AL Priority with Tesla Model X

[awj223]

That guy was Joshua Brown, who's posted other Autopilot youtube videos before. So, for sure they have dashcam footage and can confirm whether or not he was distracted: http://electrek.co/2016/06/30/tesla-...ught-on-video/


The article has the details on the crash (divided highway, he had right of way, oncoming truck made left turn assuming other traffic would stop for him). But, however, not at fault != could not have prevented the accident. It's unclear whether or not he was distracted because of trusting the Autopilot…



Either way, it's tragic, but a cautionary tale that traffic conditions can change at a second's notice. You can use automation features like Autopilot to allow you to be more alert to the big picture around you…. Or you can use it to pay less attention and play Angry Birds while your car maintains you in your lane. Obviously, one is less moronic than the other, but human temptation can push you towards the other.



(To directly answer your question: AP's camera is in a firewalled separate module, and does not record video and is not capable of transmitting the video to the rest of the car's electronics. So no, they would not have a video recording of what happened in the car. They do, however, have full logs on the settings of the car, speed, driver input, the digital representation of what the AP interpreted on the road, etc.)

With semi autonomous cars, I can see the same issues arising that happened with this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9C...-air_collision mid-air collision over Germany. If the autopilot is giving the driver instructions to do something and the driver does otherwise thinking that he knows better based on what he can see, and another driver does what his autopilot says to do, there will still be a collision (in the collision mentioned, one pilot obeyed TCAS while the other obeyed ATC, and both collided in an accident in which there were no survivors).

Today, pilots are given instructions to obey TCAS at all times, regardless of what ATC says. The same type of training would be required for human car drivers.