Slashdot Mirror
Germany Tells Tesla To Not Advertise Autopilot Feature, Fears Drivers Will Become Less Attentive (fortune.com)
German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt has asked Tesla to stop advertising its electric vehicles as having an Autopilot function, as this might suggest drivers' attention is not needed, his ministry said on Sunday. Reuters reports: A spokeswoman for the ministry, confirming a report in the daily Bild am Sonntag (BamS), said the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) had written to Tesla to make the request. "It can be confirmed that a letter to Tesla exists with the request to no longer use the misleading term Autopilot for the driver assistance system of the car," she said in a written response to a Reuters' query.
Seriously Tesla, CHANGE THE GOD DAMN NAME. This is NOT an "auto-pilot" in the way that nearly everyone would think it is from watching movies and what not, this is just an advanced form of Cruise Control.
Every bullcrap that comes out related to auto-pilot would've been a no issue if they didn't make people misunderstand what auto-pilot is just by the name. They expect people to actually READ the instructions on what it is when first activating it, when they should be aware that NOBODY reads the god damn manual, much less on-screen instructions! Otherwise customer support wouldn't be a job.
Level 3 autonomous cars are inherently dangerous. Jim McBride was right when he said, "We're not going to ask the driver to instantaneously intervene—that's not a fair proposition."
We should focus on the standard which level 4 autonomous cars will be judged. Pick the right one and they will be safe and pick the wrong one and we will see them crash.
May I suggest "Auto automatische Rücksitz Schwiegermutter", which as near as I can tell, translates into "Automobile backseat mother" (or mother in law). This should not result in driver over-confidence.
I read it, and as a German I still don't understand what he meant by it.
At best I conclude it is proof that if you are totally clueless about a language it's easy to be confused by it.
German Autopilot has the same meaning as the English, with "auto" being the "self" prefix, thus in context meaning self-driving.
Autobahn in meaning has absolutely nothing to do with it, and no German would be confused by it having the same prefix. It came to be purely as a language evolution artefact.
It stems from the word "Automobil" for car (foreign expressions were/are(?) always popular for newly invented things), which ended up to be too unwieldly for everyday use and became "Auto".
Autobahn just means "car track" really.
And no, I don't think any native German would misunderstand Autopilot to mean "car pilot", though even if I don't see how that would change anything.
"Schwiegermutter" is mother in law. "automatischer Rücksitzfahrer"- would be a literal translation for automatic backseat driver. But I don't think it has the same colequal meaning as it does in english. "Besserwisser" (know-it-all) or something similar comes to mind as a better translation for "back seat driver".
Yup, it shows that Elon Musk apparently is not aware that that "Auto" in "Autobahn" does not mean the same as the "auto" in "autopilot" (German "Auto"="automobile" vs. "auto" as in "automatic"). Just because a word uses the same letters does not mean that, in two different contexts, it means the same thing.
But I don't think it has the same colequal meaning as it does in english. "Besserwisser" (know-it-all) or something similar comes to mind as a better translation for "back seat driver".
Knowing Germans I think the correct translation for "back seat driver" is Fußgänger (pedestrian). If you want to insult a German, talk shit about their car, driving or mother - in that order.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
But I don't think it has the same colequal meaning as it does in english. "Besserwisser" (know-it-all) or something similar comes to mind as a better translation for "back seat driver".
Knowing Germans I think the correct translation for "back seat driver" is Fußgänger (pedestrian). If you want to insult a German, talk shit about their car, driving or mother - in that order.
Perhaps "automatische besonderen Bedürfnissen helfen" (automatic special needs assist) then!
Having driven a Tesla S for a week, I found the autopilot dangerous and stopped using it.
If your lighting is good, and you lane markings are good, it works OK; but other wise all you hear is a little bong and your on your own.
The trouble with autopilot is you still need to 100% concentrate as it could give up at any moment or come across a condition it doesn't understand, but the feature lends you to taking 100% of your concentration off the task of driving.
They should limit it to adaptive cruise control, e-braking, but not steering.
46137
Auto crash.
