While I definitely agree on the name change, it should be accompanied by a feature change. In its current mode, and especially if people know it has been renamed, the same stuff will happen.

When you take your hands off the wheel, it turn on warning lights, break increasingly hard (depending on what it detects behind it) and sound loud warnings in the car. If it's truly an assistive feature where you can't be inattentive, the only scenario in which you stop steering is when you fell asleep.

http://www.teslarati.com/what-happens-ignore-tesla-autopilot...

Based on that account, it seems the warning is triggered if the road becomes curvy. There may also be additional triggers.

It seems insufficient to me. IMO there should be an interval of at most 5 seconds before the first warning, and another 5 seconds before the second, and then the car should start decelerating.

Haha agreed! I don't know exactly how the system works. My sense is Tesla's AP let's you be hands off for a much longer time than other self driving systems

In that case, it sounds like it might actually work more or less as it should. It's just a bit useless in its current form.

If you're not actively steering it but just waiting to take over if things go poorly, things also seem like they'd be difficult. Other than getting in an accident, how is a person supposed to know when autopilot is doing it's thing correctly, and when it isn't?

My passat has most assist systems and I like how it steers. It tries very hard to get my attention and get my hands back on the steering wheel. It barely lets me keep my hands 15 seconds of the wheel but this is perfect for what it's designed to do: keep you in the lane if you are being distracted by something (eg: baby).

Even more it has various modes to get your attention back including detecting tiredness and inability to hold the steering wheel on the lane.

If you can't drive responsibly with a baby on board lane assist isn't going to save your ass. If something happens to your baby which distracts you ask someone else in the car to take care of it, if there is nobody to help pull over at the earliest opportunity.

Lane assist will not save you from anything else but lane departure and there are a lot of other things that can go wrong while you allow yourself to be distracted because you rely on lane assist to keep you safe. That's not the intended use of this feature.

Also I find it interesting how much you assume about a person or situation from a single word.

I absolutely agree. There is absolutely no excuse for the driver to take their eyes off the road to assist a baby in the car. How would you assist a baby in the back seat while driving with a seat belt on anyway?

As I read about people using these features, I'm convinced they shouldn't exist. Yes, crazies will apply eyeliner while going sixty on a highway but I doubt driver assist is an adequate solution for such stupidity should a driver poke themselves in the eye.

If you have ever driven with a baby or child in a car you will have learned that they can cry or make a tantrum. Assist systems are intended to supplement and assist the driver in situations of increased stress. The idea that one would actively take their hands off the wheel to do something with a child is so preposterous ghat only commenters on HN could seriously suggest that.

Here's a state-by-state break-down:

http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/childsafety_laws.htm...

You seem really defensive about a pretty inoffensive remark. Maybe you need to reflect on why you are so angry about something so trivial.

The sad thing is that Tesla has been repeatedly blaming the driver, instead of improving its technology in an openly earnest manner -- an approach that eventually made air travel the safest.

With so many sensors, car travel can eventually become safer than air travel in the future. If Tesla attitude improves, that future will arrive faster.

Here's what I did:

  1 in 90 million rate: 1.1 x 10^8
  Probability of No accident in one mile: 1 - 1.1 x 108 = ~9.9999999 x 10^8
  Probability of No accident and driving 130 million miles: (9.99999999 x 10 ^ 8) ^ 130e6 = 0.24
  Probability AT LEAST ONE ACCIDENT in 130 million miles = 1 - 0.24 = 0.76

So the true rate could really be worse than 1 in 90 million miles and they just got lucky that no incident prevented itself, which would make it more dangerous than a regular car.

And, that still includes motorcycle accident rates which shouldn't be included in a comparison to Teslas.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4sgxv1/while_te...

On the other hand, one also needs to consider accident rate. From what I understand, based on US averages, we should have had 50+ accidents out of 100+ million miles driven on AP, but we had about three.

