Ahead of Tesla’s robotaxi launch, video from a fatal full self-driving accident shows the shortfalls of relying on cameras only
Driverless Tesla robotaxis may soon be funneling select passengers down the streets of Austin, Texas, but video from a fatal 2023 accident in which the driver was employing the car’s full self-driving software shows the potential limits of the technology even with a driver in the seat.
Bloomberg just published harrowing video footage from the accident for the first time, showing how in the glare of the sun the Tesla managed to miss numerous cues — cars pulling over, hazard lights, a person waving — alerting a traffic accident ahead. Human drivers saw these signals and slowed, but the Tesla plowed ahead at 65 mph and struck and killed a grandmother. Read the whole thing here, but one major takeaway:
While presumably Tesla’s technology has advanced a lot since the footage, its hardware hasn’t. Unlike Google’s Waymo, which has expensive lidar and radar in addition to numerous cameras in each car, Tesla vehicles still depend solely on cameras.
When asked on Tesla’s latest earnings call about how the company plans to overcome visual impairments like the sun, Musk said, “Actually, it does not blind the camera,” citing a “breakthrough that we made some time ago.”
Musk’s explanation of the breakthrough, however, “perplexed” a former vehicle development engineer Bloomberg asked about it.
Bloomberg just published harrowing video footage from the accident for the first time, showing how in the glare of the sun the Tesla managed to miss numerous cues — cars pulling over, hazard lights, a person waving — alerting a traffic accident ahead. Human drivers saw these signals and slowed, but the Tesla plowed ahead at 65 mph and struck and killed a grandmother. Read the whole thing here, but one major takeaway:
While presumably Tesla’s technology has advanced a lot since the footage, its hardware hasn’t. Unlike Google’s Waymo, which has expensive lidar and radar in addition to numerous cameras in each car, Tesla vehicles still depend solely on cameras.
When asked on Tesla’s latest earnings call about how the company plans to overcome visual impairments like the sun, Musk said, “Actually, it does not blind the camera,” citing a “breakthrough that we made some time ago.”
Musk’s explanation of the breakthrough, however, “perplexed” a former vehicle development engineer Bloomberg asked about it.
