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Tesla Tells Germany that 98% of Drivers Don't Find the Term 'Autopilot' Misleading (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes:Tesla has responded to Germany's request to stop using the word "autopilot" in its advertising, due to safety concerns, by carrying out a survey of Tesla-owners in Germany. It says that the overwhelming majority of customers it surveyed did not find the term confusing. Last month, German transport minister Alexander Dobrindt had asked Tesla to stop using "autopilot" in its messaging, as he felt the term implied that drivers could operate their vehicles without applying their attention to the roads. Tesla responded by saying that "autopilot" had been used in aerospace for a long time to describe a system that works in conjunction with a human operator. "Just as in an airplane, when used properly, autopilot reduces driver workload and provides an added layer of safety when compared to purely manual driving," a spokesperson said at the time. Without divulging exact numbers, Tesla has now said that it has "worked with a third party" to survey owners of its cars in Germany to "better understand how they perceive Autopilot." The company found that 98 percent of those surveyed "understand that when using Autopilot, the driver is expected to maintain control of the vehicle at all times."
But they won't be for long after they all die in fiery crashes.
I don't speak German and the word for "autopilot" in German - which I am not going to try to guess - probably has a subtly different meaning than in English. So I don't even know how to judge this article or the issue, and anyone not natively familiar with Deutsch lingo would be in the same state.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Tesla tells Germany that 1 in 50 drivers have no clue what the term 'autopilot' means.
There's the 2% who figure that "autopilot" does in fact mean that the car's built-in computer does what the owner means. They may be the same 2% who figure that "cruise control" does that very same thing, but let's forgive them for this one: autopilot does literally mean that the car controls itself, much as automobile means that it moves itself.
And 2% of all drivers is tens of thousands of cars in Germany alone. By virtue of being heavy machinery, cars can cause terrible damage when they e.g. plow into oncoming traffic, or crowds of pedestrians. Or just a single deadly accident each, for those of us whose horror meters peg out at somewhere around four to six people dead.
Changing the nomenclature to something that's not quite as marketing-sexy is fairly fucking low a price for even one person not killed by a well-moneyed idiot's misconception. Trust the American billionaire not to see it this way, of course.
The pilot is required to be constantly at the controls ready to take over. This use of the word also applies to cars. Problem is people get dependent on it. See Air France 447 for an example. The autopilot disengaged, and the pilots proceeded to do everything wrong and crashed the jet. You also have to take into account that the pilots/drivers might have the same accident with or without the autopilot. There are lots of accidents each year caused by drivers. Having the car automatically avoiding most of them may cut down the overall accident rate, even if it fails in certain situations.
There is no IFR on the roads, and no "controlled road space" on motorways. How does that affect the aviation analogy?
The remaining 2 percent of those surveyed replied, "My car has an autopilot? Sweet! No more designated driver bullshit!"
Will die.
The number should be 100% whom understand that you have to monitor the vehicle and be willing at any moment to (re)take control. Tesla is selling a couple hundred cars a month into Germany. Does Tesla Motors feel that there being 5 drivers every month who think you can push a button and then go on the Autobahn while watching a DVD and eating breakfast is OK?
This is a big deal. It should be zero drivers thinking that way. And I mean ZERO. This is not vindication for Tesla, it's indicative of how they are thinking about this all wrong.
The German for autopilot (autopilot) literally translates back into English as "Automatic, but still requires a pilot".
Summation 2
So 2 people in every 100 may get into a similar accident? Come on Tesla!
Autopilot in planes doesn't have an expectation that the pilot's hands stay on the controls at all times. In fact, it's considered dangerous to have such a requirement, because pilots often have to use their hands for other things like writing or checking routes or etc. Having them do these things while requiring them to keep their hands on the controls would be dangerous, because it would be more likely that the pilot inadvertently bump the controls.
In a car, however, it's generally not okay to do writing or checking routes while driving, and your hands should be on the controls at all times.
Despite what Tesla says, the two autopilots are a lot different and have much different expectations of the users.
While a real-life airplane autopilot just flies in a straight line, doing next to nothing, the term itself being broken into it's components literally means "self steering". Combine that how the term has been used culturally and it's not surprising that people would think that "autopilot" would be a fully autonomous driving mode.
So while Tesla is technically correct in naming it, they have ignored the connotations connected to the name.
Honestly, they should just rename it to "Copilot" and be done with the lawyering bullshit.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I wonder how the advertisements it's going to sound in a couple of years ... Forget the autopilot, buy the new Tesla with TrueAutoPilot technology
I think the real problem is that for the average Joe, "autopilot" really does mean "100% autonomous" -- just like in the movies. And I think Tesla knew this -- they just couldn't resist using the term. Aside from what it implies on a technical level, it's powerful marketing. No comment on whether Tesla is guilty of any wrongdoing.
