This, more than anything, is what worries me. I do not own a Tesla. I didn’t agree to anything. I’m not choosing to enable auto-pilot (or FSD).

And yet my life is/may be in danger because of it.

No other car manufacturer has ever done anything like this as far as I know.

Oh man you’re going to be really upset when you hear that autopilot is just another name for advanced cruise control. A huge percentage of the cars on the road have it.

Even “normal” cars like the Civic or CRV.

I had an Accord. I never got a single false stop in 5 years. My mom owns a CRV. Same, no false stops.

Lots of manufacturers have ACC and collision mitigation. You’re right, Tesla didn’t invent it.

But I don’t hear constant complaints about other cars. I don’t hear people saying you “just get used to it” trying to stop on an empty highway. I don’t see other NHTSA investigations.

The only reason you hear about Tesla is because they have a loudmouth CEO who rubs journalists the wrong way. Practically every manufacturer deals with this “problem.”

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/nhtsa-to-investigate-17...

This is fear mongering disguised as concern. Tesla publishes data about incident rates for drivers both on and off autopilot and they are markedly lower than other drivers.

https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport

What if you control for demographic factors? I'd expect that new drivers and the elderly have accidents at a much higher rate than the average driver and also have low Tesla ownership rates.

Edit: I see they do have base rate w/o autopilot listed and it does significantly differ from national average.

The families I know with very expensive sedans often drive their other vehicle in snowy weather.

So because I don’t believe numbers published by the company trying to protect its own image I’m fear mongering?

No, I genuinely don’t like this situation. I’m not trying to troll. I’m just saying my opinion.

Does it distinguish between the types of road driven on? It's a very important distinction because where people sensible people choose to activate the system is probably on long journeys where crashes are already rare.

>And yet my life is/may be in danger because of it.

??? While neither is perfect, your life is more in danger from a regular driver, that statistically can be drunk, distracted, going too fast for skill level, e.t.c, versus that exact person in a Tesla using FSD.

Its actually amazing

> your life is more in danger from…

I don’t agree. People keep SAYING it. Tesla CLAIMS it. The only real evidence I’ve ever heard came from some insurance company that said that Teslas have less accidents. But I don’t know if that was controlled for the demographics of the drivers.

I also don’t know if that was compared to other cars with active safety systems.

What if Teslas have 15% fewer accidents than the average car but Hondas have 16% fewer. I don’t know.

Basically I’m highly skeptical of the claim. I don’t think it’s truly been rigorously studied. Without that I’m not willing to go along with the “you shouldn’t mind that someone is beta testing software on a 4000 pound car that may be driving next to you“ line of thinking.

The advantages of autonomous systems in parts of their operation have already been studied for quite some time since they have been features on non-Teslas. Automatic braking systems help reduce collision, and lane keeping assist helps prevent accidents, and neither are perfect.

There is no question that public roads would be way safer if everyone drove a Tesla with the systems in place, especially given the fact that most people are going to be responsible with the system.

Yes, we know automatic emergency braking is great. A mandate for it was in the infrastructure bill that failed I think. Lane keeping is probably quite good too (though I’ve never seen data on it).

However you take that info and make a leap of logic that doesn’t work for me.

> There is no question that public roads would be way safer if everyone drove a Tesla with the systems in place…

You can’t support that. In fact it directly contradicts the fact NHTSA is investigating. Because the Tesla system may not work correctly. A car that brakes randomly with fancy safety features is worse than a car without those features that never slams on its brakes falsely (IMO).

> …especially given the fact that most people are going to be responsible with the system.

You can’t know that.

We know people are irresponsible with eating in cars. And doing makeup. And shaving. And drinking. And cellphones are a disaster. And people playing with the radio or maps.

Even if the Tesla system was nothing but an improvement when used properly (we’ll see what NHTSA says), you don't know the average person will use it safely. I would argue there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that’s not true.

This is not an Android vs iOS or Vi vs EMACS discussion. There are literally lives at stake. I think it’s very fair we move conservatively based on documented evidence.

When you drive on the road with other Teslas, your unwillingly participating though?

Which is why they express relief at the prospect of the recall.

I've got news for you. Whether you have a Tesla with FSD or not, you're part of the beta the moment you're near a Tesla with FSD engaged.

This is not about FSD.

Hyperbovine didn't mention FSD. Let me spell it out for you: Autopilot is beta grade software at best. It drives straight into parked trucks.

What about other driving assistance system that claim to do the same thing as Autopilot? My 2022 Hyundai Elantra has a system that drives itself on highways. GM Super/UltraCruise is available on highways. Is NHTSA gonna investigate them too? Presumably they’re no farther along in self driving than Tesla is.

Presumably they will if they're involved in a statistically significant number of incidents.

> What about other driving assistance system that claim to do the same thing as Autopilot?

Do other driving assistance systems claim to drive into parked emergency vehicles?

Yes, every adaptive cruise control system explicitly ignores stationary objects when travelling at highway speeds (the radar filters out stationary things, as it cant tell the difference between a road sign and a stopped car)

The company doesn’t consider autopilot to be in beta, but it does call FSD this.

> The company doesn’t consider autopilot to be in beta

That only makes it even worse.

I think the question of whether something is a beta is different than whether anyone thinks it ought to be. There’s a lot of “non-beta”, but bad, software.

Tesla thinking this software is production ready shows a complete disconnect from either reality or common morality.

the difference being that most of that software doesn't move two tons of steel through traffic at lethal velocities so maybe accurate terminology is appropriate here.

It routinely drives straight into parked emergency vehicles displaying a blaze of flashing lights.

“Routinely” isn’t even close to the truth.

It doesn't help that Musk tries to create confusion by naming things something they're not. Next thing he'll implement might be the Flying Car Update... which will turn lights green as you drive by using the 14hz infrared signal.

With the way Tesla markets autopilot [0] it's really no surprise people are using these as interchangeably as Tesla itself tends to do.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53418069

It used to say on the autopilot page "full self driving hardware". They left of the distinction that "full self driving software" is not done yet.