Tesla Owner In China Blames Autopilot For Crash (usatoday.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from USA Today: The owner of a Tesla Motors Model S sedan in China reportedly said his vehicle crashed into a car on the side of the road while the vehicle's Autopilot system was engaged, but the automaker said the driver was using the system improperly. Luo Zhen, 33, of Beijing told Reuters that his vehicle collided with a parked car on the left side of a highway, damaging both vehicles but injuring no one. He criticized Tesla sales people for allegedly describing the vehicle as "self-driving." "The impression they give everyone is that this is self-driving, this isn't assisted driving," he told Reuters. In the new case in China, Tesla said the Model S was "following closely behind the car in front of it when the lead car moved to the right to avoid hitting the parked car." "The driver of the Tesla, whose hands were not detected on the steering wheel, did not steer to avoid the parked car and instead scraped against its side," Tesla said Wednesday in a statement. "As clearly communicated to the driver in the vehicle, Autosteer is an assist feature that requires the driver to keep his hands on the steering wheel at all times, to always maintain control and responsibility for the vehicle, and to be prepared to take over at any time."

Comments

Re:bad driving

[DNS-and-BIND]

It's called "autopilot". An autopilot flies the plane by itself and can even land the plane automatically. Musk is doing a fine job pointing out "but the fine print in our contract doesn't say that" and disclaiming all responsibility. Look at the word - Auto...pilot - it literally means it steers itself. That's what the word means. If Musk wants to redefine a word to serve his own purposes then that is some serious 1984-level shit right there.

Re:Autopilot is a glorified cruise control

[quantaman]

I never heard about people being that stupid when cruise control was introduced into the mainstream. Autopilot, as it stands, is a smarter form of cruise control (it basically helps you maintain the speed without your foot on the pedal but it's a bit fancier than a fixed speed)

Did you read Tesla's explanation? It's not even coherent.

"The driver of the Tesla, whose hands were not detected on the steering wheel, did not steer to avoid the parked car and instead scraped against its side," Tesla said Wednesday in a statement. "As clearly communicated to the driver in the vehicle, Autosteer is an assist feature that requires the driver to keep his hands on the steering wheel at all times, to always maintain control and responsibility for the vehicle, and to be prepared to take over at any time."

So according to Tesla it requires the driver to keep their hands on the wheel... which is clearly false because it was functioning when his hands were not on the wheel.

And if the purpose is that the driver has to keep their "hands on the steering wheel at all times, to always maintain control and responsibility for the vehicle, and to be prepared to take over at any time" then what's the purpose of the autopilot anyway? You're supposed to sit there with your hands on the wheel (though not really) and pay attention to the road while not-steering?

They can sell their auto-pilot for not self-driving next to the hooka for not smoking pot.