By the same logic you could say that airplanes shouldn't call their pilot assist system "Autopilot" either, because it requires monitoring and input from pilots who will need to disengage the system and intervene/fly manually in certain scenarios.
Autopilot is probably actually quite a good term for it if you actually compare it to a plane Autopilot - you don't expect pilots to be inattentive or away from the controls, and you expect them to intervene in certain scenarios and disengage autopilot if there is danger.
Not comparable at all. Airplanes are flown by trained professionals who know exactly what Autopilot can and cannot do. Regular consumers don't know these differences though and Tesla deliberately uses this ambiguity to deceive their own customers, who expect a "fully self driving" car.
Different contexts: Pilots are a niche margin of highly trained, tested, and skilled, responsible people. The ~100 million car drivers in the u.s. have no actual training required, a 10 question multiple choice test, and a brief non-standard, subjective road test. Car drivers in the u.s. who want to surf the web, smoke weed, and watch porn all at the same time and don't want to take the bus are rampant. Others want to edit spreadsheets, film their blog, and apply makeup while driving. Many don't even have a high school degree or their perceptual and cognitive faculties intact. To them "autopilot" sounds like it will empower them and solve their problems. Consumer protection exists because government needs to protect the average nice, but non-expert people from the most egregious, predatory, irresponsible businesses.
An airplane autopilot is fully capable of flying the plane from point A to B, including landing (but not takeoffs) while the pilots sleep or eat or read or do something other than paying attention. For most international flights, autopilot is flying the plane once the plane reaches cruising altitude up until final approach.
Airplane autopilots are usually disengaged for landing because the failure mechanism is to return control to the human pilots, but in the event of a failure during landing there is usually insufficient time for that.
Tesla "Autopilot" is basically the landing portion of a flight, all the time. It has the same failure window: seconds, or less, for the human to take over and prevent an accident. And Tesla's AP is uniquely bad compared to comparable advanced cruise control systems: Tesla has more than 17x as many crashes than the next crashiest automaker, and more than 60x as many crashes as the safest major automaker. Given that Tesla has far fewer cars on the road, scaled up for fleet size, Tesla's AP system is the most dangerous advanced cruise control system in the world. (And the fatalities bear that out; FSD alone has more fatalities than the combined fatality count of every other automaker in the world combined.)
Are you aware of how much pilots do once autopilot is engaged? They do some checklists, then they sit on their arse, eat food, watch something. While being responsible for 100's of peoples lives. They only intervene in start, landing and if something really goes south.
Calling something an autopilot implies you can do essentially whatever you want while the machine operates itself.
Yes, I think if we want to be clear about whether you can legally fall asleep, or not be present at all, while driving, we need to be more explicit about the FSD level.
Does Nissan’s CEO have a history of grossly overstating what their system is capable of doing? Tesla has been aggressive about claiming their system can do a lot more, to the point that they charged people for features which never shipped over the time many people owned their vehicles.
If you were a prospective buyer in the past, the autopilot link would take you to a page which very prominently says this:
> Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars. All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.
Way down the page, you get this:
> Enhanced Autopilot adds these new capabilities to the Tesla Autopilot driving experience. Your Tesla will match speed to traffic conditions, keep within a lane, automatically change lanes without requiring driver input, transition from one freeway to another, exit the freeway when your destination is near, self-park when near a parking spot and be summoned to and from your garage.
Finally, you get a bit more realistic warning after a bit of misdirection intended to make you think the product was ready but government red tape was delaying availability:
> Tesla’s Enhanced Autopilot software has begun rolling out and features will continue to be introduced as validation is completed, subject to regulatory approval. Every driver is responsible for remaining alert and active when using Autopilot, and must be prepared to take action at any time.
Contrast with Nissan’s page which is very clear that it assists you in hands-on driving. There’s nothing on there which sounds like the vehicle can drive itself (e.g. who reads the smart summons description and thinks it can’t reliably stop or identify pedestrians?)
Closi|2 years ago
Autopilot is probably actually quite a good term for it if you actually compare it to a plane Autopilot - you don't expect pilots to be inattentive or away from the controls, and you expect them to intervene in certain scenarios and disengage autopilot if there is danger.
fundatus|2 years ago
xorcist|2 years ago
chillingeffect|2 years ago
gamblor956|2 years ago
Airplane autopilots are usually disengaged for landing because the failure mechanism is to return control to the human pilots, but in the event of a failure during landing there is usually insufficient time for that.
Tesla "Autopilot" is basically the landing portion of a flight, all the time. It has the same failure window: seconds, or less, for the human to take over and prevent an accident. And Tesla's AP is uniquely bad compared to comparable advanced cruise control systems: Tesla has more than 17x as many crashes than the next crashiest automaker, and more than 60x as many crashes as the safest major automaker. Given that Tesla has far fewer cars on the road, scaled up for fleet size, Tesla's AP system is the most dangerous advanced cruise control system in the world. (And the fatalities bear that out; FSD alone has more fatalities than the combined fatality count of every other automaker in the world combined.)
mplewis|2 years ago
lillecarl|2 years ago
Calling something an autopilot implies you can do essentially whatever you want while the machine operates itself.
sshine|2 years ago
criley2|2 years ago
_ea1k|2 years ago
acdha|2 years ago
If you were a prospective buyer in the past, the autopilot link would take you to a page which very prominently says this:
> Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars. All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.
Way down the page, you get this:
> Enhanced Autopilot adds these new capabilities to the Tesla Autopilot driving experience. Your Tesla will match speed to traffic conditions, keep within a lane, automatically change lanes without requiring driver input, transition from one freeway to another, exit the freeway when your destination is near, self-park when near a parking spot and be summoned to and from your garage.
Finally, you get a bit more realistic warning after a bit of misdirection intended to make you think the product was ready but government red tape was delaying availability:
> Tesla’s Enhanced Autopilot software has begun rolling out and features will continue to be introduced as validation is completed, subject to regulatory approval. Every driver is responsible for remaining alert and active when using Autopilot, and must be prepared to take action at any time.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190101050434/https://www.tesla...
Contrast with Nissan’s page which is very clear that it assists you in hands-on driving. There’s nothing on there which sounds like the vehicle can drive itself (e.g. who reads the smart summons description and thinks it can’t reliably stop or identify pedestrians?)