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There's Growing Evidence Tesla's Autopilot Handles Lane Dividers Poorly (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Within the past week, two Tesla crashes have been reported while Autopilot was engaged, and both involved a Tesla vehicle slamming into a highway divider. One of the crashes resulted in the death of Walter Huang, a Tesla customer with a Model X. The other crash resulted in minor injuries to the driver, thanks largely to a working highway safety barrier in front of the concrete divider. Ars Technica reports on the growing evidence that Tesla's Autopilot handles lane dividers poorly: "The September crash isn't the only evidence that has emerged that Tesla's Autopilot feature doesn't deal well with highway lane dividers. At least two people have uploaded videos to YouTube showing their Tesla vehicles steering toward concrete barriers. One driver grabbed the wheel to prevent a collision, while the other slammed on the brakes. Tesla argues that this issue doesn't necessarily mean that Autopilot is unsafe. 'Autopilot is intended for use only with a fully attentive driver,' a Tesla spokesperson told KGO-TV. Tesla argues that Autopilot can't prevent all accidents but that it makes accidents less likely. There's some data to back this up. A 2017 study by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that the rate of accidents dropped by 40 percent after the introduction of Autopilot. And Tesla argues that Autopilot-equipped Tesla cars have gone 320 million miles per fatality, much better than the 86 million miles for the average car. These figures don't necessarily settle the debate. That NHTSA figure doesn't break down the severity of crashes -- it's possible that Autopilot prevents relatively minor crashes but is less effective at preventing the most serious crashes. And as some Ars commenters have pointed out, luxury cars generally have fewer fatalities than the average vehicle. So it's possible that Tesla cars' low crash rates have more to do with its wealthy customer base than its Autopilot technology. What we can say, at a minimum, is that there's little evidence that Autopilot makes Tesla drivers less safe. And we can expect Tesla to steadily improve the car's capabilities over time."
What is the point to an autopilot if I have to be fully attentive and ready to take over? I would rather just drive then worry about missing something. This and the are still have to much uncertainty to waist my time with it. Also dammit if i'm going to die in a car, I want it to be my fault and freaking awesome. "He almost made it, if it hadn't been for that ...."
It seems even worse than regular driving if you have to continuously be on the look out to prevent the steering wheel suddenly sending you into a wall.
Maybe Tesla should focus on automatic braking, parallel parking, and things like that until using their Autopilot is no longer the same as playing the Russian roulette. At some point, these accidents will damage their reputation badly...
The intentionally misnamed "autopilot"
I don't know why you think it is misnamed. It is named exactly the same way that aircraft autopilots are. Aircraft autopilots also require an attentive pilot ready to take over, because aircraft autopilots will happily fly the airplane into obstructions, or can fail in a large number of other ways. In fact, "can disable autopilot" is a standard pilot checklist item, and it can be done in half a dozen different ways.
Seems like the Tesla "autopilot" is named just right.
I take it you've never flown as a pilot before. No really, it's ok because most people aren't pilots :P
My roadway is as big as the horizon. My fellow pilots in other planes are several hundred meters if not kilometers away.
In my car, my fellow drivers are 1.5-2 meters away and my roadway is as big as the city planners decide to make it.
On larger jets, they have systems that monitor you with transponders and much more. If you're aiming to the ground, the system will shout at you in a Skybus or Boeing jet.
A few seconds of inattentiveness with autopilot on in a plane won't hurt anyone. Heck I read a book sometimes.
A few seconds of inattentive in a passenger car (with or without Tesla autopilit) will at best cause a crash or worse kill you.
Call it cruise control assist and save a few live or call it MuskSense if you want something sexy and to achieve the same thing. Autopilot is just a terrible misnomer for what it really is.
Given that all cars in the 320 million miles/fatality are modern 5 star safety rated and the cars in the 86 million miles/fatality are average cars, you can't make the the assumption that the correlation between incidents and fatalities are the same for both groups.
If you want to compare Autopilot cars with non-autopilot cars, the cars you compare it to also should have the same standard safety features:
automatic emergency braking
a dozen or so air bags
stability control
abs
5 star impact rating
front and side collision warnings
All features that are available on other new vehicles.
Then it's a fair comparison.
I call shenanigans. It's been quite a while since I hit 30mph in a vehicle anywhere in Seattle.
#DeleteChrome
Depends on the outcome you are aiming for. If you are aiming for zero accidents then the number of accidents is what you need to know. That is how much you missed the goal by.
You can't handle the truth! - Because I don't post left all my comments get modded down, bye bye Karma.
This all misses the point: the vast majority of people are not pilots, everything they think about 'autopilot' comes from tv shows and media and every thing they deal with that is 'auto' in their lives meaning not having to worry about it.
Pilots can debate the accuracy of the term given the reality of the situation, but what matters is the lay man's perspective (which is precisely what Tesla is trying to take advantage of).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
It's not a like-for-like comparison though.
Tesla cars are expensive. You have to be well off to own one, which means you are much less likely to be taking risks like driving drunk or on drugs. Having spent all that money on a car, you are probably going to look after it and not take the same risks you would in a $1000 banger. You are also likely travelling very different roads, better maintained and at less congested times of the day. Your car is likely to be well maintained.
So comparing to the average, especially in the US where regulations are relatively lax, is misleading. A fair comparison would be with accident rates among luxury cars in a similar price bracket. Audi, Lexus, Mercedes.
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