Moreover, I wonder how the human drivers in the statistics fare if you correct for drunk driving / using cellphone, etc. In my opinion, any autopilot worth it's name should be an order of magnitude better than the average human driver.

An example:

  Every time the auto pilot encounters a truck turning in front results in a fatality.
  1 in 10 times a drunk driver fails to avoid the truck turning in time.

I would trust a drunk driver over Tesla's autopilot at this point. Don't die for Elon Musk's dream--being one of the first auto pilot fatalities isn't that big of an accomplishment.

Also, I'd give "Technopoly" a read.

I'd wager that if you compare it with cars at Tesla price point -- mostly luxury cars -- Tesla would look pretty bad.

Highly unscientific anecdotal evidence and personal experience living in an area with an unusually high concentration of such cars shows me that most people that own really fast cars do drive fast and enthusiastically from time to time but do so in a responsible manner and typically respectfully go with the flow, whereas a lot of people with more regular cars (mostly MPVs around here) have a habit of driving a good deal too close and a good deal too fast every single day. Many even engage in some truly reckless behaviour as soon as they feel threatened/frustrated, a telltale sign of power/control issues.

Your point about people seeking to drive faster is a valid one.

The counterpoint is there are people who cannot afford luxury cars but also want to drive faster -- they'll end up buying cheaper cars that can drive fast within their price range. Those are likely to be more fatal than the average luxury car.

1) Hypothesis on car age. An accident on a 2002 non-luxury car model is supposedly more likely to be fatal than an accident with your average new car.

This matters because Teslas with autopilot are relatively new compared to overall car population.

2) Hypothesis that low cost cars are more fatal than an average luxury cars.

3) Demographic hypothesis. Because of price point, the buyer demographic of newer luxury cars will be different than the overall demographic. Age group (e.g. teenagers vs. young adults vs. older adults), education level, profession.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-lists-cars-with-highest-a...

The fatality rates are probably also notably better on late model cars relative to clunkers because of safety features.

I don't think more expensive cars are less likely to have that kind of accident, nor would it be less fatal.

My suspicion is zero.

At that time I don't recall that Tesla made any statement about how dangerous it was to deliberately push the limit of the system to entertains viewers.

This might have contributed to make him overconfident about autopilot.

RIP

Yeah who knows. I think Musk retweeted his video. Hindsight is 20/20. Tesla can still move forward and learn from this.

People are using it in this way because they're able to, and they'll continue to do so until they're not able to. I think we agree here actually. The name isn't the problem really the issue.

* The real autopilot doesn't require hands-on-the-yoke while it is engaged, but 'autopilot' does.

* Airplanes don't have to deal with complex traffic conditions requiring interaction with other airplanes

* Airplanes do not smash into lane barriers/trees if they veer a few feet off the expected course

* "Taking control" on an airplane could safely take tens of seconds, but for a car, that is far too long.

So no, autopilot isn't good enough for cars. Cars need something much better.

Airport Runways have typically have edge lighting, and if an aircraft is off-center during takeoff or landing, can hit them and do damage[1]. Airliners land at 150mph+ so it doesn't take much deviation to hit the edge lights. Occasionally, this also happens during a gusty cross-wind landing while coupled to autopilot (auto-land), or immediately after a touchdown after a coupled landing.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_sy...

[1] http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/etihad-plane-hits-r...

Perhaps it is true that the semi-intelligent autopilot is good enough for these trained activities, but the untrained public doesn't realize that autopilot today is not full automation.

Pilots also receive ongoing currency training. This doesn't exist for automobile drivers. Maybe some states require a written test every few years? But in the three states I've lived in, no written, oral, or in-car test it recurrency training required since the original was issued when I was 15 or whenever.

Comparing pilot certification to that of a driver's is disingenuous.

Although if US drivers are so untrained, perhaps auto-pilot is even more relevant.

Chances of gaining control and awareness of the situation in a timely manner on an airplane are higher.