Are you suggesting that Teslas send a live running stream of all their sensor data while autopilot is on, including video, back to HQ and that data is then analyzed to find errors so the software can be updated? Because that's what getting value from all those cars driving around would imply.

No I am not _suggesting_ it, I am stating it. doesn't have to be a live stream either they can collect the data during servicing.

They call it shadow mode and it has been running since at least generation 2 hardware in 2016

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/09/01/new-tesla-autopilot-sof...

Nice straw-man. The cars might send summarized metrics, maybe even video snippets of extraordinary events. That provides plenty of value while being a far cry from live-streaming all sensor data including video.

I'd still be pissed if my car did that without explicit opt-in, but it doesn't have to be nearly as bad as you make it sound.

I'm not sure what metrics it would summarize though. As I understand it, self-driving systems mostly use supervised learning for feature detection. If someone isn't flagging anomalous events/detections when they happen, I'm not sure what having summarized data is buying you for the most part. (Sure if there's an actual accident. But that is hopefully a rare event.)