The Washington Post questioned the security of Autopilot, Tesla sent a long article to fight back.
CTOnews.com, December 13 (Xinhua) on Sunday, the Washington Post published an article questioning the security of Tesla's Autopilot and FSD. Tesla recently made a strong response, accusing the Washington Post article of serious omissions and misleading reports.
The Washington Post article cited a number of accident cases, claiming that Tesla Autopilot caused a collision on an unsuitable road. Among them, the article focuses on the cases of Dillon Angulo and Naibel Benavides Leon, who parked on the side of the road but were knocked down by a car in Autopilot mode, Tesla. As a result, Benavides Leon was killed and Angulo was seriously injured.
If you only read the Washington Post article, it seems that there is a serious security risk to the Autopilot function. However, the article deliberately ignored the key message: the driver was stepping on the accelerator at the time of the accident, forcibly maintaining the speed at 60 mph and ignoring the alarm issued by Autopilot, which made it clear that if the driver forcibly controlled the vehicle, the cruise control system would not brake.
Tesla gave an 800-word reply on the X platform, in which the statement not only pointed out the above facts, but also pointed out that the driver finally took full responsibility for the accident. "I know I am responsible for the accident, and I am highly aware that safe driving is my responsibility," he said. " The driver never sued Tesla. Instead, Angulo's family sued him and reached a settlement out of court.
Tesla said bluntly: "the Washington Post used the case of drivers misusing the Autopilot-assisted driving function to imply that there was something wrong with the system itself."
Tesla also provided his own data to compare the frequency of Tesla's car crashes with and without Autopilot. Tesla claimed that without Autopilot, Tesla would have a collision for every 1.4 million miles (2.25 million kilometers). When the Autopilot is turned on, there is a collision for every 4.85 million miles (7.8 million kilometers). By contrast, the latest figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) (2021) show that cars in the country have an average of one accident for every 625,000 miles (1.05 million kilometers) driven.
If these data are accurate, it means that Tesla who uses Autopilot is less likely to have an accident than one who does not use Autopilot. However, the Washington Post article did not mention any of these statistics.
CTOnews.com noted that Tesla had won several lawsuits, proving that the driver was ultimately responsible for driving. In fact, the Washington Post article headline "Tesla driver" already implies the real problem.
