FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL
Speed
1 mph
Severity
Deaths
0
Injured
0
Fire
No
Crash
Yes
Police report
No
Medical attention
No
Vehicle towed
No
Narrative
I engaged Tesla's Autopark to park my car in my usual spot. The car kept going after reaching the back of the parking space, crashing into a pole located around one foot behind the parking spot. The time between when it should have braked and the post was of such short duration that I had no time to apply the brakes and prevent the accident. The car lacks both radar and lidar, either of which would have detected the post. Instead it relies on a single video camera. What made this parking different from previous safe parking attempt in the same space was that the car was perfectly lined up. That meant that the camera could not make use of parallax to enable the AI to notice that the post was moving against the background and must, therefore by close behind instead of 40 feet away. For Tesla Autopark to function safely, it needs to "know" how far back possible obstructions are. It could do so by never backing up with perfect alignment. Instead, the car should move enough from side to side to generate enough parallax effect for it to be able to determine if it is about the crash. The service manager who called to tell me that Tesla decided the accident was my fault absolutely refused to even hear my opinion on what Tesla could do to prevent such accidents in the future. He told me he had be instructed to deliver Tesla's disclaimer and to not listen to anything I might have to say. As an engineer who has patents in the area of both aviation and automotive safety, I have an op