Tesla: Autopilot Was Not Engaged When Driver Veered Off Road Into Castro Valley Pond

NBC Bay Area ^ | 5/23/18 | By Bob Redell, Brendan Weber and Jodi Hernandez

[NohSpinZone]

Tesla said Wednesday that they have been able to recover enough data to confirm that autopilot was not engaged when a Bay Area driver veered off the road in a Model S and plunged into a pond.

“We have been able to recover enough data from the vehicle to confirm that Autopilot was not engaged at the time of this accident," Tesla said in a statement.

[NohSpinZone]

So Elon Musk is basically claiming that Asians are bad drivers? I take offense to that. :-)

[bmwcyle]

No phony Musk CGI here.

[Chickensoup]

I wonder who un-engaged it

[reed13k]

...because the driver took it off just prior to leaving the road.....

[ClearCase_guy]

Golly. That’s convenient.

[Zathras]

When I lived in CA, we called it “Driving while Chinese”
The really scary ones drove a Honda or an Acura.
Don’t know why but it was almost always the case.

[Dutch Boy]

I was thinking the same. Did the driver turn it off or did a glitch turn it off?

[DannyTN]

It's on cruise control...

[Disambiguator]

These are all shocking revelations.

[Tax-chick]

Why is this the one incident in which the DRIVER “veered off road,” when in every other case it’s the vehicle which leaves the road?

[LurkedLongEnough]

thoughts of the tale “the emperor has no clothes”

[minnesota_bound]

The autopilot turns itself off and erases all evidence it was on when it is in a crash : )

[Zhang Fei]

According the NHTSA stats, Asian traffic fatalities per capita are 1/3 (or less) of other ethnicities. Maybe they just cause other people to get killed:

Or maybe they walk everywhere. On the other hand, new car purchases by Asians are about what you'd expect, given their representation in the general population - ~5.6%:

[Zhang Fei]

“The autopilot turns itself off and erases all evidence it was on when it is in a crash : )”

---

After the Volkswagen emissions scandal, I’d rule nothing out. Note that VW has not, in my recollection, ever had anything less than a pristine balance sheet. And yet it cheated. Tesla has not had anything other than a lousy balance sheet, and it continues to bleed cash like water gushing from a hydrant.

[TheNext]

It is a new feature.

Robot car software disables the autopilot just prior to impact.

[Disambiguator]

Maybe Asian drivers are like Inspector Clouseau.

[Zhang Fei]

“Maybe Asian drivers are like Inspector Clouseau.”

---

Or perhaps they engage in behavior that is rude or obnoxious without actually being life-threatening. Maybe I’m just oblivious or have bad eyes, but every single time I’ve narrowly avoided an accident, I’ve never been able to identify the ethnicity of the person in the other car. The two occasions I was able to - when the other drivers were going the wrong way on a one-way street, and both of us were going up a steep slope that obscured each other from view - the drivers were white (and female). Most of the time, I’m so focused on avoiding other guy, I don’t even have time to lean on the horn.

[DUMBGRUNT]

Asian traffic fatalities per capita are 1/3 (or less) of other ethnicities

Having been around a bit in Asia, Japan, Taiwan, PI, RVN...
And a non-drinker, I do not believe that Asians consume as much alcohol as others.

Sober drivers tend to have fewer accidents.

[DAC21]

“According the NHTSA stats, Asian traffic fatalities per capita are 1/3 (or less) of other ethnicities. Maybe they just cause other people to get killed”

Well my experience from driving in the Diamond Bar, Chino Hills CA. area is that is local Asian population would be less likely to die in a crash because few people (regardless of ethnicity) die in crashes when driving at a top speed of 30 miles an hour.