I’m not a fan of Elon or Tesla, just for the record. So I hate to actually be the one defending them. But I’m guessing on the same exact day about 12 people drove through their garage doors, NOT in Teslas.
Bet they are lying and just pressed the wrong pedal by themselves. Bet they were on their phone, the cruise control beeped and then they panicked and floored it. Insurance companies probably have to deal with a ton of Tesla owners who are blaming the Autopilot for a mistake the driver made, even when the cruise control wasn’t used.
probably sleeping, or in the passenger seat.
Teslas be like
(elon doesn’t believe in lidar)
Autopilot*
*not actually autopilot
so fukn misleading. elon should be sued for billions
these fukn technocrats are all shitbags, and deserve to be taxed to hell
The reporting states the driving mode in question was Tesla’s “autopilot system,” instead of the proper Autopilot, which is Tesla’s less advanced driving system. Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is Tesla’s more capable feature, although its name is a misnomer, since it’s not capable of fully driving itself and requires constant supervision.
I feel like this section needs a rewrite. What is the distinction they’re drawing between “Tesla’s ‘autopilot system’” and “Autopilot”?
It’s hard to describe these modes because Tesla purposefully blurs and obfuscates what they actually can/cannot do (like giving them names that are basically synonyms.) Typical confuseopoly strategy.
Are you saying that there are three modes, one called “autopilot system,” one called “Autopilot,” and one called “Full Self-Driving”? Because otherwise this phrasing:
the driving mode in question was Tesla’s “autopilot system,” instead of the proper Autopilot
is confusing in a way that’s independent of the way that Tesla’s names are confusing.
My understanding was that there are two modes, one misleadingly called “autopilot” which is basically adaptive cruise control plus lane keeping, and one even more misleadingly called “full self driving,” which integrates with the GPS and will also do lane changes and exits. Both will happily plow you into a semi at speed, which makes the names REALLY dumb. But the distinction the article is making, between the “autopilot system” and capital-A “Autopilot,” seems like it needs more explanation, and I don’t think that’s a Tesla distinction.
“Autopilot” is the category that depending on which car you bought and which DLC skins you paid for might contain “Autopilot” cruise control or “Full Self Driving” or “Autosteer” or “Cruise Control” or other shit that do different things and change names whenever the car updates.
This is crazy, I was in a parking lot yesterday and saw someone have their Tesla driver right up to them to pick them up in the parking lot with no driver inside. Kind of pissed me off I was so near in the same parking lot that was operating on its own, with my wife and nieces. I know Elon Musk wouldn’t give one fuck about me if his dumbass machine ran me or mine right over
That’s bad that the car’s software confused a closed garage door for a kid.
I saw my first Tesla this week with the “I bought this before Elon went nuts” bumper sticker. I don’t give a fuck when you bought that garbage, its a fucking dangerous piece of shit and shouldn’t be on the roads with real cars. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for EVs taking over the market, just as long as they aren’t teslas.
You don’t have to use the self driving features of a Tesla. As long as we’re not talking about Cybertrucks, they’re still a regular car with mechanically connected steering and brakes.
The back seats not having manual releases and other baffling design decisions might be dangerous for the people inside, but I don’t really have a problem being on the road next to them.
You bought this tesla in 1993? Neat
You couldn’t pay me to drive a Tesla, and that’s doubly true for Tesla on “autopilot”.
Looks like this homeowner got lucky the car didn’t hit a wall. Replacing just a garage door is way easier than repairing structural damage to the walls… Hopefully the driver’s insurance pays for all of it.
Did the road runner paint a tunnel on it again?
This is a murder idea right here.
A YouTuber already proved that Teslas autopilot would drive straight through a portrait of a road. Since it only uses cameras without other tech like lidar
So would plenty of human drivers.
Human drivers can pull in environmental and other cues though, like “why is there daylight on the road inside a building?”
Ai can use that info too. And it doesn’t get distracted, or drink beer. Self driving cars have the potential to be much safer than humans. We don’t seem to be there yet, but we will be eventually if we don’t block progress.
When the CEO keeps saying they’ll have full auto pilot in the next few years for over a decade, then complains that the problem is the government stopping then from rolling it out, you start to question if it should ever be rolled out. At least maybe not by a for profit entity who puts profits before safety.
Sure because humans don’t have radar and lidar. Something Tesla chose not to put on their vehicle.
Yes it is a questionable decision. But I think it wasn’t just being cheap. I think it’s because of liability for errors; when it comes to placing fault on a car in the legal system, a judge / jury is only going to look at video captures. They won’t understand the lidar data. So if the car makes a bad decision based on lidar when there’s a conflict with visual queues, it will be deemed that it made a mistake. So there’s not really any point to trying to work with the lidar data.
