corporations would lie for their own interest. Especially when they spent tens of billions to develop something.

> It's not like they sold us leaded gasoline or "healthy tobacco" for decades.

If I say "Ted is the Unibomber" do you think I'm saying everyone named Ted is the Unibomber? This is basic reading comprehension stuff

Saying "corporations have lied in the past for their own self interest" and then pointing to two very well known examples does not imply or over generalize that all corporations do that.

Hot take but I feel like Tesla owners (hell, anyone with 'autonomous driving' vehicles) need to see some kind of modern lecture based on the Children of the Magenta talk on automation dependence in aircraft. Mandatory, before you can trigger the system on.

FSD has built this generation's newest children of the magenta line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ESJH1NLMLs

>Tesla owners (hell, anyone with 'autonomous driving' vehicles)

Or LLM users.

To pile on to this pathetic excuse for a company: anyone considering buying a Tesla should know that they are the #1 brand for fatal accidents in the United States, with over twice the accident rate of a typical automaker: https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a62919131/tesla-has-highes...

This terrible statistic can’t just be explained by aggressive driving owners or some other factor like that. Dodge has plenty of aggressive drivers buying their 700HP V8 rear wheel drive vehicles but they have better fatal accident rates than Tesla.

I’m convinced that Tesla makes unsafe cars and covers it up wherever they can.

The crash test safety awards their vehicles have won are clearly not representative of reality.

The self-driving system Tesla offers is only “ahead” of the competition because the competition is unwilling to sell an unsafe system.

> I’m convinced that Tesla makes unsafe cars and covers it up wherever they can.

Tesla makes unsubstantiated, exaggerated claims about capabilities of their system and directly encourages unsafe behavior. How many other manufacturers encourage test subjects to drive full speed ahead into a concrete divider "to see what happens"?

Your link only suggests driver and road conditions to be blamed. Consider the amount of power coming from a base model, I would lean towards driver. What they do with FSD stats is terrible and it would be refreshing to have some unbiased looks at it. Your narrative though is too biased and the link makes no connection to Tesla being responsible for the fatalities.

For a while they were the safest car in crash tests, weren't they? Was there an inflection point where they were dropping like a rock? Or is this a case of measuring different things (crash tests vs fatal accident rates)?

I know you probably don't know off the top of your head, I'm hoping someone can chime in.

Dan Luu had some interesting analysis about car safety, comparing how different auto-makers fared on newly introduced crash tests: https://danluu.com/car-safety/

The main take-away for me from that page is that very few manufacturers seem to design for actual safety (only Volvo had good results), and Tesla was angry that a new test had been introduced which feels indicative of a bad safety culture.

I am admittedly not a fan, but I note that in my social circle I don't have anyone who considers one, one that has one wants to sell one, one vendor has one ( the truck one ), but it is clearly for marketing purposes so at least it makes sense.

> Tesla vehicles have a fatal crash rate of 5.6 per billion miles driven, according to the study; Kia is second with a rate of 5.5,

Basically the same as Kia. Why are Kias so bad?

2 reasons I can see.

Kia have way smaller and cheaper cars with less security features to market. Tesla had front page news at some point saying how they were the safest car ever produced.

Tesla is giving people driving their cars a false sense of security.

Until recently, Kias were sub-entry level shitboxes

This would affect both driver selection and performance during impact

Slap a ridiculously powerful drivetrain on it and a premium price tag and you have a Tesla

I am sure there is a component of safety systems in a Kia but I would bet the bigger weighting is on driver profile.

You’re so close to understanding!

Tesla stans tell us that they’re the most luxurious and best-built cars on the road, in reality they’re as poorly built as an economy car brand for people who don’t want to pay for a Toyota with a reputation for low quality.

> You’re so close to understanding!

Sorry, I don't understand this. I'm just asking a question. Do you reply to every question with that?

You’re missing the obvious explanation here. Driver profile. You could have the safest car around but if it’s being driven by unsafe drivers it will lead to higher accidents and fatalities.

I can get on board with the rationale that Tesla drivers are idiots.

