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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."
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.
I know Russian Roulette and can calculate the odds, but if you do not know the difference between a pistol and a revolver, your calculations might be a little bit off.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.
The real problem is that the existence of the feature only makes sense if you can leave AutoPilot in control and stop paying attention. If I've got to be fully focussed on the road at all times, and ready to take control at a moments notice, I might as well drive the ****ing car myself. So a lot of people, while fully understanding that technically you're supposed to pay attention while AutoPilot is engaged, also probably fully intend to not always comply with that expectation.
Now whether calling it "AutoPilot" has any material impact on that, versus calling it some more descriptive name, I personally kind of doubt. If it was called "Intelligent Driver Assist" or whatever, it wouldn't change the fact that you've seen the demos and youtube videos, and read the description in the brochure, and decided to pay several thousand euros for the feature, so you're probably going to use it however you intended to use it.