After multiple deaths and injuries, NHTSA is investigating comma.ai
Ars Technica Jonathan M. Gitlin
NHTSA is probing comma.ai after five crashes, including two that killed three people. The devices were meant to boost driver aids — and may have helped cars hit stopped traffic.
Based on reporting by Ars Technica, Jonathan M. Gitlin — read the original for the full story.
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The federal government is now looking hard at comma.ai, the aftermarket maker whose devices are designed to extend a car’s built-in driver-assistance system. NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation says it knows about five crashes involving the company’s products. In those crashes, drivers hit stopped or slow-moving vehicles.
The toll was grim. Two of the crashes left three people dead, and four of the five caused 11 injuries, some of them serious. That is the kind of pattern regulators don’t ignore for long, especially when the devices sit in the uneasy space between convenience tech and something that can nudge drivers into trusting the wrong thing.
Comma.ai has a very specific origin story. It was the brainchild of George Hotz, who first became famous for jailbreaking iOS and hacking Sony PlayStations. In 2015, he shifted from phone and console break-ins to partially automated driving aids, right as Tesla’s Autopilot was making that category impossible to ignore.
Hotz started by modifying his own Acura so it could do more than the stock system allowed, including letting him take his hands off the wheel. He wanted to sell that setup to Tesla and, in the process, replace Mobileye as Tesla’s supplier. Mobileye later dropped Tesla as a customer after it became unhappy with how Tesla was using its products in ways that weren’t intended.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the recurring flaw with “make the car smarter” products: the marketing runs ahead of the driving. If a gadget helps a human treat a stop as optional, that’s not innovation, that’s a lawsuit with nicer packaging. Regulators are right to stare hard at this whole aftermarket-autonomy hobby.
Read more about this at: Ars Technica
