Did you see this yesterday? A model new Tesla Mannequin 3 Highland was concerned in an accident in Taman Bukit Serdang, demolishing a concrete block wall that sealed off a housing space – a quite common sight right here in Malaysia. The collision prompted important injury to the entrance of the electrical sedan and set off the entrance airbags.

Based on the viral Fb submit, the driving force, who was coming from dinner, stated that the street was too darkish for them to see the street forward. Nevertheless, the photographs and video present that the street was brightly lit with avenue lights, making that excuse greater than a bit of flimsy.

Now, after all, you can also make your individual conclusions from the incident, taking into account that none of us know what precisely prompted it. One of many theories being floated about is that Autopilot – which makes use of the camera-only Tesla Imaginative and prescient system – wasn’t in a position to forestall the accident, whereas a standard radar-based autonomous emergency braking system would’ve. This might expose a possible weak point in relying solely on cameras.

It does stand to cause {that a} radar would’ve been in a position to detect a stable wall – though it’s seemingly the radar sensor would’ve wanted to corroborate its information with a digicam to remove false positives. However extra importantly, Tesla’s engineers most likely didn’t really feel the necessity to make Autopilot recognise a wall coming in direction of the driving force.

In any case, Tesla isn’t the one firm to have a camera-based collision prevention system – so does Honda, let’s not overlook (to be truthful, automobiles fitted with camera-based Honda Sensing have been concerned in their very own spate of accidents). Plus, nearly each system that solely affords AEB performance is a camera-only system. So clearly, Tesla Imaginative and prescient isn’t the factor guilty right here.

There have additionally been query marks surrounding the navigation system. A fellow consumer of the Mannequin 3 posted a video within the feedback exhibiting their automobile’s navigation system placing up instructions that undergo the wall. Tesla does use map information from Google, however Google Maps doesn’t do that (we’ve tried), so clearly there’s one thing completely different – and maybe flawed – with regard to how the automobile itself plots its instructions.

Then there’s the truth that this explicit automobile was fitted with the Mannequin S’ steering yoke, which can have prompted a lack of management (extremely unlikely, on condition that it’s a straight street). And in the event you take the driving force’s purported excuse of the street being too darkish at face worth (we don’t), you would additionally make an argument that the Mannequin 3 Highland’s lack of stalks made it troublesome to activate the excessive beams.

In case you had been questioning, the excessive beams are activated by urgent and holding the excessive beam button on the left spoke of the steering wheel (urgent it as soon as prompts the flashers). Stalks or no stalks, nonetheless, it’s best to actually familiarise your self with the controls of your individual automobile earlier than you drive it.

All of that’s immaterial, after all. You may make every kind of excuses concerning the (actually not) darkish street, the Autopilot system, the automobile’s navigation or the dearth of stalks, however the reality of the matter is that as an operator of a two-tonne motorcar able to hitting 200 km/h, your major job is to concentrate on the street forward.

That doesn’t change even when you’ve got a complicated semi-autonomous driving system, which is what Autopilot in the end is. Regardless of when you’ve got the bottom Autopilot, the prolonged system and even the costly so-called Full Self Driving bundle (which doesn’t even work in Malaysia), the Mannequin 3 can’t drive itself, which implies the only real duty of stopping an accident falls on the driving force.

It’s said within the submit that the wall has been on that street for near a decade, and both no one has hit it earlier than or there have been accidents which have by no means been reported (most likely as a result of the automobile that hit it wasn’t a Tesla). We must also level out that Malaysian street customers are barred from driving hands-free and you may be fined in the event you’re caught letting your automobile (whether or not it’s a Tesla or not) drive for you.

Whether or not the driving force was intoxicated or just put an excessive amount of religion within the automobile’s methods, it’s brutally clear from this incident that Autopilot doesn’t make you resistant to collisions. Which signifies that, identical to driving every other automobile, you need to take note of your environment everytime you’re on the street – particularly while you’re unfamiliar with the world. And naturally, don’t simply blindly observe your navigation system – whether or not it’s Waze, Google Maps or your automobile’s built-in system. It’s simply widespread sense.

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