Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Volvo Engineer Calls Out Tesla For Dangerous 'Wannabe' Autopilot System (jalopnik.com)

Posted by msmash on from the increasingly-growing-heat-between-the-two dept.

An anonymous reader shares an article on Jalopnik: Tesla's semi-autonomous Autopilot system has been impressing everyone from consumers to journalists, and even other industry experts and executives. But now a Volvo engineer has called Tesla's system out, claiming it's a dangerous "wannabe" autonomous technology. Trent Victor, senior technical leader of crash avoidance for Volvo, had quite a few choice words to say about Tesla's Autopilot system in a recent interview with The Verge, claiming the electric automaker was touting what is essentially a rudimentary semi-autonomous technology as being far more capable than it actually is. Victor fears that Autopilot "gives you the impression that it's doing more than it is." He went on to call Tesla's system an "unsupervised wannabe."

3 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Re:All that Tesla has to say back.. by aicrules · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So because Tesla doesn't have a fully autonomous car Volvo guy's argument is more compelling than a clear FAILURE of the autonomous crash avoidance?

  2. Re:Not News by randallman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do you have a source for that AC? I follow Tesla news closely and that's the first I've heard.

  3. Re:Crying on the way out? by Grishnakh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Musk says autopilot controlled vehicles have half the rate of crashes (where a crash is defined as an event that triggers the airbag) versus those under human control.

    That sounds like a BS statistic. You wouldn't use Autopilot for all driving, only for certain highway driving. So a proper comparison would only be between Autopilot-driven miles versus human-driven miles in comparable conditions. And auto crashes on the highway are *already* much less frequent than on surface streets, for obvious reasons I hope.

    So "half the rate of crashes" could actually be much worse than human piloting on the highway.