Slashdot Mirror
A Tesla on Autopilot Crashed Into a Parked Police Car (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Fortune:
A Tesla vehicle in Autopilot mode collided with a parked police cruiser in California, authorities said. The Tesla sedan was driving outbound when it struck a parked Laguna Beach police car, the Laguna Beach police department said Tuesday. According to police, the driver in the Tesla sustained minor injuries. The police cruiser was empty of officers at the time of the crash. Laguna Polic1e Sgt. Jim Cota told the Los Angeles Times the police car "is totaled."
The police sergeant also told the Times that it was the same area where a Tesla crashed into a semi-truck last year, adding "Why do these vehicles keep doing that? We're just lucky that people aren't getting injured."
"Tesla has always been clear that Autopilot doesn't make the car impervious to all accidents," Tesla responded in a statement, "and before a driver can use Autopilot, they must accept a dialogue box which states that 'Autopilot is designed for use on highways that have a center divider and clear lane markings.'"
Record producer Zedd also responded to the news by sharing on Twitter what he calls "the other side": I once fell asleep driving home late at night on the highway (w/ autopilot on) and got woken up by it beeping + turning off music to wake me up. Would have prob been dead without it... I didn't touch the steering wheel for a couple minutes and then it turned off the music and started beeping. Elon Musk responded to the tweet, "Glad you're ok!"
The police sergeant also told the Times that it was the same area where a Tesla crashed into a semi-truck last year, adding "Why do these vehicles keep doing that? We're just lucky that people aren't getting injured."
"Tesla has always been clear that Autopilot doesn't make the car impervious to all accidents," Tesla responded in a statement, "and before a driver can use Autopilot, they must accept a dialogue box which states that 'Autopilot is designed for use on highways that have a center divider and clear lane markings.'"
Record producer Zedd also responded to the news by sharing on Twitter what he calls "the other side": I once fell asleep driving home late at night on the highway (w/ autopilot on) and got woken up by it beeping + turning off music to wake me up. Would have prob been dead without it... I didn't touch the steering wheel for a couple minutes and then it turned off the music and started beeping. Elon Musk responded to the tweet, "Glad you're ok!"
You clearly don't know anything about how autopilots work on planes. The autopilot in most airplanes will make no attempt at all to avoid obstacles. You tell it where to go and depending on how sophisticated the autopilot is, you may be able to specify the altitude and climb and descent rates. In some cases they can track satellite or ground based navigation systems. If I tell my autopilot to descend to 500 feet and point it at a mountain, my airplane will crash into that mountain. You have to tell it exactly what to do. Some airplane autopilots can only maintain a specific heading and don't even maintain altitude for you. If there is a crosswind you have to adjust the autopilot to stay on the correct course. Very few airplanes have autopilots that can handle all phases of flight. In most cases you have to take off and land yourself. Autopilot does not mean that the airplane intelligently flies itself to your destination.
All the people complaining about the name "Autopilot" being misleading have one thing in common: They don't own or drive Teslas.
Tesla makes it extremely clear, when you buy the car, and every time you drive it, that Autopilot doesn't fully control the car, and the driver needs to stay alert and be ready to take control at any time.
There are plenty of problems with Autopilot, but being "misleading" is not one of them.
Really? A Ford killed somebody today, by itself? I doubt that; that results in investigations and recalls.
If Tesla requires the person behind the wheel (not the "driver", since they're relying on the car to do that) to accept a message that says the so-called Autopilot software is only designed for certain situations, why is the software driving in other situations? My car has lane-keeping and adaptive cruise control, but when I go outside their design ranges, they beep at me and disable.