Later he was fined by the HOA because the garage door being open since 20 minutes
The sentence structure that people from different non-english-speaking countries use is really interesting.
After working with so many people from India, I would guess this person was originally from there. “Since 20 minutes” is a fairly common way that they say it.
In French you would say “depuis 20 minutes” which literally translates to “since 20 minutes,” and I imagine many other languages would phrase it the same way.
Why is this person called a driver?
Are people stupid enough to actually trust Tesla’s autopilot, or do they do it on purpose to then sue Tesla?
Nevermind, I know the answer…
It works well, until it doesn’t. That first part lulls people into complacency. I rented a Kia last year that had automatic cruise control and lane keep assist and it kept me on the road far past when I should have pulled over and taken a nap from being sleep deprived after a redeye flight. Dangerous? Yes. Skill issue? Maybe. What I took away from the experience is that it is frighteningly easy to get used to a thing “just working” and forget about its limitations when it is convenient. I also learned that I do not want lane keep assist or automatic cruise control in my personal car.
I really like the automatic cruise control on my fairly new Honda Jazz. I’ve found that it has a net positive effect on my attention to the road, because I become less fatigued from the small, brief slowdowns that I might encounter on a motorway. There was actually an instance where I narrowly avoided a crash while using this system because of how quickly I acted when a potentially dangerous situation developed into an active crash; I felt like I was more alert than I would’ve otherwise been after a day of driving
However, I do not like the lane-keeping system, especially combined with the automatic cruise control. I remember testing it when I was on a clear but fairly curved section of the motorway, with my hands completely off the wheel (but hovering over the wheel, ready to take control again if necessary). I was horrified by how effectively it took me round the bend — effectively enough to be dangerous. There is a warning beep if you spend too long without your hands on the wheel at all for a while, but this was just something I did while testing it. I’ve not used it since, because I was confident that, unlike the automatic cruise control used on its own, this would diminish my attention and leave me unable to properly respond to an exceptional circumstances.
This is basically automation bias you’re describing and it’s what scares the hell out of me with these “FSD” teslas on the road.
Even if you were able to keep constantly alert during the 99% of the time where this works (which I think is close to humanly impossible) why would you want a system that doesn’t offload you at all? The only value of this system is if people ignore the limitations and allow themselves to zone out - the rest of us are at risk when it goes wrong!
I use lane assist and traffic aware cruise to keep my shoulders and (bad) knee physically relaxed on long highway stretches. That said, I would probably choose to tolerate the inevitable day of neck and/or knee pain if it meant no one was using this stuff. Automation bias is scary.
[…] why would you want a system that doesn’t offload you at all? The only value of this system is if people ignore the limitations and allow themselves to zone out […]
I think there are some “absolutes” used here that make these things incorrect.
- “doesn’t offload you at all” means that these systems provide 0 offloading, which is not true — not even for the classic cruise control that only maintains speed.
- “The only value of this system is if people ignore the limitations and allow themselves to zone out” means that there’s no other value it provides. Using the old classic cruise control as an example again, it provides value even without being able to its limitations.
That said, my car is a bit old and just has the classic kind of cruise control. I’ve only used the newer stuff on a few road trips in rental cars, so maybe I just haven’t had enough experience with it to reach the levels of carelessness required to drive into a garage door yet.
Cruise control lets me relax my legs. It’s purely mechanical.
Other automations like lane assist and emergency break system saves my ass if I’m not paying attention. FSD (if used as intended) does exactly the opposite: I have to save it’s ass if/when it overlooks something. I have to be constantly alert without almost ever having a reason to. The human mind is not made for that. I would 100% find it harder to pay attention in that scenario than if I’m also doing the driving and not because Elon is an asshole.
If I could check my email or read a book and have the car say “take over in 10 seconds time” I would get it, but if I’m constantly aware, hands on the ready and eyes on the road I would literally much much mucho much rather not have it at all.
But of course that’s not how it’s being used. Tesla drivers are willing to run the risk on behalf of themselves and anyone they are sharing the road with.
I own modern Kia with these systems you described. I use this almost constantly BUT: the first month after getting the car I was terrified, literally scared and 15 minutes drive exhausted me just like 2 hours in my previous car. I was learning to trust the system, had to known all the limitations first. I now know when to take over and really like adaptive cruise control especially in traffic.
I am a software engineer though, there is nothing “smart” in my home (apart from TV obviously) and I can see how people can fall into the trap you described.
