Mobileyes' chairman warns Tesla over safety issues and believes being associated with the automaker could potentially hurt in the long-term Mobileye's reputation.
Mobileyes Parts Ways With Tesla
According to Computerworld, Autopilot tech supplier Mobileyes fears that Tesla is pushing safety envelope too far. Mobiileye is the former technology supplier of Tesla's semi-autonomous Autopilot driving technology.
Amnon Shashua, chief technology officer and executive chairman at Israel-based technology supplier Mobileye, told Reuters Wednesday, Sept. 14, that the Autopilot system has not been designed to safely cover all possible chars situations. His comments came just the same day a lawsuit was filed against Tesla by the father of a man involved in a second fatal accident. When the fatal crash took place the man was allegedly driving a Tesla Model S that had its Autopilot system on.
The lawsuit filed in July in a Beijing court alleges that the accident was the fault of Tesla's advanced driver assistance system (ADAS). This week Tesla confirmed that it is investigating the fatal crash. However, due to the extended amount of damage sustained by the vehicle, Tesla said that it cannot be confirmed whether the Autopilot was engaged at the time of the accident.
According to Fortune, Tesla Motors said on Thursday, Sept. 15, that the reason why its former camera supplier Mobileye is critic over the safety of the Autopilot assisted driving technology is the fact that the automaker was developing its own vision system.
A Tesla spokeswoman said that the upcoming versions of the Autopilot semi-autonomous system would be using Tesla's own vision system. Once Mobileye has found out about Tesla's plans, it attempted to force the carmaker to discontinue this development, keep using their products in future hardware and pay them more.
Tesla's strong defense of Autopilot technology comes as response to the the need to assure regulators and consumers that the system is safe. According to auto market experts, there are huge stakes in the race to perfect self-driving technology.
