WCA September 2016

77 / 116

75
Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2016
From the Americas
Automotive
The first fatal crash in the USA of an
autonomous car heightens concerns
about the Tesla S and other “self-driving”
vehicles
Early accounts of a fatal highway crash involving a
2015 Tesla Model S centred on the colourful figure of
owner/driver Joshua Brown – former US Navy SEAL,
knowledgeable “techie”, strongly enthusiastic Tesla fan –
who died at the scene. Mr Brown had enjoyed cruising the
highways with the car on Autopilot, making YouTube videos
of himself driving hands-free. In the first nine months he
owned it, the 40–year-old Mr Brown, of Canton, Ohio, put
more than 45,000 miles on the all-electric car he nicknamed
Tessy.
If anyone might be expected to operate a Model S safely, it
was he. But in the collision on 7th May in Williston, Florida,
which claimed Mr Brown’s life the car was operating in
Autopilot mode. His is believed to be the first death in the
USA in the crash of a vehicle with its semi-autonomous
driving feature engaged.
(Note: Strictly speaking, the Model S is not a self-driving
car. It has self-driving features – autonomous elements
meant to assist rather than replace the driver.)
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA), it received notification from Tesla
Motors (Palo Alto, California) of the fatal accident. The
safety regulator is now investigating about 25,000 Tesla
cars and will “examine the design and performance of any
automated driving systems in use at the time of the crash.”
While NHTSA said it will be gathering more data about the
Florida accident, from preliminary reports the sequence
of events is clear enough. According to the Detroit News,
NHTSA said a semi-trailer rig turned left in front of the Tesla
at a highway intersection. The police said the roof of the
car struck the underside of the trailer and the car passed
beneath. The car went off the road, striking two wire fences
and a power pole before coming to a rest about 100 feet
away. (“NHTSA Probes Tesla Self-Driving Cars After Fatal
Crash,” 30th June)
Tesla wrote in a 30th June blog post that, because neither
Autopilot nor the driver perceived the white side of the
tractor-trailer against a bright sky, the brake was not
applied.
‘The system didn’t know what it couldn’t see’
It is perhaps worth quoting more fully from Tesla: “The
high ride height of the trailer combined with its positioning
across the road and the extremely rare circumstances of
the impact caused the Model S to pass under the trailer,
with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of
the Model S. Had the Model S impacted the front or rear
of the trailer, even at high speed, its advanced crash safety
system would likely have prevented serious injury as it has
in numerous other similar incidents.”
Tesla also asserted that Autopilot is disabled by default and
requires, before the system can be enabled, the operator’s
explicit acknowledgment that this is new technology and
still in a public beta [a testing phase open to any user,
who is known as a beta tester]. When the driver activates
Autopilot, the acknowledgment box explains that Autopilot
“is an assist feature that requires you to keep your hands on
the steering wheel . . . prepared to take over at any time.”
What do the experts say?
 To Missy Cummings, director of Duke University’s
Humans and Autonomy Lab, the Tesla crash shows the
limitations of quasi-automated cars. As she told the
Detroit News: “This is one of those situations where
the system didn’t know what it couldn’t see and neither
did the human.” Ms Cummings, who testified before
Congress in March that boosters of the self-driving
technology are exaggerating its readiness for
widespread expansion, said research shows “humans
simply do not pay attention when they think the system
is good enough.”
 John Simpson, the privacy project director of
California-based Consumer Watchdog, a non-profit
education and advocacy organisation, was rather
more judgmental. “The fatal crash of a Tesla while on
so-called Autopilot should serve as a wake-up call
for all who are rushing to deploy autonomous vehicles,”
he said.
Detroit excels in the influential JD Power
Initial Quality Study – but Kia of South
Korea is the star
The results of the JD Power Initial Quality Study of 2016
model vehicles show that all three Detroit automakers
improved their scores – to the point, in fact, of collectively
outperforming import brands for only the second time in
30 years. But, for an even more impressive showing in the
closely watched study, South Korea’s Kia Motors earned
the top score among the 33 brands evaluated.
JD Power and Associates (Costa Mesa, California), which
conducts multiple annual surveys of the automotive
industry, determines initial quality from the number of
problems experienced by new car buyers in the early days
of ownership. This year’s data, derived from more than
80,000 completed surveys, revealed that the Detroit Three
– General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA)
– achieved a combined average score of 103 problems
per 100 vehicles over the first 90 days of new vehicle
ownership. That represents a 10 per cent improvement from
2015 and twice the improvement rate of the import brands
that scored a collective 106 problems per 100.
As noted by automotive reporter Brent Snavely of the
Detroit Free Press, the collective score for the Detroit
Three is good news for the USA automotive industry,
whose vehicles suffer from an impression that their quality
lags that of Asian and German products. It is, Mr Snavely
wrote, especially good news for FCA, “which typically
finishes last in quality and reliability studies from third-party
organisations like JD Power.”
BigStockPhoto.com Photographer: Aispl