To all the people here trying to make this connection about the "auto" part of autobahn he's referring is about "automatic", you should think again: he's obviously stating there is such a thing as a reckless road where there are no speed limits in Germany, because that's the only place the rich could justify their 250km/h top speed purchases legally. The autobahn is an obvious incentive to German auto high-end purchasing, sponsored by the government. Now there is government-sponsored public chatter trying to take away from Tesla one of their key features, in obvious favor to German automakers' features that are still not ready for production, or aren't as fully-featured as Tesla's. For the sake of the argument, I'm pretty much an unbiased party: I am from Portugal, and I don't own any interests in whatever form in Tesla or any auto company. I do drive a SEAT car with a VW engine, but it's a 2000 model and I have no particular feelings towards the engine-makers.
TL:DR - The comment is obviously about the irony of the comment coming from a government official, from a state who already showed disregard for safety in favor of boosting German car purchases.
"Rechts is frei" sind die letzeten Woerter des Beifahrers. (Sorry for the errors)
This means 'No traffic from the right' are the last words from the person sitting next to the driver. (Traffic from the right has right of way).
So I would go for "Automatishe beifahrende Swiegermutter"
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
To be fair the misleading word "automobile" should be banned as well.
The much simpler solution is for Tesla to change the name.
An even simpler solution is to not care in the first place either by you or the German government. That seems to fix the problem quite nicely when you do that.
We don't have a general speed limit on German highways, the speed driven in the leftmost lane frequently exceeds 120mph by a lot, so the differential speed between cars in different lanes can be quite high. While you are driving 80mph (130kmph) in the middle lane a car will pass you at 130mph (210kmph).
This only works because one of the rules on the Autobahn is that - except from a few circumstances - you are supposed NOT to overtake on the right. The lane on the right of you is always slower than your lane.
So I'm wondering
- does the autosteer-feature of tesla obey this rule or will it pass by a slower car on the right
- when auto-changing lanes to the left, what is the maximum speed difference the Tesla checks for (i.e. how far back does its radar / camera-system check whether a car is approaching).
Can be VW or Mercedes related to it, to preserve marketshare (avoiding a competitor to make some kind of ADs)? "Corporate America" on Germany, you know... /Thin foil hat mode OFF
back to the start: why change words?
wow!
I'm grandmaster in car crash hidden (a Tesla certification(TM))
interesting. Tell us more about it please
I don't have to: the statistical argument is invalid. There's a reason insurance doesn't pay for high-speed accidents in the autobahn.
Reckless driving is reckless driving no matter how statistics want to play them. That's why there are speed limits. Uncontrollable things that happen at 230kmh, things you can't put a fault on anything else other than the speed the car is driving: the statistically odd bird comes around the windshield, you die; a tire bursts, you die; drivetrain cracks under pressure, you die; somebody takes over without signaling to your lane (a mild driving offense in most countries, not a serious one) and you're at 15m from them, everyone dies. The lack of control, and the lack of liability, is the real issue here. Insurers would have never allowed such a thing unless immunity in the autobahn wasn't a thing. And it became a thing . And that is the proof it is reckless.
The same statistical argument can be said about autopilot systems: if everyone is using the same programmed driving (and that programming is half-decent), less accidents happen. I guaran-fuking-tee you this with my life, it's the easiest calculation anyone in IT will be able to make. Yet, it does not make it any less reckless to not have a driver paying attention. That is a fair argument. Much like it is super NOT reckless to have speed limits no matter what.
Commercial airliner flight is 99% autopilot, yet they still need the pilots there for a reason: they are carrying the responsibility the computer programs won't legally carry. And in case you didn't read the fine print, that's the real problem - German automakers don't have enough technology/money/liability combo to back a product like Tesla's in production cars at such a scale, at least not in financially favorable way to them. The politicians are defending this interest in hampering autopilot initiatives until german makers can abide, much like the autobahn was put in place when engines reached a certain maturity, which despite being useless, made for a good reason for profit scaling (SELL FAST CARS AT PREMIUM). They can't be driven like this anywhere else other than circuits... Simple state-self-defense tactics imho.
And the obvious reason there are less accidents in the autobahn is highly likely for the number of lanes, the low rate of curves, the quality of the road, and the high tolls for trucks (less trucks, less takeovers from slower cars, more slow cars on the outer lanes). You really tried to turn an argument around using nothing but flawed logic. I took logic as the main issue and so did Elon.
For a company, profit = taxes = you did something wrong.
Any money over expenses should be reinvested or given to investors, not be left there to be taxed.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?