Tesla's autopilot is just a lane assist, and similar features can be found on Honda's, Cadillacs, etc. From the videos I've seen, sure some people use them in neighbourhoods/suburbs, but it doesn't seem as useful. People who abuse them on freeways have been run into barriers and trucks before.
It's no where near the level of autonomy the Waymo cars are suppose to have. I can understand why people are upset considering how conservative the cars have to be; and the seemingly weird actions they often take. They don't seem to monitor other cars' turn signals nor do they really have a way to communicate to other vehicles at intersections like humans can with hands or facial expressions.
It's just standard Tesla fanboy cope. The bottom line is that Tesla is shipping out alpha/beta software to the masses and relying on the masses to absorb the risks of crashing, causing accidents, dying, etc. in order for Tesla to iterate and possibly improve its software. I own an 2022 Model 3 Performance, so I'm not just talking out of my ass. Autopilot is unnerving to use. The car itself is just an appliance devoid of any emotion or character; the exact opposite of a performance focused driver's car. I plan on selling it very soon.
Juxtapose Tesla's Autopilot with BMW's Driving Assistant Professional (I also own a BMW X5 PHEV Hybrid). I drove from Chicago to Oklahoma and back with all the autonomous features engaged 95% of the drive and it was an incredibly relaxing experience. Lane change works and doesn't cost an extra $10K (you need FSD for a simple lane change otherwise you effectively need to disengage AP, change lanes, and reengage AP), zero phantom braking (the BMW has radar...), the eye tracking camera works great (no falling asleep at the wheel vs. Tesla's interior camera which does not even work and the steering wheel tracking can be defeated with a tennis ball), and best of all there's fully autonomous driving (no need to look at the road) if stuck in traffic on a highway and you're going less than 40MPH (i.e., bumper-to-bumper traffic where most accidents tend to happen).
The fact is that Tesla is not shipping game-changing software, and I would strongly argue that it's not even shipping out the best software in the business. It's a hyped up car with hyped up features peddled by a hype man. I would not be surprised if Tesla is not even a top 5 or 10 EV seller in 2032.
It is even worse since they have a good product without the hyped autopilot, when I read about Musk wanting to use only cameras then I was sure Tesla self driving is not safe.
I understand why so many people hate Tesla, but they aren't allowed to drive fully automated without a human monitoring them, so not the same situation.
tesla's system is lane following which has a radar that knows when the cars in front of you slow down or speed up. that's pretty much it. it's not an autonomous car in general. mine is very reliable for cruise control adjustment, good but not awesome for lane detection (falls down in bad rain for example, works well in clear weather). it tells you this, via display, it knows if its working. I can't understand these fools who thinks its some super advanced system. it really does little more than follow lanes and adjust speed based on detection of cars in front.
That is terrifying! I try to stay away from Teslas I see on the road because they are completely unpredictable. I think I'd prefer being near a poor driver with their attention on the controls to Autopilot with a poor driver not paying attention.
Any test on public roads of a system that performs like this should have a professional team actively, directly monitoring it. Not just any rando who happened to be able to afford a Tesla.
As a frequent user of autopilot, I can assure you it is nothing close to NOT DRIVING. It is advanced cruise control and you need to be attentive. Even full self driving does many many things imperfectly, requiring you to take over. I'm not even talking about dangerous situations, just regular driving. It often won't move over when you want, it's too rough taking off ramps, and so on.
If you want to go down the road of regulation, I would like to see ALL driving assists subjected to the same laws. So no cruise control for you without cameras watching your eyes and all the rest. Though personally, I think it's fine as it is, making it very clear that you are still driving. Tesla doesn't do well at the latter in their marketing.
This letter is being massively overhyped. The fact that the self driving package requires a lot of driver supervision is pretty obvious to anyone who actually drives a Tesla.
It's not. Mercedes just follows the car in front and even that in very limited scenarios. It's just used as an anti-Tesla talking point on the internet, so lots of people believe what you said.
it's absolutely surreal to me that 1) this is allowed to be used on public roads and 2) that Tesla is permitted to call whatever they've invented "self driving" or "autonomous".
So the crux here is the naming of the not-really-self-driving feature. This is not an Autopilot for cars. It "requires the driver to be alert and have hands on the wheel". That's a driving assist. Call it the world's best driving assist or whatever, but not Autopilot. (I have seen the usual reply from Tesla apologists that it's a good name because of its aircraft analogy. From a usability perspective that is just so... wrong.)
I don't get why they continue down this path. Just rename the goddamn feature into something that actually makes sense.
Tesla key people must be in some kind of Elon Musk reality distortion field.
The focus is because people were assuming Autopilot was the path of least resistance for stupidity here, not realizing that Autopilot has constraints to try and prevent people from doing crap like this, and because it becomes an opportunity to dunk on Tesla's self-driving.
(I'm not defending Tesla in general; I think they're a deeply flawed company. I just think it's important to have a confirmed factual basis for dunking on companies.)
They scam people into buying Tesla thinking their version is close to self-driving right here https://www.tesla.com/autopilot . Reality is that since Oct'16 is that it's nothing more than a glorified adaptive cruise control found on many common cars.
Update:
Since Oct'16 self-driving software is an add-on option and Musk has been tweeting[1] since Jan'17 that it's just months away and that its autopilot is somehow safer than adaptive cruise control. This Oct'16 video even starts with the claim that the driver is only there for legal reasons.
There is a lawsuit since Apr'17 regarding above - Google dean sheikh et al v. tesla, inc
To be honest I just don't understand how what is shown could be legal -- Having a beta software on something that could easily kill, making the drivers/passengers other road users lab rats and beta-testers.
I do admire what Musk did with SpaceX, but the 'self-driving' aspect of Tesla is just disgusting.
Most of these look like user stupidity rather than anything wrong with the car. Especially the video of the guy who trys to summon his car across a road.
I imagine summon is pretty dumb, but all Tesla's talk of autopilot and self-driving cars has made people believe it is a lot smarter than it actually is.
autopilot drives like a teenager who just got their license. It makes extremely rookie mistakes and often behaves in unpredictable ways, which is extremely unsafe. It loves to hang out in blind spots and cannot anticipate the most obvious intentions of other drivers.
I really like traffic aware cruise control as one of the best adaptive cruise controls out there, but autopilot is a mess and I don't use it.
I haven't tried the full self driving beta since I wasn't about to give Tesla ten grand so the car can change its own lanes, but I can't imagine it's any better.
I don't get why people cheer on it and even compare it with Tesla, which goes for ... actual self driving
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