[HN Gopher] Tesla won't give drivers their own crash data withou...
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       Tesla won't give drivers their own crash data without a court order
       (2018)
        
       Author : ddtaylor
       Score  : 109 points
       Date   : 2022-06-04 21:00 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.consumeraffairs.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.consumeraffairs.com)
        
       | dubswithus wrote:
       | Logs don't lie or is there a bug? It would be telling if someone
       | had a dashcam pointed at their feet.
        
       | Patrol8394 wrote:
       | Welcome to CaaS! Soon people will find themselves having to pay
       | subscriptions to drive their own car! Crazy!
        
         | cuteboy19 wrote:
         | That's just a rental car
        
         | stcredzero wrote:
         | More likely, there will be a subscription for the Full Self
         | Driving software, combined with human drivers being restricted
         | or banned.
        
       | inkeddeveloper wrote:
       | Tesla out here just pushing as many boundaries as they can.
        
       | t0mas88 wrote:
       | Funny how they are so "protective of the customer's privacy" that
       | they have their CEO tweeting about the data but can't share it
       | privately with the affected customer.
       | 
       | Tesla doesn't have a PR department but they're full of PR
       | bullshit anyway, starting at the top.
        
         | ModernMech wrote:
         | Tesla's PR department is Elon Musk and his PR team. I don't
         | understand how people view him as an engineer, he's full of
         | flim-flam and bluster.
        
           | trothamel wrote:
           | And also practical electric cars, reusable crewed rockets,
           | and worldwide high-speed satellite Internet.
           | 
           | Is it bluster when it can be backed up?
        
         | extheat wrote:
         | Yeah better not say anything at all. Don't want to end up being
         | accused of "PR bullshit".
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | pvg wrote:
       | Discussed at the time, 282 comment thread:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17237792
        
       | tiahura wrote:
       | The phone companies have the same policy.
        
       | kringo wrote:
       | That's the driving force behind these connected cars. They'll
       | make you pay for the car and collect all the data they could and
       | make the money off it.
       | 
       | Compare it to google, they're valuable because of the data that's
       | being stored about every individual, imagine the same thing for
       | Tesla.
       | 
       | Data is currency
        
         | akerl_ wrote:
         | Is Tesla selling any data/metadata? To whom? How are they
         | making money off of my data?
        
           | gcheong wrote:
           | They're not selling it as far as I know, but you're
           | essentially providing them with free training data for their
           | autopilot/self-driving AI which they do/plan to make money
           | off of. In that respect it seems odd that they would be so
           | stingy in handing data over to the person that generated it
           | though you can apparently purchase a connection kit to access
           | the event recorder data for about $3k.
        
           | jayd16 wrote:
           | They offer insurance rates based on the data.
        
           | digisign wrote:
           | In this case it looks more like loss aversion, protecting
           | themselves from customer lawsuits. I'm sure there are other
           | use cases for the data. Self-driving improvements have been
           | mentioned.
        
         | NonNefarious wrote:
         | I suspect that this policy violates some privacy provisions in
         | some states and countries. Don't California (and probably
         | other) laws guarantee you the right to obtain any data a
         | company has on you?
        
       | user00012-ab wrote:
       | Why do people post "news" from 4 years ago? News mostly isn't
       | relevant a few weeks later; it would make sense if their was some
       | follow up story or something about this. Even weirder is how
       | people comment on this story like it just happened, did anyone
       | actually check to see if this is still the case 4 years later?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | pvg wrote:
         | Just flag it. The meta inadvertently helps make it a worse
         | thread on top of a bad post.
        
         | LegitShady wrote:
         | popular to attack Tesla at the moment
        
           | JaimeThompson wrote:
           | It would be less popular it Tesla had leadership that lead by
           | example instead of dictate and if they stopped making
           | promises they can't execute on year after year.
        
             | LegitShady wrote:
             | that's not why a lot of the attacks on tesla are happening
             | - the twitter acquisition and elon being political on
             | twitter have opened him up to lots of people attacking his
             | companies.
        
