Month: June 2018

Enlarge / The charred remains of Walter Huang's Tesla Model X. (credit: S. Engleman / NTSB)

The National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday provided new details about a March crash in Mountain View, California, that claimed the life of engineer Walter Huang. The Model X had its Autopilot driver assistance system engaged, and, according to the NTSB, the car "began a left steering movement" seven seconds before the crash that put it on a collision course with a concrete lane divider. Then, in the last three seconds before the crash, "the Tesla’s speed increased from 62mph to 70.8mph, with no precrash braking or evasive steering movement detected."

This isn't the only recent case where Autopilot steered a Tesla vehicle directly into a stationary object—though thankfully the others didn't get anyone killed. Back in January, firefighters in Culver City, California, said that a Tesla with Autopilot engaged had plowed into the back of a fire truck at 65mph. In an eerily similar incident last month, a Tesla Model S with Autopilot active crashed into a fire truck at 60mph in the suburbs of Salt Lake City.

A natural reaction to these incidents is to assume that there must be something seriously wrong with Tesla's Autopilot system. After all, you might expect that avoiding collisions with large, stationary objects like fire engines and concrete lane dividers would be one of the most basic functions of a car's automatic emergency braking technology.

Enlarge / The charred remains of Walter Huang's Tesla Model X. (credit: S. Engleman / NTSB)

The National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday provided new details about a March crash in Mountain View, California, that claimed the life of engineer Walter Huang. The Model X had its Autopilot driver assistance system engaged, and, according to the NTSB, the car "began a left steering movement" seven seconds before the crash that put it on a collision course with a concrete lane divider. Then, in the last three seconds before the crash, "the Tesla’s speed increased from 62mph to 70.8mph, with no precrash braking or evasive steering movement detected."

This isn't the only recent case where Autopilot steered a Tesla vehicle directly into a stationary object—though thankfully the others didn't get anyone killed. Back in January, firefighters in Culver City, California, said that a Tesla with Autopilot engaged had plowed into the back of a fire truck at 65mph. In an eerily similar incident last month, a Tesla Model S with Autopilot active crashed into a fire truck at 60mph in the suburbs of Salt Lake City.

A natural reaction to these incidents is to assume that there must be something seriously wrong with Tesla's Autopilot system. After all, you might expect that avoiding collisions with large, stationary objects like fire engines and concrete lane dividers would be one of the most basic functions of a car's automatic emergency braking technology.

Enlarge (credit: NOAA)

When studying populations of a flounder-like North Sea fish called plaice in the early 1900’s, a man named Heincke noticed that older, larger fish are found deeper in the water than younger, smaller fish. The same phenomenon was subsequently found for other North Atlantic species like cod, haddock, pollock, and some species of flatfish; it was thus dubbed Heincke’s Law and treated as an established fact. Biologists assumed it was ontogenic in nature, meaning that it must be connected to how the fish age and mature.

All the species in which older, bigger fish are found in deeper water have something else in common: we eat them. Could it be, some Canadian scientists wondered, that all the big fish are found in deeper water because we fished them out of shallower water? Apparently (and somewhat astonishingly) this possibility had never been evaluated. And the scientists found that not only could this be the case—it in fact was.

Explaining the law

Starting in the 1990s, a number of hypotheses were posited to explain Heincke’s Law. One is that larger, older fish gravitate down to cooler waters where the diminished metabolic demands can increase their lifespans. Another suggested that all fish prefer to be in shallower water, but when the population gets too big, the seniors get shunted out of prime territory by the youngsters and have to live in deeper waters. A third holds that juveniles hide in shallower waters from the threatening adults down in the depths.

Enlarge (credit: NOAA)

When studying populations of a flounder-like North Sea fish called plaice in the early 1900’s, a man named Heincke noticed that older, larger fish are found deeper in the water than younger, smaller fish. The same phenomenon was subsequently found for other North Atlantic species like cod, haddock, pollock, and some species of flatfish; it was thus dubbed Heincke’s Law and treated as an established fact. Biologists assumed it was ontogenic in nature, meaning that it must be connected to how the fish age and mature.

All the species in which older, bigger fish are found in deeper water have something else in common: we eat them. Could it be, some Canadian scientists wondered, that all the big fish are found in deeper water because we fished them out of shallower water? Apparently (and somewhat astonishingly) this possibility had never been evaluated. And the scientists found that not only could this be the case—it in fact was.

Explaining the law

Starting in the 1990s, a number of hypotheses were posited to explain Heincke’s Law. One is that larger, older fish gravitate down to cooler waters where the diminished metabolic demands can increase their lifespans. Another suggested that all fish prefer to be in shallower water, but when the population gets too big, the seniors get shunted out of prime territory by the youngsters and have to live in deeper waters. A third holds that juveniles hide in shallower waters from the threatening adults down in the depths.