I've heard people saying the study is bad, but whenever I've asked about why the answers have been pretty bad. Do you have a good source for why we should disregard it?

Find a link that shows it’s debunked then? All they did was analyze federal crash data.

I don’t know what’s so hard to believe about the study. Tesla’s numbers are pretty similar to other low-performing brands.

So why is Dodge better on the list? Most Dodge models sold are rear wheel drive performance cars. They basically only sell the Challenger/Charger and the Hornet SUV that nobody’s buying.

The lengths people will go to defend Tesla continue to astound me. Can’t we just say that they suck without making excuses for them?

How do we know it can't be explained by self-selecting driver population? That sounds like the most likely explanation, and it's the only explanation advanced by the article you provided.

I guess there's something to be said for "hey, if you're considering buying a Tesla, you may be the kind of person that's likely to kill themself in a car crash. Consider buying a safer car or taking the bus!"

Reminds me of the first episode of madman where the guy pitches appealing to everyone’s “inherent death wish” when selling cigarettes haha

“That’s it? If you’re gonna die, die with us?”

Who would have guessed that a vehicle with no turn signal stalk or physical control to shift gears is unsafe!

Tesla sells too many vehicles for it to be a “self selecting driver population” thing anymore. They sell almost as many Model Ys as Honda CRVs.

I have a hard time believing that driver profile has anything to do with it, and I especially dislike the temptation to explain away the data by making unsubstantiated excuses for the company.

Dodge has better statistics than Tesla and they almost exclusively sell muscle cars.

They don’t, these are the anti-Tesla folks. No level of reasoning is available for discussions like this.

This article specifically mentions "Autopilot", not FSD. I'll call out Tesla for BS as much as the next person and I own no stock, but FSD (Supervised) is exactly what it says. There's no aspect of vehicle operation that isn't controlled by FSD, but it must be supervised.

Here we go again. Autopilot != FSD. Autopilot is not "autonomous" driving. It's lane keep with adaptive cruise control. The same system that Honda, Toyota, etc have. Yes the naming is wrong, the marketing is bad, but I don't see it as much worse as Toyota safety sense. If you use it to be "safe" you're going swerve off the highway into a ditch. I used super cruise from GM in my friends suv. As soon as lane markers go away on a bridge, I almost hit the railing.

I'll get downvoted but just giving you the facts. I'm glad the Autopilot name has been retired. Such a bad name, but maybe a good name because autopilot in planes can't see and avoid obstacles either.

IMHO you're shifting goal posts (and I am not downvoting).

Tesla (or probably mostly Elon) was not selling "adaptive cruise control". It's selling "Autopilot" for $8k (now with a subscription AFAIK), with a pinky promise that "soon" or "next year" or "after two weeks" (jk) you essentially will set a destination, go to sleep and wake up at destination[1].

It's same as saying that "LLM != AI" and arguing that "ChatGPT is not AI - it's a glorified statistics model that is good at creating human sounding texts". Yeah - you and I understand this - but the average guy most likely does not and will get burned by this.

[1] It's a slight exageration, though I won't spend time digging for quotes but my main point is that's what Tesla are selling to an average guy and not nerds who can distinguish on what's possible, what's working and what level of driving assist there are.

The news isn't necessarily of the effectiveness of the particular tech stack, but the integrity, or lack thereof of the manufacturer in reporting incidents. If that is in question, assessing the effectiveness of any of Tesla's tech stacks fsd or autonomy, or taxis for driving is in doubt.

Can you explain why that makes it ok to cover up accidents and lie about the recordings of the event being corrupted?

I don't get it?

If autopilot was missleading, full self driving is too?

The difference is FSD is properly annotated as (Supervised) and does exactly that. Autopilot does not 'autopilot' the vehicle by any reasonable measure.

How about the fact that Tesla is killing people and covering it up?

Would you go to a driver's funeral and tell their family that um, ackshully it's sparkling autopilot?

What do you think you're adding to the conversation? You're trying to distract from the fact that real, actual people have been actually killed by this.

Here we go again; Musk fanboy to the rescue!