         | LeoPanthera wrote:
         | Tesla is very divisive, a lot of people get a sense of power
         | and superiority by posting anything that makes them look bad.
         | The subtext is "See? I'm smarter than you by hating Tesla."
         | 
         | This isn't exclusive to Tesla.
        
           | influxmoment wrote:
           | 100%. Tesla hating brings out the crazy
        
         | barkingcat wrote:
         | there are also those folks who don't know large pieces of
         | current events and keep surfacing 10 year ago news as actual
         | news (and treat it as occurring now).
        
         | digisign wrote:
         | Things like this don't tend to change without force of law. Do
         | you have proof that it has?
        
         | ddtaylor wrote:
         | I think it's historically interesting and people often miss
         | stories from years ago.
        
           | pvg wrote:
           | There was a big Tesla quality and safety problems story
           | yesterday
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31610950
           | 
           | And there's one every week or two. The repetition kills
           | interestingness
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31487646
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31479840
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31446523
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430407
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31398021
        
       | iamleppert wrote:
       | If they don't have anything to hide, why not allow access to the
       | logs? I highly doubt the 0-100 claim. Raw sensor data of the
       | accelerator is likely to be sampled at a high enough rate that
       | should make something like that impossible. In fact, the car
       | should have at minimum a low pass filter and reject sudden
       | accelerations like that, which would indicate sensor or signal
       | failure. If it's a digital sensor, and sampled high enough, even
       | if someone did "floor it", you'd still be able to see a gradual
       | increase, just at a faster rate. When a sensor all of a sudden
       | reports a huge, non-linear jump, it generally means there is some
       | sort of failure. And if that's within normal operating
       | conditions, the sample rate of the sensor isn't enough to tell
       | the difference between failures and intentional (real) readings,
       | and reject a failed sensor. And that's a problem too and 101 in
       | any sensors and signals implementation. If it's a digital sensor
       | on something as important as braking and acceleration, there had
       | better be redundant sensors, a mechanism to fuse the data
       | together, and reject a bad sensor from the state estimate of the
       | pedal.
       | 
       | Either way, just based on the statements they made anyone who has
       | worked with anything robotics or autonomous can tell you that
       | first instinct would be sensor failure. Of course, all of this is
       | impossible to tell without the raw log data. Companies who are
       | unwilling to provide such data or make it difficult to do so
       | generally have something to hide in either their implementation,
       | data quality, or the actual findings from the logs themselves.
        
       | powerbroker wrote:
       | I just did a quick scrape of the NHTSA consumer-reported
       | complaints for all models of Teslas for the month of May. 78
       | reports. 2 concern unintended acceleration.
       | 
       | Mind you, 'unintended acceleration' reports come from all
       | manufacturers and all models of cars -- so a fair starting
       | position is that the driver mistook the accelerator for the
       | brake. Nevertheless, it seems that giving the crash data promptly
       | to the consumer would clarify to the consumer that they have 'fat
       | feet', and settle the matter, at least in the consumer's mind.
       | 
       | Incidentally, I narrowly missed getting hit by a lady who drove
       | her car (non-Tesla) into a local Fedex-Kinkos, having left the
       | store 5 minutes earlier, and returned 5 minutes after her car
       | 'parked' inside the store.
        
         | alexanderdmitri wrote:
         | I'm not sure driver mistaking the pedals is a fair starting
         | point with the amount of software involved now a days. Telsas
         | push updates over the air that affect these sorts of things. In
         | this article[0] for example, it's suggested a once optional
         | feature that is now mandatory can be used for one pedal
         | driving.
         | 
         | [0] https://electrek.co/2022/05/25/tesla-updates-car-software-
         | re...
        
         | kentonv wrote:
         | In my Tesla I've had the experience a couple times of trying to
         | hit the break, but accidentally pressing both petals at once.
         | When this happens, a notice appears on the dashboard saying
         | both petals are being pressed and so the car has decided you
         | intended to brake.
         | 
         | I don't think I've ever had this problem in another car (though
         | admittedly, probably no other car I've driven would alert me if
         | I did). It seems like the petals are placed a little
         | differently from most cars and this makes it easier to
         | accidentally hit both petals. I wonder if the computer's
         | detection of this condition and decision to prioritize braking
         | is a new feature since 2018...
        
