4 ms·

Really irresponsible of Tesla to name it autopilot. My wife calls me crazy for not even using cruise control on our car.

ars 10y ago
Cruise control is to keep the car at an even speed when going up/down hills. What does that have to do with safety?
- wvenable 10y ago
  Feet aren't on the peddles. Which is slight more dangerous than feet on the peddles. Kinda like hands on the wheel is less dangerous than hands off the wheel (at least until automation becomes better at driving than humans).
  - ars 10y ago
    It's not like your foot is on the brake anyway - it's on the gas. So keep your foot "active" and ready for use, even with cruise control. Personally I lightly rest it on the gas. (Not hard enough to actually do anything, but in the right position to react to things.)
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  To maintain speed up a hill, cruise control applies gas to accelerate the car against the increased component of gravity. This is to maintain a steady speed, but in a geared car (i.e. no CVT), what sometimes happens is that the car starts to lose speed as the revs in top gear drop out of the power band, and then it downshifts and hits the gas hard to accelerate and recover the lost speed. Meanwhile, many humans who are NOT using cruise control do the opposite: they don't push their foot enough to counteract gravity and force a downshift, and just accept that they lose speed going up a hill. If the traffic is dense enough, what can happen is that all of sudden your cruise control is downshifting and jumping forward just as you are overtaking a car that is itself losing speed. Potential for a rear-end collision at highway speeed. Of course this isn't an issue if cruise control is only used in very low densities of traffic. But unfortunately it seems to be used wherever people feel like their feet need a break.
- sergiotapia 10y ago
  I don't trust it to not disengage when I press the brake or want to disable it.

ars 10y ago

Cruise control is to keep the car at an even speed when going up/down hills. What does that have to do with safety?

wvenable 10y ago
Feet aren't on the peddles. Which is slight more dangerous than feet on the peddles. Kinda like hands on the wheel is less dangerous than hands off the wheel (at least until automation becomes better at driving than humans).
- ars 10y ago
  It's not like your foot is on the brake anyway - it's on the gas. So keep your foot "active" and ready for use, even with cruise control. Personally I lightly rest it on the gas. (Not hard enough to actually do anything, but in the right position to react to things.)
snowwrestler 10y ago
To maintain speed up a hill, cruise control applies gas to accelerate the car against the increased component of gravity. This is to maintain a steady speed, but in a geared car (i.e. no CVT), what sometimes happens is that the car starts to lose speed as the revs in top gear drop out of the power band, and then it downshifts and hits the gas hard to accelerate and recover the lost speed. Meanwhile, many humans who are NOT using cruise control do the opposite: they don't push their foot enough to counteract gravity and force a downshift, and just accept that they lose speed going up a hill. If the traffic is dense enough, what can happen is that all of sudden your cruise control is downshifting and jumping forward just as you are overtaking a car that is itself losing speed. Potential for a rear-end collision at highway speeed. Of course this isn't an issue if cruise control is only used in very low densities of traffic. But unfortunately it seems to be used wherever people feel like their feet need a break.
sergiotapia 10y ago
I don't trust it to not disengage when I press the brake or want to disable it.