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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."
I take it you've never flown as a pilot before. No really, it's ok because most people aren't pilots :P
I am a PPSEL, IA (Private Pilot Single Engine Land, Instrument Airplane) with thirty years of flying. Don't stick your fucking tongue out at me, asshole.
Aircraft autopilots are designed with a LOT of different ways of being disabled because disabling them very quickly can save your life. These methods range from a simple "disable" button on the yoke to the "off" button on the autopilot itself to actually pulling the circuit breaker for the autopilot. (Many circuit breakers in an aircraft are flush when enabled so you can't accidentally pull them -- the autopilot breaker is not one of them.)
Aircraft autopilots can decide to go full up elevator (causing a stall/spin crash-into-the-ground), full down (dive into the ground), or make other, uncommanded control changes. Knowing how to disable "George" (and not just turn it off) is a checklist item for any aircraft that has one. It WILL be part of any aircraft familiarization training.
Further, autopilot failure can occur in other than catastrophic ways. I've seen NTSB reports of autopilots that disconnect for some reason (for example, when the pilot accidentally pushes on the yoke and the altitude-hold function turns off) and the aircraft stops being "autopiloted". The pilot doesn't notice and bad things happen -- which is why it shows up in an NTSB report.
Sorry to break this news to you, but an attentive pilot is a requirement even when using the most advanced autopilots. It's not just your life, it's the lives of any passengers who happen to be with you. I'm sorry that I have to be the one to educate you on this, because it shows a complete failure of every CFI or CFII you've ever flown with.
My fellow pilots in other planes are several hundred meters if not kilometers away.
The dangers from autopilot failure have nothing to do with other aircraft, and it is disingenuous to pretend that it does. Yes, the chance of hitting someone else because of an autopilot failure are very slim, but that's not what happens when they do fail.
Heck I read a book sometimes.
I pray for your passengers. I hope they are smart enough not to ride with you. Not only are you abandoning your supervisory role with regard to the autopilot function, you are abandoning your legal responsibility to "see and avoid". Even though you think all those other aircraft will stay "several hundred meters" away from you, the NTSB reports are filled with examples of when that didn't happen. You can't see the aircraft on an intersecting course with you when your head is in a book, and your autopilot isn't going to save you.
A few seconds of inattentive in a passenger car (with or without Tesla autopilit) will at best cause a crash or worse kill you.
How ridiculous can you get? A few seconds of inattentiveness in a car will, at best, have no effect at all. People do it all the time without running into anything or anyone. They look at their GPS or radio, they look at a passenger, they adjust the air conditioning, or any number of other distractions. We're not talking about "a few seconds", though. You can be attentive and ready to take over while still having "a few second" distractions.
The fact that you choose to fly recklessly by reading a book instead of being a pilot doesn't mean that the autopilot in a Tesla is misnamed. Being on "autopilot" in either a car or an airplane requires a pilot in command paying attention to the function of that autopilot and ready to take over when it fails. Not "if" it fails, because at some point it will. That's the same language real pilots use in regard to engine failures. It isn't "if the engine ever fails", it is "when it fails". It isn't "if the autopilot fails", it's "when". Responsible pilots deal with their flying that way, it's the rest of you who make the headlines and destroy airplanes.
ATP CFI here. Boeing and Airbus jets can take off and land without operator intervention.
I didn't say they couldn't. I said that even aircraft autopilots require a real pilot paying attention and ready to take over if George fails -- which is exactly what the Tesla autopilot requires.
What an autopilot when properly functioning can do does not absolve the pilot of his responsibilities of being the pilot in command. He cannot decide to "read a book" while on the CAT III approach to auto-land because he thinks George will take care of everything for him. As an ATP CFI you should know that and correct any ATP student you deal with who shows such disregard for the safety of his passengers, and if you can't correct that behavior I would hope you would never sign him off to fly with the examiner.