       | anonymousiam wrote:
       | It's interesting that all the accounts reported by Tesla indicate
       | that ..."the accelerator pedal was abruptly increased to 100%."
       | How likely is it that, even if by accident, the driver would
       | fully depress the accelerator pedal? How many people fully
       | depress the brake pedal when stopping? Usually while parking,
       | there is no need to fully depress the brake because sufficient
       | braking action is achieved with less pressure, and the car will
       | come to a stop gradually instead of abruptly.
       | 
       | Maybe they have a CAN bus problem, or a software problem that
       | they do not want to reveal.
        
         | IshKebab wrote:
         | I'd say it's quite likely that people would fully depress the
         | accelerator when they meant to fully depress the brake.
         | Especially with cars with cruise control where your foot might
         | not already be on a pedal.
         | 
         | I don't think you need to reach for any more conspiratorial
         | explanations when there's a blindingly obvious one available.
         | 
         | It would be interesting to see the data just before - were any
         | pedals pressed?
        
         | GuB-42 wrote:
         | Probably unrelated but if you have a manual gearbox, with a
         | clutch pedal, when you are about to stop, you disengage the
         | clutch to prevent the engine from stalling.
         | 
         | Clutch pedals are operated with the left foot and meant to be
         | fully depressed. If you are used to drive stick and switch to
         | auto, you may accidentally hit the break hard with your left
         | foot, as if it was the clutch.
         | 
         | So if you see someone breaking hard at the red light for no
         | reason, especially if it is a rental car just out of the
         | airport, it is probably the reason.
         | 
         | I did it, Most of my (European) friends who rented a car in the
         | US did it too.
        
         | bdamm wrote:
         | The accelerator is actually two sensors, each independently
         | sampling the pedal position.
         | 
         | So, yes, not that likely that both fail simultaneously.
         | 
         | In fact, the pedal is not even a Tesla part.
        
         | potatochup wrote:
         | The brake pedal is physically connected to a hydraulic
         | cylinder. You need to be very strong to fully engage the brake
         | pedal, such that many vehicles, when presented with a sharp
         | brake pedal stab, will electronically increase the amount of
         | brake pressure given (because the system assumes you want to
         | stop, but the driver may not be strong enough/have the right
         | feeling for where maximum pedal application is). If you did
         | this at speed, you'd probably engage ABS which tends to mess
         | with the force-feedback though.
         | 
         | On the other hand, the accelerator pedal is just a sensor, it
         | doesn't require as much force to fully depress. I'd estimate
         | the force required to fully depress the accelerator pedal to be
         | 1/3 of the brake pedal.
        
           | anonymousiam wrote:
           | It is my understanding that Teslas have regenerative braking.
           | Are you sure that the brake pedal is physically connected to
           | a hydraulic cylinder?
        
             | Xorlev wrote:
             | Regen braking works by letting off the accelerator, not by
             | pressing the brake.
        
               | vel0city wrote:
               | Yes and no. A lot of EVs can do two different modes,
               | where it "coasts" and mostly only starts the regen
               | through the brake pedal. You're right though, from what I
               | understand Tesla kind of forces the single-pedal driving
               | mode.
        
           | gcheong wrote:
           | But if it's just a sensor, couldn't it be possible that
           | sensor generates an erroneous signal such that it tells the
           | car to accelerate when nobody actually pressed it?
        
       | buro9 wrote:
       | It would be interesting to see whether European Tesla owners can
       | utilise the GDPR to obtain the data.
        
         | bjelkeman-again wrote:
         | I am convinced they can.
        
         | t0mas88 wrote:
         | If it's linked to an individual, they can. And I'm sure Tesla
         | data is linked to an individual via their account.
        
         | zoydnog wrote:
         | Someone should try to send them a variant of that 'nightmare
         | GDPR letter'.
        
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