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I've had the same thing happen to me a few times (guessing @civicdrivr has too) but Stunna told me via a third party YT video that autopilot and FSD was the greatest thing ever and one or two people managed a trip without it crashing into stuff?
I've had the same thing happen to me a few times (guessing @civicdrivr has too) but Stunna told me via a third party YT video that autopilot and FSD was the greatest thing ever and one or two people managed a trip without it crashing into stuff?
Imagine our missiles are equipped with FSD or AP? It would make any Anti missiles defense system useless. maneuver everything.
In August 2021, we told our readers that Tesla was allegedly buying Blade Batteries from BYD. CLS later wrote in October that Tesla had purchased 10 GWh in these LFP cells for future vehicles in China. It took quite a while for an official confirmation to emerge, but it did in the most public way possible in that country. 13 photos
Lian Yubo, BYDs executive vice president, was in an interview for CGTN, one of the leading state-owned channels in China. According to CNEVPost, the host Kui Yingchun asked him how he rated BYD’s vehicles compared to Tesla and brought up how Elon Musk bashed the Chinese EV maker in November 2011. She also dismissed that by saying that it does not matter anymore: BYD is the largest EV company in China.
Lian answered that as any respectable executive would: politely. He said BYD is friends with Tesla and Elon Musk and that the American EV maker is a source of inspiration. Lian also said that BYD “will soon supply him with batteries.”CNEVPost published the video, and we embedded it below for our Chinese-speaking readers.
Although it seems that BYD has no hard feelings, it must be savoring revenge as a cold dish. And what a moment it is for BYD to sell Tesla batteries: the American competitor promised a revolutionary battery and is yet to deliver it as promised. Peter Rawlinson already said that considering 4680 cells as a breakthrough is a fantasy. A Bosch specialist also raised concerns about heat issues with them. Above all, BYD is much closer to producing 1 TWh in batteries than Tesla – and it was the American company that promised to have Terafactories.
BYD’s Blade Batteries are not prone to thermal runaway and have gone through nail tests without any problems. The only reported fire involving them was allegedly caused by the wrong coolant two days after a crash test in July 2021. Although they have lower energy density than ternary lithium-ion cells, they are cheaper and do not depend on scarce and expensive raw materials.
While it is evident that Tesla must ensure it gets all the batteries that it can purchase, buying them from an EV competitor must be a hard pill to swallow. Perhaps it would not look so bad should Musk just have shown some respect – even if that was not for real – for BYD in 2011. If the Chinese EV maker is having revenge for lunch, Musk is watching while eating his hat.
Nothing says FULL SELF DRIVING like "Only use if you are going to pay constant attention to the road and be prepared to immediately act in many common situations."
Originally Posted by civicdrivr
Elon and respect don't belong in the same sentence.
This. Say what you will about Rivian but at least the CEO isn't a giant asshat.
Tesla has filed to use a new radar in its electric vehicles, and everyone is confused since Elon Musk has made it clear that Tesla plans to achieve self-driving with camera-based vision only.
The idea is based on the fact that the current road system is designed to work for human drivers who operate vehicles using their vision (eyes) and their brain (neural nets). Tesla believes that it can build a system safer than human drivers by replacing eyes with cameras and the brain by its silicon-powered neural nets.
Musk told Electrek in June of last year after Tesla stopped using its radar:
The probability of safety will be higher with pure vision than vision+radar, not lower. Vision has become so good that radar actually reduces signal/noise.
However, the CEO also added that Tesla might still use radar if it had a “very high resolution radar”:
A very high resolution radar would be better than pure vision, but such a radar does not exist. I mean vision with high res radar would be better than pure vision.
Now the automaker has actually filed with the FCC to use a new radar in its vehicles: Tesla hacker Green, who has followed Tesla’s test of new radar, has noted that the radar uses a frequency in line with Tesla’s previous front-facing radar, which would point to a similar use.
The move has some Tesla owners who bought Tesla’s Full Self-Driving worried that their vision-based system is now not going to be enough if Tesla decides to add new hardware.
Since 2016, Tesla has claimed that all its vehicles produced are equipped with all the hardware necessary to achieve self-driving capability in the future through software updates.
It turned out to be not true as Tesla needed to upgrade the onboard computer. Now they are also concerned about some of the older cameras inside the vehicles, and as we learn today, a new radar might be added to the list.
Where's @#1 STUNNA and @Comfy ? Surely they have inside information on why this is happening.
Gone in 130 seconds: New Tesla hack gives thieves their own personal key
You may want to think twice before giving the parking attendant your Tesla-issued NFC card.
6/8/2022
Last year, Tesla issued an update that made its vehicles easier to start after being unlocked with their NFC key cards. Now, a researcher has shown how the feature can be exploited to steal cars.