"as he felt the term implied that drivers could operate their vehicles without applying their attention to the roads."
The only reason I'd want a car with autopilot is so I don't have to apply attention to the roads.
I've seen videos of people with autopilot and their hands are hovering around the steering wheel and they look nervous.
If that's how we're expected to use autopilot then that sucks. I wanted to be able to read a book, watch TV, surf the net, or work on my laptap.
Doesn't a flight certificate still require quite a bit of ground school and then 40 hours of flight time with an instructor before you fly solo to qualify JUST for VFR, and then a whole bunch more to gain IFR certs, which is when you would be qualified to engage an autopilot? Pilots are slightly more clueful than the average yokel who barely passes the written test for their license and then their practical test consists of literally a drive around the block and then "parallel parking" where there are no other vehicles on the road. Drivers' Ed is not required... at least here in America.
I know in Germany that it's a bit more rigorous, but not nearly as intensive as training to earn a flight certificate so it doesn't surprise me that the people who do the bare minimum to qualify for a drivers' license might think that a vehicles "autopilot" (or even cruise control) means that you can watch a movie or take a nap.
People are stupid. See: Brexit, Trump, etc.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Only 2% will die from being stupid. This is good for Aryan race.
So out of one million people driving cars on the road, only 20,000 of them will think they can drink booze, read a book, or doze off while in the car?
What could go wrong, it's only 2%.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
98% is supposed to be LOW???
If you drive a typical drive and have like... 200 cars in your area while driving (not unlikely) that is 4 morons who think they do not need to pay attention.
Are we supposed to trust Tesla's own results of testing Tesla's product? Seriously? 98% is entirely too low in such circumstances, Saddam Hussein got 100%...
Medicare administrators too, for example, would've liked us to think, the program loses only about 1% of its budget to "fraud, waste, and abuse" (better to claim the government being more efficient than KKKorporations) while the independent audits show figures of at least 6% (or even 10%).
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The fact is, that all of the sold cars come with training. In that, they spend 1-2 hours teaching you about the car as well as going for drives and teaching the autopilot and how to use it.
When we took our 2013 tesla in for servicing, they gave us a new MS loaner. We had a 2-4 minute training on the autopilot and we were good to go. And it was just fine.
My gut says that the 2% are simply ppl trying to skew things and feigning stupidity.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Let's assume Tesla is modestly successful and ends up with 1% of car market share. That's 430,000 of Germany's 43 million cars. 2% of 430,000 = 8600 Teslas out there being driven on autopilot with the driver reading a newspaper or watching a movie or napping because s/he is not among the 98% who realize they need to be watching the road and ready to take control of the car when using the feature.
If anything, this supports the German government's argument that Tesla should stop using the term "autopilot".
It is very easy to manipulate polls in order to get results with the desired bias, so the results are meaningless if we don't know exactly the details of the survey.
For instance, the question: "Do you understand that when using Autopilot, the driver is expected to maintain control of the vehicle at all times?" will wield much different results than the question: "When using Autopilot, how often do you remove your hands from the driving wheel?"
When people use the expression "he's on autopilot" they tend to mean someone who's just going through the motions without being mentally engaged. In a popular sense, autopilot is used for any task that is running without active engagement. E.g. a business running on autopilot, to mean a business functioning without active engagement. What matters is how the term is popularly used, not how it is used in a particular technical context.
I suspect the real reason Tesla wants to hang on to "Autopilot" term, is that it allows them to subtly market this function as a self-driving vehicle without explicitly saying so by playing on the misunderstanding of the term by laypeople. This allows them to have it regulated as a cruise control device, instead of the more stringent safety and reliability standards that a self-driving car would have to meet.
Was it not a German pilot, who used the Autopilot to crash a plane?
Pollster: "Sir, you own a Tesla car according to our records. You are aware, of course, that the Autopilot feature requires a human to be fully alert and ready to take control of the vehicle at all times, aren't you, sir?"
Consumer: "Umm.... why YES... yes, of course. I knew that. Yeah, that's the ticket..."
Pollster: "Ok, just confirming that." *ticks off 'consumer was properly-informed' checkbox*
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
What meaning does 'than' have in your language?
The number of posts explaining English grammar and vocabulary that are themselves inaccurate is hilarious, or would be if they didn't keep getting uprated.
I'm guessing that twistnatz is a native German speaker who also speaks English whereas you're limited to just English. And you think you're speaking from a position of superiority.
With all the cars on the road, two percent is a lot.
If you are one of the people that thinks that they are expendable because they are not as smart as you, keep in mind that they might not get themselves killed in an accident, they might crash into you.
Even though it might be incorrect, most people are not pilots, and may believe autopilot does more than it really does. I know, but in a popular culture kind of way, I think it sounds like it should do everything. Driver assist or driver assistance is far less likely to be misunderstood.
That's because they were all mislead by the name, and don't know yet.