Article says it’s unconfirmed whether the car was in auto-drive. Part of me (without any knowledge) thinks someone was showing off the auto-drive and turned it off accidentally. But more details will come out I hope.
One thing in particular sticks out as concerning: the fire service did not know how to deal with the fire.
That’s not something specific to Tesla, Tesla does not make all battery powered cars, the fire service should know how to suppress electrical fires.
I once unhooked my belt to take off my jacket while on autopilot. It immediately started screaming at me, disabled autopilot and started slowing down gradually.
I've also heard it uses the seat sensor to do the same. Unless they've found a way to bypass multiple safety features, then the car wasn't in autopilot.
I'm not sure what you mean. I was dangerous to myself, yes. So then the car pulled over and started to gradually stop on the shoulder. And then it would not let me re-enable the autopilot because I couldn't be trusted.
Not sure where endangering other people comes in. If there was someone standing on the shoulder of the highway it would avoid them obviously.
It stops applying power to the wheels automatically if you unbuckle or lift yourself off the seat, once AutoPilot goes into the “Take over immediately” state.
Of course the human who is actually driving can re-apply power at any time.
The car will not pull over unless you leave it in the full-on alarm state for a significant amount of time. The alarm is pretty loud. It’s not a state a driver would leave the car in unless they were incapacitated or doing it intentionally.
Auto pilot immediately switches off if it doesn’t sense pressure in the seat, which would result it tons of beeping and the car slowing down and moving to side of road.
Lithium-ion fires are hard to extinguish, especially with thermal runaways. There are flame retardant products that can extinguish lithium-ion fires, Class D extinguishers can be used.
I would guess the fire crews that responded were not equipped with this type of extinguisher.
> “[Investigators] are 100-percent certain that no one was in the driver seat driving that vehicle at the time of impact,” Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman said. “They are positive.”
This would only be possible if they were using the autopilot feature.
> the fire service did not know how to deal with the fire.
Tesla's advice is "let it burn":
> Tesla’s guidance suggests it’s better to let the fire burn out than continuing to try to put it out.
> This would only be possible if they were using the autopilot feature.
I thought autopilot had a safety feature to prevent no-driver operation, though there is a “SmartSummon” feature intended for parking lots which does not (but requires continuous press of a fob button.) So, there’s no way this should be possible, absent a major malfunction to even allow self-driving in the reported condition.
According to multiple Tesla owners in another thread, Autopilot will continue to drive as long as the seatbelt is buckled. There doesn't need to be weight in the driver's seat.
One thing in particular sticks out as concerning: the fire service did not know how to deal with the fire.
That’s not something specific to Tesla, Tesla does not make all battery powered cars, the fire service should know how to suppress electrical fires.