For years, drivers who used their Tesla NFC key card to unlock their cars had to place the card on the center console to begin driving. Following the update, which was reported here last August, drivers could operate their cars immediately after unlocking them with the card. The NFC card is one of three means for unlocking a Tesla; a key fob and a phone app are the other two.
Enrolling your own key
Martin Herfurt, a security researcher in Austria, quickly noticed something odd about the new feature: Not only did it allow the car to automatically start within 130 seconds of being unlocked with the NFC card, but it also put the car in a state to accept entirely new keys -- with no authentication required and zero indication given by the in-car display.
"The authorization given in the 130-second interval is too general... [it's] not only for drive," Herfurt said in an online interview. "This timer has been introduced by Tesla… in order to make the use of the NFC card as a primary means of using the car more convenient. What should happen is that the car can be started and driven without the user having to use the key card a second time. The problem: within the 130-second period, not only the driving of the car is authorized, but also the [enrolling] of a new key."
The official Tesla phone app doesn't permit keys to be enrolled unless it's connected to the owner's account, but despite this, Herfurt found that the vehicle gladly exchanges messages with any Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE, device that's nearby. So the researcher built his own app, named Teslakee, that speaks VCSec, the same language that the official Tesla app uses to communicate with Tesla cars.
A malicious version of Teslakee that Herfurt designed for proof-of-concept purposes shows how easy it is for thieves to surreptitiously enroll their own key during the 130-second interval. (The researcher plans to release a benign version of Teslakee eventually that will make such attacks harder to carry out.) The attacker then uses the Teslakee app to exchange VCSec messages that enroll the new key.
All that's required is to be within range of the car during the crucial 130-second window of it being unlocked with an NFC card. If a vehicle owner normally uses the phone app to unlock the car -- by far the most common unlocking method for Teslas -- the attacker can force the use of the NFC card by using a signal jammer to block the BLE frequency used by Tesla's phone-as-a-key app.
As the driver enters the car after unlocking it with an NFC card, the thief begins exchanging messages between the weaponized Teslakee and the car. Before the driver has even driven away, the messages enroll a key of the thief's choice with the car. From then on, the thief can use the key to unlock, start, and turn off the car. There is no indication from the in-car display or the legitimate Tesla app that anything is amiss.
Herfurt has successfully used the attack on Tesla Models 3 and Y. He hasn't tested the method on new 2021+ facelift models of the S and X, but he presumes they are also vulnerable because they use the same native support for phone-as-a-key with BLE.
Tesla didn't respond to an email seeking comment for this post.
For those of us who own and actually use this system, the following isn't a surprise. Autopilot/FSD is good but it's nowhere close to being able to drive for you.
The federal government released two new reports highlighting — for the first time — crashes and fatalities involving autonomous vehicles (AV) and vehicles equipped with advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS). Tesla reported the most crashes involving driver-assist technology, while Alphabet’s Waymo disclosed the most incidents involving its autonomous vehicles.
Car and tech companies insist these technologies save lives, but more people died in auto crashes last year than in the last three decades. More data is needed to accurately determine whether these new systems are making roads safer or simply making driving more convenient.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a standing general order last year requiring car companies to report crashes involving AVs as well as Level 2 driver-assist systems found in hundreds of thousands of vehicles on the road today. The agency required companies to document crashes when ADAS and automated technologies were in use within 30 seconds of impact.
At Level 2, the vehicle can control steering and acceleration and deceleration, but it falls short of full autonomy because a human sits in the driver’s seat and can take control of the car at any time. Levels 3–5 refer to autonomous vehicles that control all the driving under specific conditions or, in the case of Level 5, under any conditions. (Notably, there are no Level 5 vehicles in existence today.) More than 100 companies were subject to the new reporting requirements, including Tesla, Ford, and GM as well as AV operators like Waymo and Cruise.
To be sure, the data is limited, lacking key details like the number of vehicles manufactured, the number of vehicles in operation, and the distances traveled by those vehicles. Companies may rely on different criteria when reporting incidents. For example, some automakers receive crash reports through vehicle telematics, while other companies must rely on unverified customer claims.
Officials cautioned against drawing conclusions based only on the numbers contained in the reports. The NHTSA expects to release new crash data every month in an effort to bring more transparency to what has previously been an opaque technology.
“We launched this effort because we want, we expect, actually, we need safety to be built at every stage of a vehicle’s development,” Steven Cliff, chief administrator at NHTSA, said during a briefing with reporters. “Driver-assistance technologies and automation are no exception.”
ADAS CRASHES
Tesla’s numbers were much higher than other companies, most likely due to the fact that it sells more vehicles equipped with Level 2 systems than its rivals. (One estimate puts the number of Tesla vehicles with Autopilot or “Full Self-Driving” at 825,970.) Tesla collects real-time telematics data from its customers, giving it a much faster reporting process. Other automakers typically have to wait for reports to arrive from the field and sometimes don’t receive them for months.
