Tesla Inc said computer logs of the Model X vehicle involved in a fatal crash a week ago showed the driver did not have his hands on the steering wheel for six seconds before the accident.
Wei Huang (黃偉), 38, died on March 23 when his vehicle hit a highway barrier in California and caught fire. The damage to the vehicle was exacerbated by a safety bulwark that had not been replaced after a prior accident, the company wrote in a blog post published on Friday.
“The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive,” Tesla said. “The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken.”
The collision occurred days after a separate Uber Technologies Inc accident killed a pedestrian, raising fresh questions about self-driving features and sending ripples across the broader autonomous-vehicle industry.
Elon Musk’s electric carmaker shed more than US$5 billion last week and has lost almost one-quarter of its value since Feb. 23 amid concerns about production of its vehicles, recalls and the crash.
Huang’s LinkedIn profile identified him as a software engineer who joined Apple Inc in November last year.
Tesla defended its Autopilot program in the blog post, saying the system made it 3.7 times less likely for a person in the US to be involved in a fatal accident.
Statistics for the US show one automotive fatality every 138 million kilometers driven across all vehicles, compared with 515 million kilometers in those equipped with Autopilot hardware, it said.
“None of this changes how devastating an event like this is or how much we feel for our customer’s family and friends,” Tesla wrote, pushing back against criticism that it lacked empathy for bringing up safety statistics to counterattacks on its program. “We must also care about people now and in the future whose lives may be saved if they know that Autopilot improves safety.”
Tesla’s approach with Autopilot has been to field a suite of driver-assistance features that are continuously improved via over-the-air software updates and help build toward more advanced autonomous capabilities.
Tesla said that all cars now being made at its factory in Fremont, California, have the hardware needed for “full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.”
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it plans to double investment in data center-related technologies, including advanced packaging and high-speed interconnect technologies, to broaden the new business’ customer and service portfolios. The chip designer is redirecting its resources to data centers, mainly designing application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for cloud service providers. The data center business is forecast to lead growth in the next three years and become the company’s second-biggest revenue source, replacing chips used in smart devices, MediaTek president Joe Chen (陳冠州) told a media event in Taipei. “Three or four years
Until US President Donald Trump’s return a year ago, when the EU talked about cutting economic dependency on foreign powers — it was understood to mean China, but now Brussels has US tech in its sights. As Trump ramps up his threats — from strong-arming Europe on trade to pushing to seize Greenland — concern has grown that the unpredictable leader could, should he so wish, plunge the bloc into digital darkness. Since Trump’s Greenland climbdown, top officials have stepped up warnings that the EU is dangerously exposed to geopolitical shocks and must work toward strategic independence — in defense, energy and
Motorists ride past a mural along a street in Varanasi, India, yesterday.
For the second year in a row, a Brazilian movie has wowed international audiences and critics, securing multiple Oscar nominations and drawing fresh interest in the Latin American giant’s film industry. Experts say the success of The Secret Agent, which has won four Oscar nominations, a year after I Am Still Here won Brazil its first Oscar, is no fluke, with a bit of a push from the country’s political climate. “This is neither a coincidence nor a miracle. It is the result of a lot of work, consistent policies, and, of course, talent,” Ilda Santiago, director of the Rio International Film
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