From July 20th, 2021, to May 21st, 2022, there were 273 crashes involving Tesla vehicles using Autopilot, according to the report. The EV company’s crashes represent the bulk of the total 392 crashes reported during that period.
Other automakers didn’t come close to Tesla’s number of reported crashes. Honda, which sells its ADAS features under the brand “Honda Sensing,” disclosed 90 crashes. Subaru, which packages its ADAS under “EyeSight,” reported 10 crashes. Ford disclosed five crashes, Toyota reported four crashes, BMW reported three crashes, and General Motors, maker of Super Cruise, only disclosed two crashes. Aptiv, Hyundai, Lucid, Porsche, and Volkswagen each reported one crash.
Of the 392 crash reports, only 98 included information about severity. There were six crashes that resulted in serious injuries and five that resulted in fatalities during the nine-month reporting period. NHTSA officials did not disclose the manufacturers that reported the fatalities but said that information would be included in the raw data released Wednesday.
(After this story was published, NHTSA posted the raw data files, in which it could be determined that nine of the reported fatalities involved Tesla vehicles, and two involved Ford vehicles.)
Throughout the briefing, officials declined to address specific questions about Tesla, cautioning against drawing conclusions about any one company. But there’s no question that Tesla is an outlier when it comes to driver-assist technology.
Since the company introduced Autopilot in 2015, there have been at least 11 deaths in nine crashes in the US that involved the driver-assistance system. Internationally, there have been at least another nine deaths in seven additional crashes. The NHTSA is currently investigating nearly three dozen incidents in the US involving Tesla Autopilot. And last week, the agency upgraded its probe into a dozen crashes involving stationary emergency vehicles, bringing Tesla one step closer to a possible recall.
Tesla, for its part, claims that Autopilot is safer than human driving. The company releases a “safety report” every three months that shows the number of miles between crashes when drivers use Autopilot and the number of miles between crashes when they do not. But Tesla neglects to include crucial information in its reports, such as where most of the driving takes place and how it compares based on different driving environments. Other companies do not release safety stats involving their Level 2 systems at all.
The NHTSA also reported the types of collisions involving Level 2-equipped vehicles. Of the 392 crashes, 119 of them involved another vehicle. Four crashes involved “vulnerable road users,” three of which were pedestrians and the remaining one a cyclist.
And, unsurprisingly, most of the ADAS crashes (125) took place in California, which also happens to be the state with the most registered Tesla vehicles.
AV CRASHES
The NHTSA received reports of 130 crashes involving vehicles equipped with automated driving systems (ADS) from July 2021 to May 2022. These are test vehicles or vehicles that are part of an AV fleet owned by an operator — not vehicles that are for sale to the public.
Waymo, which is a subsidiary of Alphabet, reported 62 crashes. Transdev Alternative Services, which operates self-driving shuttles, disclosed 34 crashes. And Cruise, a majority owned subsidiary of GM, reported 23 crashes.
Again, this reflects the reality of the AV testing world, which is currently dominated by Waymo and Cruise. Together, the two companies account for most of the miles driven in California, which serves as ground zero for most AV testing in the US. Waymo said it drove 2.3 million miles in 2021, while Cruise reported driving 876,104 miles.
These facts, of course, go unmentioned in the NHTSA reports, which lack a lot of contextualizing information. The agency says the primary reason for the standing order was to obtain a new dataset to allow it to respond to real-time performance. Officials noted that one recall has already been issued as a result of the standing order. Earlier this year, AV operator Pony.ai agreed to issue a recall for some versions of its software after a crash in California. The company also had its testing license revoked by authorities in California.
Waymo claims to have a better safety record than most AV companies, but the company has still been involved in a number of incidents. The company published 6.1 million miles of driving data in Arizona in 2019 and 2020, including 18 crashes and 29 near-miss collisions. In those incidents where its safety operators took control of the vehicle to avoid a crash, Waymo’s engineers simulated what would have happened had the driver not disengaged the vehicle’s self-driving system to generate a counterfactual. The company has also made some of its data available to academic researchers.
The NHTSA says 25 companies that operate ADS-equipped vehicles reported 130 crashes over the nine-month period. Of those crashes, only one reported serious injuries. There were no fatalities.
WHAT’S NEXT?
The NHTSA says it will release new data every month. But automakers and AV operators are convinced the numbers will be misinterpreted by the public. To be sure, these companies have made broad claims about autonomous technology and its potential to improve driving safety and reduce crashes and fatalities — with little evidence to back it up. Meanwhile, safety advocates have pushed for new policies that would help reduce the number of cars on the road and encourage people to use safer means of transportation, like public transit, cycling, and walking.
All of this takes place against the backdrop of a mounting crisis on US roadways. More people died in auto-related crashes last year than in any year since 2005. The NHTSA estimates that 42,915 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2021, a 10.5 percent increase from the 38,824 fatalities in 2020. The deaths include pedestrians, cyclists, and others who may have died during a crash.
ALL OF THIS TAKES PLACE AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF A MOUNTING CRISIS ON US ROADWAYSThe rise in deaths corresponds with an increase in vehicle miles traveled. More people are driving dangerously as well, a pandemic-era trend that has continued unabated. The Biden administration says it is committed to implementing changes to enhance safety — but rarely do any officials talk about the need to reduce car dependency.
The NHTSA is trying to get its arms around the problem. Earlier this year, the agency announced a major upgrade to its five-star rating system for new vehicles, the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP). For the first time, the NHTSA will consider the inclusion of ADAS features, like automatic emergency braking, blind-spot detection, and lane-keep assistance. These ADAS features, which are quickly becoming standard in most vehicles today, could become essential criteria for a five-star safety rating from the government.
It’s a tricky situation for the NHTSA, simultaneously promoting these new technologies while also publicly disclosing incidents when the vehicles equipped with these systems are involved in a crash. The NHTSA’s Steven Cliff acknowledged that it’s a fine line to walk but that the agency is committed to transparency.
“This is an unprecedented effort to gather nearly real time safety data involving these advanced technologies,” Cliff said. “Understanding the story that the data tell will take time, as most of NHTSA’s work does, but it’s a story we need to hear.”
That's a cool idea. If the Powerwall weren't limited to be purchased with only their solar panels, I'd have one installed. But I didn't want to pay an upcharge for lower quality panels, so I skipped it for now
Agreed. I'd consider giving it a try if it were a monthly subscription at $50-100/mo. But after my latest road trip and the phantom braking we experienced, I'd rather not risk my family's safety.
Agreed. I'd consider giving it a try if it were a monthly subscription at $50-100/mo. But after my latest road trip and the phantom braking we experienced, I'd rather not risk my family's safety.
All I've heard from owners of older cars is that they worked way better for phantom braking because of the radar.
I also really wish they'd put BLIS indicators on the mirrors instead of just on the screen.
esla might have a problem with the Tesla Model Y Performance cars newly produced at the Giga Berlin-Brandenburg plant in Germany.
According to numerous reports from Tesla customers (TFF forum, Drive Tesla), the company is canceling/delaying deliveries of Made-in-Germany (MIG) cars that were originally scheduled for late June.
In such circumstances, a report about halting deliveries indicates that there is some issue. There is no official recall or statement as far as we know, but according to articles, the root cause might be related to drive units. We don't know the details of the issue, but as we understand, the car can't be driven once the fault happens.
Tesla_Adri says that according to reports, customers might be forced to wait weeks for new cars (at least until mid-July).
If there really is a hardware issue, Tesla needs to find the solution and then produce and replace the faulty parts - no over-the-air (OTA) software update here.
It's not known how many MIG Tesla Model Y Performance were delivered so far by Tesla, but it's most likely a low, four-digit number.
Drive Tesla notes that a three week old MIG Tesla in Norway also suffered "the same problem" and according to the owner, the car cannot be driven (waiting for required parts).
The problem will probably affect the entire ramp-up of the Tesla Giga Berlin-Brandenburg plant - not only the Performance version of the Model Y, as some customers already reported delayed estimated delivery time of the Long Range AWD version.
Well, it seems that Tesla's plant in Germany has some bad luck and after months of delays caused by lack of permits, now has another hurdle that prevents a smooth ramp up.
Hopefully, Tesla will be able to quickly diagnose the problem and continue production, especially since the Chinese plant is expected to have another pause (for retooling)
The car knows the light is red, yellow, or green, doesn't do anything about it until now I guess. We'll see how well this works.
This feature has been available on FSD cars for a long time. Had it on the one we test drove and the Plaid I drove the other week had it, too. It's a nice feature and works well. Now if they'd trickle down auto lane change I'd be set.
Not sure if this feature will be useful beyond showing off to passengers for a couple of times. I would find it annoying real fast to have a chime or beep interrupting my music or podcast etc whenever the light turns green.
TBH, our Subaru dings at you to tell you the car in front has moved (and has since like 2018 lol) and it's pretty handy when stuck in drive thrus or things like that. Doesn't know/do anything about traffic lights though.
05-03-2022, 12:18 PM
Teslas Are Braking for No Reason, But That's Not Autopilot's Only Problem
830,000 Teslas with Autopilot under NHTSA Investigation, Recall Possible
